Akutaq or Eskimo Ice Cream

Akutaq or Eskimo Ice Cream

**I watched my mother-in-law, Angela Andreanoff, make Akutaq and I wrote down her recipe as she made it. There is a lot of ways to make it but this was the one she made at the time.**

2 cups cooked, drained, deboned whitefish
2-3 cups sugar
(depending on tartness of berries)
3-6 cups crisco or lard (depends on your taste…lol)
1-4 Tbsp. milk
(depends on fish & berry moistness)
1 quart berries (any, best if frozen)

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1. Flake and fluff fish in bowl and squeeze out excess liquids, making sure that there are no bones.
2. Add crisco or lard, 1 cup at a time, whipping with your hands or a large stand mixer till fluffy and light colored.
3. add sugar, 1 cup at a time, according to taste and berry type, fluff it by whipping with hands or mixer.
4. add milk, if needed to make light and fluffy.
5. Add berries and fold gently with your hands, this is easier if they are frozen.
6. Freeze until chilled or eat frozen.

Blueberry Akutaq [Photo Source: Akutaq, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Akutaq&oldid=603375368 (last visited June 13, 2014). ]

Serves plenty 🙂

Traditional Akutaq: Akutaq is a Yupik word that means mix them together, but white man called it Eskimo Ice Cream. The way to pronounce akutaq is a-goo-duk. Akutaq is made in many different ways. This recipe was made by Natives a long, long time ago for survival.  When they went out to go hunting, they brought along akutaq. Akutaq can also be made with moose meat and fat, caribou meat and fat, fish, seal oil, berries and other Alaskan things.

This was a healthy and tasty treat to them a long time ago; they never used sugar.  Each family makes akutaq a little differently.  This is how my husbands family makes it on the Kuskokwim River in Eastern Alaska. There aren’t any real instructions on how to make this recipe because they make it the way they were taught and then they pass it down to the kids that way. The traditional way to teach people to make akutaq is to let them watch and learn.  And when they are done making it, they draw a shape of a cross in the middle of the akutaq with their finger.

Micheal, my nephew, made us some very yummy akutaq (Eskimo ice cream) using some awesome blueberries sent to us from Akiachak, picked by his mom Alesia and dad Patrick and their kids!

Now anyone else have an Eskimo Ice Cream recipe to share here?? hehe