An Abundance of Pemmican Recipes

by Joseph Parish

Pemmican is traditionally considered a travel type of food that was popular with the Native North Americans. It generally consisted of slices of buffalo meat or lean venison that had been previously sun dried, then pounded into a paste and finally packed with a mixture of melted fat. This food was then stored in small rawhide bags until needed. Fruits such as wild berries or dried currants were often added to the paste while creating it. The Pacific coast Native Americans would used a compound similar to this but its basic ingredient would be fish.

As mentioned pemmican was considered standard fare for most of the Native American Indians, Traders, Trappers and early Explorers. The dried and powdered meat and fat were rendered together by way of boiling the combination. The fat was mixed with the powdered meat in a one-to-one ratio. It was then poured into something that resembled muffin tins. The beauty of this food is that it's shelf life is perhaps 300 years without any sort of refrigeration being needed. It's calories content is extremely high and meets ones complete nutritional needs, so you could possibly survive on nothing but water and pemmican for a long time.

The Native American's would use this food to make it through many of their harsh winters or if they had extended travel plans.  Here are a few recipes for several versions of this emergency food.

Basic Pemmican Recipe

2 cups of raisins
2 cups of dates
Enough Honey to bind the mixture together
2 cups of peanuts, cashews, walnuts or any sort of nut

Grind together all of the above ingredients except for the honey. Add the honey slowly and mix well until the mixture is moist enough to mold into shape. Pour into a muffin type pan to a 3/4 inch depth or you can mold the food directly into small bars. Refrigerate the pan and later cut off bars from the pan. Wrap the bars in aluminum foil.  This recipe was originally created as a cold weather trail food and is very high in fat or suet content. The honey is substitutes for the suet as a binder for the finished product. If desired you could put suet in it for any cold weather trip you may have planned.  This recipe makes five to ten servings.

Saskatoon Pemmican

1 cups of either beef or venison  jerky
1 cup of dried Saskatoon berries (You can substitute dried blueberries)
1 cup of unroasted sunflower seeds (you can substitute any sort of crushed nuts)
2 teaspoon of honey
1/4 cup of peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne powder (this is optional)

This version uses peanut butter in place of lard or melted suet for use as a binding agent. It also is a bit more palatable in many of our health conscious diets that are used today. Grind the dried meat to a powder. Now add the dried berries. After mixing well add your seeds or nuts and mix further. Apply heat to the honey, peanut butter and the cayenne powder if used until the mixture becomes soft. Blend all together. When it cool you can store it in a plastic bag or a sausage casing. Store your Pemmican  in a cool dry place. This food will keep for many months. This recipe makes about 3 cups.

Another Pemmican Recipe

2 cups of shredded beef jerky or buffalo jerky
1 cup of chopped chokeberries that have been dried out
6 Tablespoon of tallow or melted butter

Combine all of the above ingredients together and form into six patties. Refrigerate the patties until time to serve them. This recipe makes about 6 servings.

And yet another recipe for making Pemmican

1 Batch = 3 1/2 pounds

You will need to start with four cups of dried meat depending upon how lean it is you may require one to two pounds per cup. Do not use pork or bear meat but rather use only moose, deer, caribou or even beef. Be sure to get your meat as lean as possible have the butcher double grind it if you do not have a meat grinder. Spread the mixture out on a cookie sheet making sure to get it very thin. Place it in your oven and dry it out at 180 degrees overnight. The meat should be crispy and sinewy. Next, regrind the meat until it is a powder.

Take 3 cups of your favorite dried fruit. You can use currents, apricots, dates or dried apples. Grind them up but leave some a bit on the lumpy side to provide texture to your product. Take two cups of beef fat and cut it into small chunks and heat it over the stove on medium heat. What you are after is the tallow from it which is the liquid. This can then be poured off and carefully strained.

You will require some unsalted nuts and a bit of honey.

Continue by combining all the ingredients in a bowl and mix by hand. Divide the mixture into four portions and store in a plastic storage bag. The mixture will last for a considerable amount of time without refrigeration.

You can vary the fat content according to the temperature you will be using the product in. Use less for summer and more for winter weather.

And still another Pemmican recipe:

8 oz. of very dry and crumbly Jerky
8 oz. of Raisins
8 oz. of unroasted nuts
8 oz. of chopped and dried Apricots
8 oz. of chopped and dried Peaches
8 oz of dried Blueberries
2 teaspoons of Honey
4 teaspoons of Peanut Butter
3/4 teaspoons of Cayenne Pepper

Grind the jerky into a powder and add the nuts and fruit. Heat up the honey and the Peanut Butter until soft then blend them by hand into the mixture. Add the Cayenne Pepper making sure to work it thoroughly into the mixture. Put your finished pemmican in plastic bags or pack it into common sausage casings. maintain your pemmican in a cool and dry place. This product will be usable indefinitely.

copyright @ 2009 Joseph Parish