Pemican

[woodstock]

Has anyone tried to make pemmican and if so how long has it lasted to date I tried some that was reputed to be over 15 years old and have heard that some people have tried some that is hundreds of years old and still edible how true can this be looking at the recipes I have found on the web I think its not likely

 

[RobertRogers]

I don't think I would want to eat it at 100-years old! Maybe if it were frozen in the arctic though -

Which reminds me, how about this recipie from explorers at the turn of the last century:

 

[stephendedwards]

I don't think I would want to eat it at 100-years old! Maybe if it were frozen in the arctic though -

Which reminds me, how about this recipie from explorers at the turn of the last century:

Bearing in mind that Scott et al virtually starved on the stuff. Although I guess there aren't too many Artic explorers on these list, and before you all jump on me exclaiming that you have been to Sweden, I mean real ones.

Stephen

 

[clcuckow]

I never have that problem because when ever I make it my problem is keeping my hands off it. Although I don't make it with as much fat as the Edwardian stuff. If you have seen 'Blizzard, race to the pole' you know what I mean, that stuff looked rank!

 

[Carcajou Garou]

Pemican recipe old Metis style:
per weight 1/2 dried pounded meat..1/2 rendered fat.. mix thoroughly.. add seasonal berries

If Scott starved on this most likely not enough per day as it was possibly rationed otherwise pemican really sustains.

 

[RobertRogers]

Pemican recipe old Metis style:
per weight 1/2 dried pounded meat..1/2 rendered fat.. mix thoroughly.. add seasonal berries

If Scott starved on this most likely not enough per day as it was possibly rationed otherwise pemican really sustains.

Thats right, he did not starve on pemmican! He ran out of it! (you would think that only a lawyer would twist what happened like that!)

 

[PhilParry]

None of you watch the recent Bruce Parry's Race to the Pole?

Interesting inasmuch that they attempted to recreat the diets of the two teams...

Whilst Scott and crew did have lots of pemmican, they did not have enough calories to sustain them given the physical work they were doing...they literally starved to death on their feet - even the modern crew lost LOTS of weight - scary to see how much.

Very interesting.

Sorry...off topic slightly....just getting my coat!

P

 

[Carcajou Garou]

I suspect that they didn't eat enough to maintain their daily caloric needs.
A friend if mine did an artic stint (scientific study) oh so many years ago and they consumed a lot more food that they thought they would need just to maintain their daily weight, its not just the quality of the food but also in quatity. Inuit often resorted to almost fat (muktuk) only diet to keep them going.
At the same time wisely using your strenght over the time and spreading out the work load over as many bodies as possible keeps you on your feet.
In the cold you need not only to feed your body but heat it also, add extra work and that does take a lot of calories.
Pemican has kept my people going for many thousands of years, its not just a new post 15th century creation. Yo!!

 

[clcuckow]

OT I have got the race to the pole book I will look what Bruce's team calorific intake was and post.

 

[clcuckow]

OT Right I have looked it up and it does not say what their calorific intake but say that it was 3000 calories a day short! Which could lead to Bruce's team to bunning up 14 - 18oz of body fat a day.

 

[Carcajou Garou]

My friend said his party was eating into the 8,000 - 12,000 cal depending on the days events.
By the end they were at the bottom scale of their caloric intake as most of the work had been done and all they were doing was maintenance. At -10c they were hot and started to remove upper layers of clothes to t-shirts and some even to bare chest for a bit when the wind was down. Now they were out for only a month or so with all the food they could eat so no stress there but they did stay in tents banked with snow with no direct heat other than an "qulliq" seal oil stove.
So I think that either they did ration or they just couldn't intake enough food for some reason.
Pemican is rather filling especialy at our lower lattitudes where we don't have to generate as much body heat. Maybe also our physiology is better adapted to intake large quatities of food like the feast and famine cycles we went through in good and bad times.

 

[rik_uk3]

Pemmican is just a very high fat food, and the body can only handle so much fat at any one time; you may eat lots more than your body can process in a given period. You may eat say 7000 cals a day, but your body may only absorb say 6000 cals, so the body may go into existing reserves already stored as it easier to use?

