pemmican

File:Aronia prunifolia0.jpg (Aronia prunifolia) sometimes are added to pemmican.]]

Pemmican has traditionally been made using whatever meat was available at the time: large game meat such as bison, deer, elk, or moose, but also fish such as salmon, and smaller game such as duck;{{Cite journal|last=Merriam|first=Willis B.|date=1955|title=The Role of Pemmican in the Canadian Northwest Fur Trade|journal=Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers|volume=17|issue=1|pages=34–38|doi=10.1353/pcg.1955.0000|s2cid=130451803|issn=1551-3211}}{{Cite book|last=Sherman|first=Sean|title=The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2017|isbn=978-0816699797|location=Minneapolis, Minnesota}} while contemporary pemmican may also include beef. The meat is dried and chopped, before being mixed with rendered animal fat (tallow). Dried fruit may be added: cranberries, saskatoon berries (Cree {{lang|cr-Latn|misâskwatômina}}), and even blueberries, cherries, chokeberries, and currants—though in some regions these are used almost exclusively for ceremonial and wedding pemmican{{cite book|title=Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia|last= Albala |first= Kevn|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NTo6c_PJWRgC&pg=RA1-PA235|page=235|publisher= Abc-Clio |isbn=9780313376269}}—and European fur traders have also noted the addition of sugar.

Among the Lakota and Dakota nations, there is also a corn {{lang|lkt|wasná}} (or pemmican) that does not contain dried meat. This is made from toasted cornmeal, animal fat, fruit, and sugar.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nrcnaa.org/pdf/cookbook.pdf|title=Healthy Traditions: Recipes of our Ancestors|last=Goodwin|first=Janice|website=National Center for Native American Aging at the Center for Rural Health, University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences|access-date= 2020-02-12 }}

File:Pemmican.jpg of a traditional method of drying meat for pemmican]]

Traditionally, the meat was cut in thin slices and dried, either over a slow fire or in the hot sun until it was hard and brittle. Approximately {{convert|5|lb|g}} of meat are required to make {{convert|1|lb|g}} of dried meat suitable for pemmican. This thin brittle meat is known in Cree as {{lang|cr-Latn|pânsâwân}} and colloquially in North American English as dry meat.{{cite news |last1=Gladue |first1=Ian |title=Interviewed with owner of Pânsâwân Dry Meat |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1WMH65ya3I |access-date=2019-01-29 |agency=Radio Active |publisher=CBC Radio}} The {{lang|cr-Latn|pânsâwân}} was then spread across a tanned animal hide pinned to the ground, where it was beaten with flails or ground between two large stones until it turned into very small pieces, almost powder-like in its consistency. The pounded meat was then mixed with melted fat in an approximate 1:1 ratio by weight.Angier, Bradford. How to Stay Alive in the Woods (originally published as Living off the Country 1956) {{ISBN|978-1-57912-221-8}} Black Dog & Levanthal. p. 107 Typically, the melted fat would be suet that has been rendered into tallow.{{cite web |title=Pemmican Recipes |url=https://www.wildernesscollege.com/pemmican-recipes.html |website=Alderleaf Wilderness College |access-date=2019-02-23}} In some cases, dried fruits, such as blueberries, chokecherries, cranberries, or saskatoon berries, were pounded into powder and then added to the meat-fat mixture. The resulting mixture was then packed into rawhide bags for storage where it would cool, and then harden into pemmican.

Today, some people store their pemmican in glass jars or tin boxes. The shelf life may vary depending on ingredients and storage conditions. At room temperature, pemmican can generally last anywhere from one to five years,{{Cite web|url=https://ultimateprepping.com/how-long-does-pemmican-last/|title=How Long Does Pemmican Last (GUIDE)|website=Ultimate Prepping|date=2017-05-27}} but there are anecdotal stories of pemmican stored in cool cellars being safely consumed after a decade or more.

A bag of bison pemmican weighing approximately {{convert|90|lb|kg|abbr=on}} was called a {{lang|fr|taureau}} (French for "bull") by the Métis of Red River. These bags of {{lang|fr|taureaux}} ({{abbr|lit.|literal translation}} "bulls"), when mixed with fat from the udder, were known as {{lang|fr|taureaux fins}}, when mixed with bone marrow, as {{lang|fr|taureaux grand}}, and when mixed with berries, as {{lang|fr|taureaux à grains}}.{{cite web

| title =How the Metis make pemmican |first=Lawrence J. |last=Barkwell

| url =https://www.scribd.com/doc/55888732/

| access-date =2013-01-24

}}{{self-published inline|date=April 2023}} It generally took the meat of one bison to fill a {{lang|fr|taureau}}.{{cite book

| publisher = J. Lovell

| location = Montreal

| title = Red River |page=168

| url = https://archive.org/stream/redriver00harggoog#page/n175/mode/2up

| first = Joseph James |last=Hargrave

| date = 1871

| oclc = 5035707

}}

In his notes of 1874, North-West Mounted Police Sergeant Major Sam Steele recorded three ways of serving pemmican: raw, boiled in a stew called "rubaboo", or fried, known in the West as a "rechaud":{{efn|also spelled richeau, rasho, richot, rouchou, rousseau, rusho(o), rowshow, etc. see, http://dchp.ca/DCHP-1/entries/view/richeau}}

