Regardless of what fashionable fad diets and chiseled health influencers may let you know, the idea of beefing up your food regimen with extra macronutrients, or “macros,” is nothing new. If you would like proof, simply take a look at pemmican, a brick of dried meat, berries, and fats that originated with Indigenous tribes within the Plains, Nice Lakes, and Rocky Mountain areas.
Pemmican is shelf-stable and sustains customers with its extremely excessive protein and fats content material. The caloric recipe can also be balanced with a reasonable quantity of carbs from added fruits. These three macronutrients—protein, fats, and carbs—are essential to fueling your physique via a troublesome hike or hunt, however they’re additionally fairly troublesome to devour suddenly with out consuming a full meal. No surprise pemmican is extensively touted because the “unique vitality bar.”
Let’s dive into the historical past of pemmican, the way to make it, and the way to retailer it.
What Is Pemmican?
Pemmican is a loaf of dried floor meat and dried berries held along with congealed animal fats, generally known as “tallow.” Some pemmican cooks slice the loaf into pucks or strips, whereas others kind bite-sized balls or patties. A pound of pemmican can pack as much as 3,800 energy, in comparison with 1,152 energy in a pound of 80/20 ground beef.
While you’re attempting to maintain your stomach full within the backcountry, you most likely fall again on just a few tried-and-true favorites: jerky, granola bars, and nut butters. This trifecta typically meets your macronutrient wants, however all of them have their very own shortcomings. Jerky’s downfall is an absence of carbohydrates and fat that keep on with your bones and gas your motion. The downfall of the trendy granola bar, regardless of being excessive in carbs and energy (typically from extreme quantities of added sugar) is normally a scarcity of protein and fats. Including high-fat nut butters to the combo helps. However on the threat of claiming one thing extremely controversial, you possibly can solely guzzle down a lot peanut butter earlier than you’re significantly sick of the stuff. It could actually additionally make a large number and it’s not precisely allergy-friendly.
Pemmican combines the three macronutrients right into a single supply. It joins the ranks with backpacking dinners and meal substitute bars as one of many best survival foods, and it’s been sustaining people since lengthy earlier than the innovations of plastic, freeze-drying, and dehydrators.
How one can Make Pemmican
Chef, meals educator, and founding father of Indigikitchen Mariah Gladstone says that to make pemmican, you’ll want:
- Dried strips of meat
- Dried berries
- Animal fats, rendered right down to a liquid
- Dried seasonings of your selecting
- A meals processor
- Ensure that your meat and berries are additional dry. Utilizing one of many best dehydrators for jerky, dry meat to the purpose the place it snaps in half while you bend a bit of it. It shouldn’t be chewy like jerky, as a result of which means it nonetheless holds some water and subsequently might spoil simpler. Berries needs to be crunchy, too. Should you’re utilizing store-bought dried berries, throw them in a dehydrator for additional evaporation.
- Break up the dried meat and put it in a meals processor. Course of it till it’s a fluffy powder. Set the meat powder apart and do the identical with the berries.
- Combine the meat, berries, and any extra spices collectively in a bowl.
- Add rendered, liquified animal fats. The finer your meat and berry mix, the much less fats you’ll want—simply sufficient to coat the combination and make it maintain collectively. A coarser mix would require extra holding energy and, thus, extra tallow.
- Kind the pemmican earlier than the animal fats congeals. Gladstone likes to make small patties, however you may additionally press the combination right into a cake pan or a cookie sheet and minimize slabs or strips. You might even pull out your cookie cutters and get artistic with sizes and styles.
- Should you dwell in a dry local weather and your pemmican is filled with ultra-dry meat, berries, and spices, it needs to be indefinitely shelf-stable. You may seal it in a sandwich bag and throw it in your pantry. Should you dwell in a extra humid space, contemplate vacuum-sealing or freezing the pemmican to maintain any of the meals contents from rehydrating and spoiling.
As a substitute of writing an precise recipe out, Gladstone says the ratio of meat-to-berries and fat-to-meat is actually about really feel.
“It’s constructing blocks, reasonably than an precise recipe,” Gladstone says, laughing. “Some folks will discover that extremely releasing, however some folks will hear that and assume it’s worrying and wish an actual recipe.”
Comply with together with Gladstone as she makes pemmican right here:
What Substances Can You Use in Pemmican?
There are few limits to what meats, berries, spices, and animal fat you possibly can add to your pemmican.
