CUISINE: Pemmican

History

Originally made by the Native Americans (Indians) of the Great Plains that stretched up into Canada and as far down as Missouri. These tribes included the Arapaho, Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Lakota, Lipan, Plains Apache (or Kiowa Apache), Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwe, Sarsi, Nakoda (Stoney), and Tonkawa. Their lands were rich in wildlife such as deer and buffalo. Each tribe had its own culture, language, beliefs and way of life.

Execution

Pemmican is prepared from the lean meat of large game such as bison, elk, deer, or moose. The meat is cut in thin slices and dried, either over a slow fire on sticks or in the hot sun until it was hard and brittle. Approximately 5 pounds of meat are required to make 1 pound of dried meat suitable for pemmican.  The meat was then ground between two large stones till it turned into very small pieces, almost powder-like in its consistency. The pounded meat was mixed with melted fat in an approximate 1:1 ratio by weight. Typically, the melted fat would be suet (Suet is the raw, hard fat of beef, lamb or mutton found around the loins and kidneys) that has been rendered into tallow. In some cases, dried fruits, such as blueberries, chokecherries, cranberries, or saskatoon berries, were pounded into powder and then added to the meat-fat mixture. The resulting mixture was then packed into rawhide bags for storage where it would cool, and then harden into pemmican. A standard rawhide bag would hold about 
Today, some people store their pemmican in glass jars or tin boxes. Since there is no "official" recipe for pemmican, the shelf life may vary depending on ingredients and storage conditions. At room temperature, pemmican can generally last from one to five years, but there are anecdotal stories of pemmican stored in cool cellars being safely consumed after a decade or more.

Components and tools

• A slow fire with a drying rack
• A woven mat used for drying 
• 5lbs of lean meat
• Two stones for grinding
• Berries
• Tallow
• A storage container.

Participants

@Istas She made it and advised Clarissa that there wouldn't be enough food for everyone come winter but she was doing what she could to bulk up their food stores.

A CUISINE FROM A SPARSE, BARREN OR REMOTE REGION IN YOUR WORLD

Pemmican ball

Related Ethnicities

• Native American