Abstract
From Disgust to Desire: Changing Attitudes toward Beringian Mushrooms. Separated by national borders and the International Dateline, the native communities inhabiting the Bering Strait regions of Russia and Alaska share a common natural environment, myriad cultural similarities, and long-standing social ties. Their subsistence diets also are similar, except that wild mushrooms are revered on the Russian side of the Bering Strait (Chukotka) and are feared and avoided in Alaska. This paper explores the origins of this dietary difference and probes the social dimensions of food and cuisine with respect to the culinary utilization of wild mushrooms.
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Acknowledgements
My research in Chukotka in 2004 was funded through a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, Division of Arctic Social Sciences and by the Barrow Artic Science Consortium. The preliminary fieldwork in Chukotka and Alaska in 2001 was funded by the National Park Service’s Shared Beringian Heritage Program through the Beringian Cryptogams project (P. I. Gary Laursen, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks). I thank the Museum of Beringian Heritage in Provideniya and the Chukotka Science Support Group for their assistance in the Russian Far East. I am grateful to Peter Schweitzer, David Koester, Sarah Doetschman, David Arora, Sidney Mintz, Igor Krupnik, Amber Lincoln, Tobias Holzlehner, Molly Lee, Gary Laursen, and Phyllis Morrow for providing feedback and advising me, and to my husband Igor Pasternak and my parents Eva and Gregory Yamin for supporting me through all phases of the project. I extend my deepest gratitude to all my hosts and informants in Chukotka and Alaska.
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Yamin-Pasternak, S. From Disgust to Desire: Changing Attitudes toward Beringian Mushrooms. Econ Bot 62, 214–222 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-008-9020-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-008-9020-0