Pemmican
Pemmican: the ultimate North American survival food made of dried meat and fat
City/Region: North America
Time Period: 1804
Pemmican is the ultimate survival food. Made by North American tribes for an uncertain but certainly very long time, it’s made of dried meat and fat, sometimes with dried berries, salt, or sugar to make it more palatable. It’s a food whose shelf life is measured not in months, but decades, just like hardtack (clack clack). This long shelf life and its nutritional density made it a staple for many explorers, including Lewis and Clark.
For a survival food, it’s not so bad. It tastes kind of like beef jerky, though if you eat it as-is, the fat will coat your mouth in a way that I found unpleasant. I added dried chokeberries, which I don’t think did a whole lot for the taste (sugar probably would have made more of a difference), but if I was hungry and trekking through the wilderness, I’d eat it without too much complaint. Check out the video and recipe for rubaboo, a pemmican stew, if eating it straight isn’t for you.
“Meat of any kind dried and pounded, and saturated with fat. There is as much nourishment in one pound of pemmican as in four pounds of ordinary meat...The North American Indians dry their venison by exposing thin slices to the heat of the sun, on a stage, under which a small fire is kept, more for the purpose of driving away the flies than for promoting exsiccation; and then they pound it between two stones on a bison hide…complete the process by sewing up the pemmican in a bag of undressed hide with the hairy side outwards.”
“Pemington is buffalo meat dried or baked pounded & mixed with grease.”
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds (1 kg) bison meat, or other lean cut of meat
- 3/4 cup dried chokeberries, raisins, zante currants, or any other dried berry, optional
- Salt, to taste, optional
- 1/2 pound (230 g) suet
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to its lowest setting. Mine was 170°F (77°C).
- Trim off as much fat off the meat as possible, then slice it very thinly against the grain. Putting the meat in the freezer for about 30 minutes will make it easier to slice thinly.
- Lay the strips in a single layer on a wire rack and put them in the oven with a pan in the bottom of the oven to catch any drips. The meat needs to be much drier than for jerky. You’re looking for it to snap when you try to bend it. For me, this took about 10 hours in the oven. You can use a food dehydrator, but put it in the oven at 200°F (95°C) first for 30 minutes to kill off the bacteria.
- Once the meat is snappable, grind it into a coarse powder either using a mortar and pestle or a food processor. I started with the mortar and pestle, then after I had proved to myself that it could be done, I switched to the much more practical food processor.
- If adding dried berries, chop them very finely or grind them into as close to a powder as you can.
- Melt the suet over low heat. While it melts, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Put on some gloves and mix the melted fat into the dry mixture with your hands a little at a time. Use just enough fat so that everything comes together (you may not use all of the fat).
- When it holds together when you squeeze it, press it into a mold of your choice. I used a tiny one egg pan and a pinch bowl. Let it cool.
- Once it’s cool, you can serve it forth as-is, or you can make it into rubaboo, a pemmican stew, which I made in another episode.