Akutaq - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Akutaq or agutak also known as Eskimo ice cream, is a common food in western Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, consisting of whipped fat

Fat

Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...

mixed with berries

Berry

The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....

, with optional additions such as fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

and sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

. The word comes from Yupik

Yupik language

The Yupik languages are the several distinct languages of the several Yupik peoples of western and southcentral Alaska and northeastern Siberia. The Yupik languages differ enough from one another that speakers of different ones cannot understand each other, although they may understand the general...

and means "something mixed".

There are many variations of Akutaq, but most are based around mixing berries, meat, leaves, or roots with animal oil or fat (these are now often replaced by Crisco

Crisco

Crisco is a brand of shortening produced by the J. M. Smucker Co. popular in the United States. Introduced in June 1911 by Procter & Gamble, it was the first shortening to be made entirely of vegetable oil...