Greenlandic cuisine is traditionally based on meat from marine mammals, game, birds, and fish, and normally contains high levels of protein. Since colonization and the arrival of international trade, the cuisine has been increasingly influenced by Danish and Canadian cuisine. During the summer when the weather is milder, meals are often eaten outdoors.
The national dish of Greenland is suaasat, a traditional Greenlandic soup. It is often made from seal, or from whale, reindeer, or seabirds. The soup often includes onions and potatoes, and is simply seasoned with salt and pepper, or bay leaf. The soup is often thickened with rice, or by soaking barley in the water overnight so that the starches leach into the water.
Because the majority of Greenland is covered by permanent glaciers, the sea is the source for most food. Seafood dishes include various fishes (often smoked), mussels, and shrimp. Ammassat or capelin, a fish in the salmon family is commonly eaten and can easily be dried. Atlantic halibut, redfish, deepwater redfish, Greenland halibut, and lumpfish are fished from the west coast, as are Greenland cod (Gadus ogac) and shorthorn sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius), but these two are eaten only as a last resort.Arctic char is fished off the east coast. The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is rarely eaten because it is poisonous but can be edible after a complicated preparation of either boiling the meat repeatedly or fermenting the meat.