How to Make Pemmican
Vihljamur Stefansson, eminent anthropologist and arctic explorer, went on three expeditions into the Alaskan tundra during the first quarter of the 20th century. His discoveries – including the “blond” Inuit and previously uncharted Arctic lands – brought him renown on the world stage. People were fascinated by his approach to travel and exploration, the way he thrust himself fully into the native Inuit cultures he encountered. Stefansson studied their language, adopted their ways, and ate the same food they ate. In fact, it was the diet of the Inuit – fish, marine mammals, and other animals, with almost no vegetables or carbohydrates – that most intrigued him. He noted that, though their diet would be considered nutritionally bereft by most “experts” (hey, nothing’s changed in a hundred years!), the Inuit seemed to be in excellent health, with strong teeth, bones, and muscles. He was particularly interested in a food called pemmican.
Pemmican consists of lean, dried meat (usually beef nowadays, but bison, deer, and elk were common then) which is crushed to a powder and mixed with an equal amount of hot, rendered fat (usually beef tallow). Sometimes crushed, dried berries are added as well. A man could subsist entirely on pemmican, drawing on the fat for energy and the protein for strength (and glucose, when needed). The Inuit, Stefansson noted, spent weeks away from camp with nothing but pemmican to eat and snow to drink to no ill effect. Stefansson, a Canadian of Icelandic origin, often accompanied them on these treks and also lived off of pemmican quite happily, so its sustaining powers weren’t due to some specific genetic adaptation unique to the Inuit. In fact, when Stefansson returned home, he and colleague adopted a meat-only diet for a year, interested in its long-term effects. A controlled examination of their experience confirmed that both men remained healthy throughout.
So, pemmican has a reputation as a sort of superfood. While I’m usually leery of such claims, the fact that the stuff is essentially pure fat and protein (plus Stefansson’s accounts) made me think that maybe there was something to it. I set out to make my own batch.
I got about a pound and a half of lean, grass-fed shoulder roast, let it firm up in the freezer, then sliced it thin. After adding liberal amounts of salt and pepper, I set the oven to the lowest possible temperature (around 150 degrees) and laid out the strips of meat directly onto the rack. I cracked the oven door to prevent moisture buildup. At this point, I also put a handful of frozen wild blueberries on a small oven pan to dry out with the meat.
I let the meat dry out for about fifteen hours, or until it was crispy jerky that broke apart easily. I tossed the jerky in the food processor until it was powder. After the meat, in went the blueberries to process. Again, you want a powder.
Now I was ready to render some fat. I used grass-fed bison kidney fat, which was already diced into tiny pieces. I put about half a pound of that into a cast iron pan and cooked it slowly over super-low heat.
I made sure to stir the fat as it rendered out, and watched closely so that it wouldn’t burn. When the fat stops bubbling, the rendering is done.
Use a strainer to avoid all the crispy bits; you just want the pure, liquid fat.
Mix the meat and berry powder together, then slowly add the hot liquid fat. Pour just enough so that the fat soaks into the powder.
I think I poured too much too quickly, so I added a bit of almond meal to firm it up. Let it firm up, then cut it into squares or roll it into a ball. I went with a ball.
Pemmican will keep almost forever. Pure, dried protein and rendered (mostly saturated) fat are highly stable, so I wouldn’t worry about it going rancid. If it does, you’ll know.
Now, my pemmican wasn’t exactly delicious. In fact, it tasted a bit like bland dog food. Maybe I’ll jazz it up next time with some more salt and spices, but I don’t think pemmican is meant to be eaten for pleasure. This is utilitarian food, perfect for long treks through the wilderness. It gets the job done, and I’ll probably make it again. It definitely doesn’t taste bad; in fact, the taste grows on you after awhile.
My dog certainly enjoyed cleaning up the bowl.
Has anyone else here tried pemmican? Let me know what you think in the comment board!
Subscribe to Mark’s Daily Apple feeds
Posted By: Mark Sisson
Mark
Please to allow this lowly one to correct your history. Pemmican was NOT an Inuit invention. It was in fact an invention of the plains Indians, by which they developed an efficient way of converting excess buffalo hunted during prosperous years against lean times later. A food that would last damn near forever if properly prepared and stored.
It became a staple of the Fur Trade, from sometime in the eighteenth-century onwards. The canoe brigades of the Canadian North West Fur Company (the legendary “voyageurs”) had to travel immense distances during the short Spring and Summer season between breakup and freezeup, from their Montreal headquarters out to distant trading posts scattered across the vast river networks of the North. Racing against the return of Winter, they endured a strenuous routine of backbreaking paddling and portaging, with no time left for hunting or elaborate cooking. They needed a compact, nutritious ration that left as much space as possible in their craft for their loads of trade goods going out and beaver pelts coming back.
The early Victorian British Arctic explorers–in their overland expeditions–hired fur traders as their guides and assistants. It was from them that they learned of pemmican and adopted it as their standard sledging ration. THIS was how pemmican became indelibly associated with Polar exploits and used by all who traveled into the icy realms (and many other places besides).