 

[nickg]

Since both Scott and Bruce Parry were manhauling I'm sure the problem was rationing not calorific value. They were severley limited to the amount they could carry with then and relied on finding depots for resupply, Scott also at the end had run out of cooker fuel due to evaporation from the cans at the depot. Amundsen at the same time (as Scott) was dog hauling and was mutch more efficient in load per distance carried and was actually leaving food etc behind on the return trip.
An interesting point about both Bruce and Scott is that the pemmican they took was made from pork - meat and fat - and a few sites that I have checked say that pork fat is unsuitable for pemmican as it doesnt set well. Bruces account also says that they had real problems at the start just keeping from vomiting the stuff back up when they ate.
Most of the recipies Ive found recommend beef and beef fat. Does anybody have any input on this?

Cheers
Nick

 

[Carcajou Garou]

Pemican that was consumed by the HBC, Manitoba Metis, was predomitetly made from Bison (buffalo) which is a very rich and tasty meat also seasoned with ripe berries. We made ours from wild game (mooze,deer, wood bison, wapiti..) that we harvested in our neck of the woods. Wild meats are very lean compared to pork or even beef needing the addition of fat. Rendered black bear fat is fantastic for all uses. I agree that pork (maybe salted) is not the tastiest meat to start with and if badly prepared or not stored well.... Start with good ingredients and you will get good results. If they were already on salted foods before even the pemican then it would have been also a lack of vitamins
The first French outposts often died out from a combination of diease (mostly scurvy) caused by vitamin deffeciency (both C and D) and from lack fresher foods (they had mostly salted pork or fish) and of little outdoor physical activities in winter (they stayed couped up in small, smoky, stuffy cabins).
Only through our timely intervention of pine and cedar teas to boost their vit. C (we got tired of the dead bodies all over the place ) and hunting for fresh meats vit. D did they finally understand the need for proper varied nutrition and activity in winter.
The bitterness (to them) of our teas resulted in the popularity of maple sugar products, (sugar, syrup, taffy, candies, you could say the origins of {a spoonfull of sugar makes the medicine go down} etc...)
Later on we gave them Maize, Squash, Beans....Finally they sent over some farmers who could augment their basic foods. Yo!!!

 

[Tengu]

Now I dont think Id find rendered black bear fat in the supermarket somehow...

 

[xylaria]

Now I dont think Id find rendered black bear fat in the supermarket somehow...

I am sure a bit of lard or seut would instead, with minced beef and the bilberies are out next month, not sure if pemican would work with stawberries though.

 

[Dave Budd]

the last lot I made up was from rabbit meat, wild cherries and some lard I had in the fridge. It tastes just as good now as the day I made it, back in the summer of 1998! Infact the clingfilm I wrapped htem in has perished and been replaced in that time

 

[Carcajou Garou]

I am not sure what "minced" meats is but ground wet like hamburger is not good, the meat has to be dried like jerky then reduced to granules, we pounded it to almost dust then mixed in with equal amounts of rendered fat. Strawberries should work fine, any berry.

 

[clcuckow]

I am not sure what "minced" meats is but ground wet like hamburger is not good, the meat has to be dried like jerky then reduced to granules, we pounded it to almost dust then mixed in with equal amounts of rendered fat. Strawberries should work fine, any berry.

you are right minced meat or just mince is what you lot on the other side of the pond call ground meat. You can make jerky from minced meat though I have got mary bells 'just jerkey' book and there are loads of recipes in it for minced meat jerky and I would have thought that after drying it would have powdered better as the fibers are already cut.

you would certainly have to dry the strawberries first though if you don't what it to go to putrid mush.

 

[xylaria]

During Elizabethan England a couple of things started to become popular, like smoking tobacco, mince pies, and standing on street corners shouting about how evil tomatoes are. The elizabethan recipe for mincemeat (as in Xmas pies) was suet, dried fruit, thin strips of beef cut into small pieces. Of course as now the method of preservation was alcohol not drying. It doesn't prove anything but did some sailor on the trip around the Atlantic to get baccy, bring back the pemmican, couldn't work out how to make properly and made mincemeat. It is like traditional fish'n'chips is dry smoked mackerel and crisps, and unregonisable from what we eat today, unless you're orthodox Jew.

Hugh furry wippingstools receipe for mincemeat uses fresh red meat and just soaking in brandy with other ingredants, but personally I feel better if had been previously dried/cooked. Pemican I would do the same. Carcajou Garou, the fresh fruit is used provide binding to mix when it dries as well as vitamins i presume, i am right and is that why it so important to use fresh fruit. If everything was dried to start with the seut would be the binding agent which makes it very fragile and not to great in summer.