Meats
Any crimson meat that doesn’t require high-temperature cooking to eradicate micro organism will work right here. Which means avoiding bear meat, poultry, and pork. Should you’re utilizing farmed meat, ensure to trim any fats and get the strips as lean as doable earlier than drying them.
- Beef
- Bison
- Elk
- Moose
- Pronghorn
- Venison
Berries
Any berries that may get crunchy-dry in a dehydrator will work. It is a nice use for these leftover huckleberries you’ve been saving for the precise event.
- Blueberries
- Cherries
- Chokecherries
- Cranberries
- Huckleberries
- Serviceberries
Spices
Check out some completely different taste profiles to your pemmican. Should you like spicy meals, add some chili powder or crimson pepper flakes. For extra savory pemmican, sage and thyme are nice. Use your favourite spice mix or seasoning salt for ease. Simply ensure every part you add is dried—no contemporary herbs right here.
- Clove
- Nutmeg
- Crimson pepper flakes
- Salt and pepper
- Sage
- Seasoning salts
- Spice rub blends
- Thyme
Different Components
If you wish to get actually artistic, throw another components into your pemmican. Simply bear in mind the rule: they should be totally dried and floor up for simpler sticking.
- Puffed wild rice
- Squash or pumpkin seeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Tree nuts
Animal Fat
Pemmican is a good alternative to get artistic with completely different animal fat. As a result of rendered fats is totally cooked and liquified, go loopy with pork or bear fats when you’d like. Conventional recipes from hunt-gather tribes used venison or elk fats, however when you don’t just like the greasy really feel, change it up for one thing else. Don’t use butter or different dairy-based fat.
- Bear fats
- Beef fats
- Bison fats
- Duck fat
- Moose fats
- Pork fats
- Venison or elk fats
The Origins of Pemmican
The phrase “pemmican” originates from the Cree phrase pimîhkân, which implies “manufactured grease.” However opposite to widespread perception, Gladstone says the Cree weren’t the one Indigenous tribe that made pemmican. Gladstone, who’s Blackfeet and Cherokee, says that many tribes within the Nice Plains and alongside the Rocky Mountain entrance had a reputation for pemmican in their very own languages.
“There have been a number of French fur merchants interacting with Crees, so I’m positive the Cree phrase received picked up because the phrase for this recipe after which it grew to become universally adopted because the English terminology for it,” Gladstone says. “However there have been variations amongst all completely different tribes on the plains.”
Pemmican all the time integrated regionally obtainable sources of meat and berries, which meant tribes in several rising areas and landscapes had completely different recipes.
“For a lot of the plains, buffalo meat and buffalo tallow had been primarily used. However when you had been in a extra woodland space, you might need simpler entry to deer meat, so that you’re drying deer meat and rendering deer fats,” Gladstone says. “Should you’re in an space with extra acidic soils, you might have simpler entry to blueberries. The place I’m from, we’ve extra alkaline soils, and subsequently we’ve a number of serviceberries and we’ll incorporate these. Throughout the plains, chokecherries had been used, within the Nice Lakes area a number of cranberries had been used. It actually simply is dependent upon what you might have entry to.”
Pemmican FAQ
As a result of the components are all completely dried, there’s little to no water content material in pemmican. As is the case with different dehydrated meals, the shortage of water retains the components from spoiling.
Pemmican is wholesome as a result of it offers the three main macronutrients that maintain us daily—protein, fats, and carbohydrates. These three vitamins are completely essential for any hike, backpacking journey, or hunt, however could be troublesome to get suddenly with out consuming a full meal.
Pemmican will maintain you for a really very long time in a survival state of affairs, which is why survivalists and a few outdoorsmen and girls swear by it. Nevertheless, regardless of the added berries, pemmican lacks important nutritional vitamins from greens and different fruits, and the fiber content material is low, so that you shouldn’t attempt to dwell on it for too lengthy.
Remaining Ideas on Pemmican
Should you’re unhappy with granola bars, path combine, nut butters, and jerky, or if you wish to apply an historical meals custom that’s been sustaining people on the North American landmass for 1000’s of years, give pemmican a attempt. If nothing else, you possibly can add one other nice recreation meat recipe to your repertoire and you’ll gas your physique for even the hardest outside excursions.
“I don’t need to say ‘superfood’ as a result of I really feel that time period is so generally used,” Gladstone says. “However it’s undoubtedly one thing which you can survive off of. It has all these important vitamins in a single kind.”