The one universal quality of pemmican is the uncomplimentary references to it. From Ye Olde times to the present, every explorer who has relied upon it has felt called upon to strain his literary creative powers to the utmost in making uncomplimentary references to its taste and consistency. In his book of his 1986 trans-arctic expedition Will Steger described it as resembling wet concrete and that it gave him alternately the runs and constipation.
Evidently, the grass-fed part of the equation is extremely important here.
Many of the more conscientious explorers took great pains to make their pemmican more palatable. Roald Amundsen added such things as rolled oats, honey and spices along with the berries. Ernest Shackleton added pea flour and spices. Admiral Peary preferred his straight.
In his work, Vilhjalmur Stefansson said that this was all well-and-good but that such delectables should be packed separately, as extras, to be jettisoned in an emergency. He was even against the addition of salt, saying that pemmican was just as good a food in a pinch for sled dogs, but that dogs are much less tolerant of salt in their diet than humans.
So there you have it. It looks like pemmican is highly versatile, in that you can heat it up and add just about anything to it to make it palatable or you can just nibble it cold.
What’s this? A recipe of my favorite food!
Bland? Nu uh…
Not at all for me. I order mine from grasslandbeef.com and it is delicious, 1 entire bar with only 4 carbs!
They use cherries and raw honey, instead of berries.
Well the only input I have is from the backwoods. My family makes pemmican and dry meat every year. Usually it includes meat from the latest hunting trip. My mother seems to be a master st makng it taste good. She utilizes ground deer or bison, the fresher the better. Adds pepper and salt as if she were seasoning burgers. You let those spices soak in and in another bowl grind up some fresh or frozen berries. Add them to the meat with about a quarter cup of berry syrup (we use huckleberry ) let that sit for a bit. When your ready to dry it roll half inch balls, flatten them and put them on a dehydrator rack for 12 hours. The fat is already in the ground meat and the syrup really adds flavor. It keeps well and packs easily for powwows and such.
I am interested in making Brick Chili which origionated with the Mexican and Indian women known a Chili Queens in Texas. They were familiar with Jerkey and Pemican, so it was a logical step to add dried chili, tomatoes, maza or cooked dried bean powder to the mixture and come up with bricks of material which would keep and be reconstituted into the basics of chili and chili beans. If you have ever come across a recipe for brick chili I would like to have a copy.
Ernie H
mark, i saw somebody recommend peanut butter for the fat. could that idea be tweeked wit almond butter or macadamia butter (my favorite)? as that sounds like it might bring more to the table in the taste department… just thinking!
Now I may be mistaken. Isn’t rending tallow basically getting liquid fat?
If so, go to the grocery store and back with the meats and such are the containers of ‘(snow) Lard) that a lot of folks like to cook with. I am thinking mainly of Hispanic cooking, that and Southern cooking.
Correct me if I am wrong and I will have learned something new.
Rending seems to be labor intensive and I seem to look for ways to make it easier and quicker.
Also instead of a dehydrater, cut the meat about 1/16 th of an inch thick. (Meat cutter). Then smoke the meat with your favorite wood and seasoning. Being that thin it will get crisp,(keep an eye on it), and it will have been flavored. I can smoke up several pounds in a couple of hours. You can cut up some of the meat thicker to break up and eat as snack around the house,at work or play. What you do no use you can refrigerate for later, or share with friends.
There are a lot of doom and gloom news articles and almost as many articles of the coming fabulous prosperity that will overtake the world. Who Knows and frankly Who Cares? Simple fact of the matter is there are many stories every year of people stranded for days in the snow, lost while hiking, falling over a cliff and surviving on a ledge for days and so on and so on. It would seem prudent that if ever you hike, climb, travel in semiremote areas or just on long road trips, it would be wise to have survival gear and include stable long lasting food stuffs even if not too tasty. I have done so for many years and on a couple of occasions have actually had to use them during my six decades of life.
Had a Lewis and Clark themed dinner last night with buffalo steak, berries and what I had thought (from distant memories of explorer accounts) was pemmican. Used honey instead of rendered fat, and added quite a bit of flour, cooking in cupcake tins as above. Not bad; the flour makes it (after baking) the consistency of cured epoxy. Keeps your teeth strong!
Mmmmmmmmmmm, cured epoxy.
Mark,
Congrats on what is always a fantastic resource and pleasure to read.
I recently wrote an article for my blog regarding ketogenic adaptation, military training and Arctic exploration as I am fascinated by the biochemistry involved.
I recently read about Schwatka’s search for the Franklin expedition before Stefansson’s more famous forays into the Arctic, and he too was a big fan of the pemmican.
I am in the British military and passed my commando course a few years ago now and earned my much-coveted green beret. The final challenge in test week being a 30-mile ‘yomp’ (run downhill, stride-out uphill sort of pace) over Dartmoor, caring equipment, in under 8 hours. I recall the overwhelming urge to consume sugar in the final stages and the pleasure of finally crossing that finish line!
Having been ‘paleo’ or ‘primal’ for a year or so, I am going to re-run the 30 miles with only pemmican as a food source and water to drink. I’ll be posting the results on my blog. I don’t particularly enjoy these sorts of long runs, much preferring strength training now, but when serving in the military, especially commando forces, there is a big emphasis on the ability to cover a lot of ground, carrying equipment, and arriving ready to fight. I’m hoping that all the theory behind ketogenic adaptation plays out!