Akutaq (also known as Alaskan Indian ice cream, Inuit ice cream, Indian ice cream or Native ice cream, and

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

- Yupik varieties of which are known as ''akutaq'' or ''akutuq'') is a

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal; the course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream, and possibly a beverage, such as dessert wine or liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly umami, ...

made by Alaskan Athabaskans and other

Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the I ...

s. It is traditionally made of whipped

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specif ...

tallow Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton suet, primarily made up of triglycerides. In industry, tallow is not strictly defined as beef or mutton suet. In this context, tallow is animal fat that conforms to certain technical criteria, inc ...

(e.g.

caribou The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only represe ...

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

, or

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped marine mammal with discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the only extant species in the family Odobeni ...

tallow, or seal oil) and meat (such as

dried fish Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it. Drying (food), Drying is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of microorganisms. Open air drying using sun ...

, especially pike, sheefish or inconnu, whitefish or cisco, or freshwater whitefishes, or dried

) mixed with

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone fruit, stone or pit (fruit), pit although many wikt:pip#Etymology 2, pips or seeds may be p ...

(especially cowberry,

bilberry Bilberries () are Eurasian low-growing shrubs in the genus ''Vaccinium'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae that bear edible, dark blue berries. They resemble but are distinct from North American blueberries. The species most often referre ...

, '' Vaccinium oxycoccos'' or other cranberries, bearberry, crowberry, salmonberry, cloudberry or low-bush salmonberry,

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of several plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the Rosaceae, rose family, most of which are in the subgenus ''Rubus#Modern classification, Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Ras ...

blueberry Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' with the genus ''Vaccinium''. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) ...

, or prickly rose) or mild sweeteners such as roots of Indian potato or wild carrot, mixed and whipped with a

whisk A whisk is a cooking utensil which can be used to blend ingredients smooth or to incorporate air into a mixture, in a process known as '':wikt:whisk, whisking'' or '':wikt:whipping, whipping''. Most whisks consist of a long, narrow handle with ...

. It may also include tundra greens. There is also a kind of ''akutaq'' which is called snow ''akutaq''. The most common recipes for Indian ice cream consist of dried and pulverized moose or caribou tenderloin that is blended with moose fat (traditionally in a birch bark container) until the mixture is light and fluffy. It may be eaten unfrozen or frozen, and in the latter case it somewhat resembles commercial ice cream.Priscilla Russell Kari, ''Tanaina Plantlore, Dena'ina K'et'una'' (1987), p. 61. It is not to be confused with Canadian Indian ice cream (or ''sxusem'') of First Nations in British Columbia, nor with '' kulfi'' (Indian ice cream) from the

Indian Subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. "Ice cream songs" used to be sung during the preparation of Alaskan Athabascan Indian ice cream. File:Akutaq.jpg, Akutaq made from raspberries,

blueberries Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' with the genus ''Vaccinium''. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) ...

and vegetable shortening File:Tumnaq.JPG, ''Tumnaq'', a wooden bowl used to make akutaq File:Alaska wild berries.jpg, Wild berries from the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge: '' Vaccinium uliginosum'' (blue), '' V. vitis-idaea'', and '' Rubus arcticus''

Native names

References

{{Reflist Native American cuisine Alaskan cuisine Alaskan Athabaskans Inuit cuisine Yupik culture Chukchi cuisine Canadian cuisine American desserts American seafood dishes Wild game dishes

Native names

See also

References