Alaskan ice cream

Alaskan ice cream (also known as Alaska Native ice cream, Alaskan Indian ice cream, Native ice cream, or Indian ice cream, and Inuit-Yupik varieties of which are known as Inuit ice cream, akutaq/akutuq, or Eskimo ice cream) is a dessert made by the Alaska Native groups of Alaskan Athabaskans, Iñupiat, and Yup'ik.

Alternative namesAlaska Native ice cream, Alaskan Indian ice cream, Native ice cream, Indian ice cream, Akutaq/Akutuq, Eskimo ice cream

TypeDessert

Place of originUnited States

Region or stateAlaska

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Alaskan ice cream

Iced akutaq made from raspberries and blueberries
Alternative names	Alaska Native ice cream, Alaskan Indian ice cream, Native ice cream, Indian ice cream, Akutaq/Akutuq, Eskimo ice cream
Type	Dessert
Place of origin	United States
Region or state	Alaska
Created by	Alaskan Athabaskans, Iñupiat, Yup'ik
Main ingredients	dried fish or meat, fat, berries
Media: Alaskan ice cream

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It is traditionally made of whipped fat or tallow (e.g. caribou, moose, or walrus tallow, or seal oil) and meat (such as dried fish, especially pike, sheefish or inconnu, whitefish or cisco, or freshwater whitefishes, or dried moose or caribou) mixed with berries (especially cowberry, bilberry, Vaccinium oxycoccos or other cranberries, bearberry, crowberry, salmonberry, cloudberry or low-bush salmonberry, raspberry, blueberry, or prickly rose) or mild sweeteners such as roots of Indian potato or wild carrot, mixed and whipped with a whisk. 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.^[1]

"Ice cream songs" used to be sung during the preparation of Alaskan Athabascan Indian ice cream.^[2]

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  Akutaq made from raspberries, blueberries and vegetable shortening
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  Tumnaq, a wooden bowl used to make akutaq
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  Wild berries from the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge: Vaccinium uliginosum (blue), V. vitis-idaea, and Rubus arcticus