The Story of Pem*ican

 Pemmican did NOT originate with the North American native. In true fact, pemmican was the original, WORLDWIDE "Trail-Mix" or emergency food. Because it existed for thousands of years before anyone ever even heard of the Americas, we know that it definitely was not invented in the United States, by indigenous North American peoples, or even in the Americas.
Basically, the same recipe is used in traditional  Scottish Haggis (made famous by Robbie Burns) or any dry sausage.The word means, roughly, manufactured grease, but there was a lot more than that to it.

The recipe calls for meat, cut with the grain in thin slices or strips and dried in the sun or over a slow fire. A smoking fire added flavour and was useful for keeping flies off; though if meat racks were high they tended to be clear of flies. The dry-meat was then spread in a hide and pounded by stones or sticks to become "beat meat" which was tossed into a rectangular rawhide(hair on--with the hair on the outside) container about the size of a flour sack. To the dehydrated, crumbled meat was added one-third or more of melted fat and the bag was sewn up. The fat might be mixed with the meat before or after it was bagged. While the pemmican was cooling the bag was turned from time to time to prevent the fat all settling on one side. Compressed in a skin bag that was greased along the seams to eliminate air and moisture, it would keep for years.

For the best pemmican, which was limited in quantity, the meat was very finely pulverized and only marrow from boiled broken bones was used. For variety and flavour, dried fruits such as chokecherries, or saskatoons might be added. The pemmican bags were flattened for easier handling. Marrow, while better tasting, required more work to acquire, was comparatively scarce and did not keep as well as ordinary tallow.

So high was the food value that three-quarters of a pound was a reasonable day's ration

Pemmican is best made in August.

1. First, dry the meat as above.

2. Cook meat in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Pound well with hammer and mix with marrow or grease.

3. Add berries or diced onions if you like.

4. Put pemmican into those ever useful freezer bags.

5. Freeze; cut in slices.

In North America, there were three says of eating pemmican. There was the soup or stew called rubbaboo; in which a lump of pemmican was cut off and put in a pot of boiling water. If it was available, flour was added, and possibly wild onions, sometimes, a little sugar, occasionally another vegetable or two. Frying the pemmican in its own fat resulted in what was called rousseau (notice that these words are of French origin) or rechaud or richot--and to this might also be added some flour or some suitable wild plant for flavour. The third method was to cut off a lump and eat it "raw", a slow process since it dried extremely hard, but a satisfying concentrated food for the travellers with no time to stop.

Though they realized it's worth, not everyone enjoyed pemmican, no matter how prepared. A party travelling to Saskatchewan (to see the solar eclipse of 1860) commented that "rousseau is by comparison with the other palatable, though is is even then impossible to so disguise it as to avoid the suggestion of tallow candles; and this and the leathery, or India-rubber, structure of the meat are its chief disqualifications. Even rousseau may lose its charms when taken as a steady diet three times a day for weeks or months at a time.   

For other recipes treat caribou, elk, wapiti, bear, sheep, or goat meat as if it were beef, but please remember – Because of the usual low-fat content, by preference, game meat is seldom ever broiled or roasted. Bear meat should be cooked thoroughly as for pork.