ah, it's the fat proportions that matter, and nothing to go rancid.
In the past folks could (and did) preserve cooked meat simply by putting it in a pot and covering it to seal it with a layer of fat.
Like the beef dripping it lasted for a very long time like that.
Thing is though, in the past there were no 'sell by' dates, and folks took responsibility for the quality and edibility of their food, themselves. Bread and cheese that go mouldy won't kill you but folks throw them away now….sour milk won't kill you either, but bad meat can make you very ill. We've mostly lost the ability to smell when something is okay-ish, if it's eaten up in good order. Instead we fall into the trap of 'it's full of bacteria, it'll kill you'. Well, news flash; we're full of bacteria too, and don't differentiate between okay bacteria and bad stuff.
Pemmican, good pemmican is fat rich, it's properly made with fruits that naturally preserve stuff too. The meat is first dried (lean meat that is so it dries properly) then it's pounded until it's smaller than mince and then mixed 1:1 with fat.
There's a lot of skill in getting good pemmican right. Very do-able though, the HB Company managed it by the ton !
If you want to know what bad fat smells like, buy some of those cheap fat balls for the birds, and put them into a sealed jar somewhere warm. They'll go rancid in short order, and it's not a really bad rancid those, but rancid enough that I wonder about feeding them to the birds.
M
In the past folks could (and did) preserve cooked meat simply by putting it in a pot and covering it to seal it with a layer of fat.
Like the beef dripping it lasted for a very long time like that.
Thing is though, in the past there were no 'sell by' dates, and folks took responsibility for the quality and edibility of their food, themselves. Bread and cheese that go mouldy won't kill you but folks throw them away now….sour milk won't kill you either, but bad meat can make you very ill. We've mostly lost the ability to smell when something is okay-ish, if it's eaten up in good order. Instead we fall into the trap of 'it's full of bacteria, it'll kill you'. Well, news flash; we're full of bacteria too, and don't differentiate between okay bacteria and bad stuff.
Pemmican, good pemmican is fat rich, it's properly made with fruits that naturally preserve stuff too. The meat is first dried (lean meat that is so it dries properly) then it's pounded until it's smaller than mince and then mixed 1:1 with fat.
There's a lot of skill in getting good pemmican right. Very do-able though, the HB Company managed it by the ton !
If you want to know what bad fat smells like, buy some of those cheap fat balls for the birds, and put them into a sealed jar somewhere warm. They'll go rancid in short order, and it's not a really bad rancid those, but rancid enough that I wonder about feeding them to the birds.
M
