The Regional Alaskan Dish Most Of The US Is Missing Out On

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These days, it's not too difficult to experience faraway regional American foods from the comfort of your own home. If you want a Philly Cheesesteak (the famous regional food that most people want to try), you can order one from a Philadelphia vendor on a website like Goldbelly and have it shipped to your door. The same goes for East Coast lobster rolls, Southern seafood gumbo, and Midwestern barbecue. The internet's reaches could also procure you regional delicacies straight from Alaska — but how do you track down a food that you don't know exists? Reindeer sausage is a prime example. This Alaskan specialty doesn't venture far outside the borders of The Last Frontier, so many U.S. dwellers haven't had a chance to find out if they like it or not. 

In Alaska, it's common to find reindeer sausage in grocery stores and on restaurant menus, which really isn't the case in the lower 48. Packaged reindeer sausage is typically sold fully cooked or smoked, and is often made from a blend of reindeer meat, pork, and beef. However, Costco fans were unimpressed with Alaskan reindeer sausage when it hit warehouse shelves circa 2021, because reindeer wasn't the primary meat in the ingredients list. Reindeer sausage is said to taste rich with some gaminess, but not enough to be overpowering. As for why reindeer sausage is so plentiful in Alaska and almost unheard of everywhere else in the U.S., well, the answer is simple. There are more reindeer there.

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Long before explorers came to North America, Native tribes were the original inhabitants of the area that is now called Alaska. Caribou were a plentiful and important element for the tribes' survival, especially those who lived far from the Alaskan coast. The hides were made into clothing and shelters, bones were carved into tools, and the meat was crucial for sustenance. Caribou meat was cooked fresh, but the Natives also dried and smoked it, making an early version of jerky, and combined the meat with berries to make sausage. As Europeans settled in the New World and gradually spread across the continent, large industries, like whaling, made their way to Alaska, which devastated local resources. By the time the 20th century approached, caribou numbers were dangerously low, to the point where native Alaskans were starving.

Missionary and U.S. general agent for education, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, petitioned the government to intervene and spearheaded a program to introduce reindeer from Russia to Alaska. Caribou and reindeer are actually the same species of animal, but are known by different names in their places of origin. Caribou are wild, while reindeer can be either wild or domesticated. At its peak in the 1930s, there were more than 600,000 reindeer in Alaska, leading to the ubiquity of reindeer sausage as a regional food source. Today, the Alaskan reindeer population is closer to 30,000, and only native Alaskans are legally allowed to own the animals.