{{blockquote|The pemmican was cooked in two ways in the west; one a stew of pemmican, water, flour and, if they could be secured, wild onions or preserved potatoes. This was called "rubaboo"; the other was called by the plains hunters a "rechaud". It was cooked in a frying pan with onions and potatoes or alone. Some persons ate pemmican raw, but I must say I never had a taste for it that way.{{cite book|author1=Myrna Kostash|author2=Duane Burton|title=Reading the River: A Traveller's Companion to the North Saskatchewan River|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1Rp--pi4oQC|year=2005|publisher=Coteau Books|isbn=978-1-55050-317-3|page=160}}}}

{{See also|Métis buffalo hunt#Pemmican trade}}

As bone grease is an essential ingredient in pemmican, archaeologists consider evidence of its manufacture a strong indicator of pemmican making. There is widespread archaeological evidence (bone fragments and boiling pits) for bone grease production on the Great Plains by AD 1, but it likely developed much earlier. However, calcified bone fragments from Paleo-Indian times do not offer clear evidence, due to lack of boiling pits and other possible usages.{{Cite journal |last=Bamforth |first=Douglas B. |date=2011 |title=Origin Stories, Archaeological Evidence, and Postclovis Paleoindian Bison Hunting on the Great Plains |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0002731600040786/type/journal_article |journal=American Antiquity |language=en |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=24–40 |doi=10.7183/0002-7316.76.1.24 |s2cid=163282801 |issn=0002-7316|url-access=subscription }}

It has also been suggested that pemmican may have come through the Bering Strait crossing 40–60 centuries ago. The first written account of pemmican is considered to be Francisco Vázquez de Coronado records from 1541, of the Querechos and Teyas, traversing the region later called the Texas Panhandle, who sun-dried and minced bison meat and then would make a stew of it and bison fat. The first written English usage is attributed to James Isham, who in 1743 wrote that "pimmegan" was a mixture of finely pounded dried meat, fat and cranberries.{{Cite journal |last1=Ngapo |first1=Tania M. |last2=Champagne |first2=Claude |last3=Chilian |first3=Cornelia |last4=Dugan |first4=Michael E.R. |last5=Gariépy |first5=Stéphane |last6=Vahmani |first6=Payam |last7=Bilodeau |first7=Pauline |date=August 2021 |title=Pemmican, an endurance food: Past and present |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0309174021001029 |journal=Meat Science |language=en |volume=178 |pages=108526 |doi=10.1016/j.meatsci.2021.108526|pmid=33945979 |s2cid=233744039 |url-access=subscription }}

The voyageurs of the North American fur trade had no time to live off the land during the short season when the lakes and rivers were free of ice. They had to carry all of their food with them if the distance traveled was too great to be resupplied along the way.{{cite book|author=Carolyn Podruchny|title=Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0AoqiZZZfYwC&pg=PA101|year=2006|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-8790-9|page=118}} A north canoe ({{lang|fr|canot du nord}}) with six men and 25 standard {{convert|90|lb|kg|adj=on}} packs required about four packs of food per {{convert|500|mi|km}}. Montreal-based canoemen could be supplied by sea or with locally grown food. Their main food was dried peas or beans, sea biscuit, and salt pork. (Western canoemen called their Montreal-based fellows {{lang|fr|mangeurs de lard}} or "pork-eaters".) In the Great Lakes, some maize and wild rice could be obtained locally. By the time trade reached the Lake Winnipeg area, the pemmican trade was developed.

File:Buffalo Meat Drying, White Horse Plains, Red River.jpg, Canada (1899), Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-492-2]]

Trading people of mixed ancestry and becoming known as the Métis would go southwest onto the prairie in Red River carts, slaughter bison, convert it into pemmican, and carry it north to trade from settlements they would make adjacent to North West Company posts.

O'Brien, Sam, [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-energy-bars-at-home "How to Make a 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar"], Atlas Obscura, April 30, 2020 For these people on the edge of the prairie, the pemmican trade was as important a source of trade goods as was the beaver trade for the Indigenous peoples farther north. This trade was a major factor in the emergence of the new and distinct Métis society. Packs of pemmican would be shipped north and stored at the major fur posts: Fort Alexander, Cumberland House, Île-à-la-Crosse, Fort Garry, Norway House, and Edmonton House.

So important was pemmican that, in 1814, governor Miles Macdonell started the Pemmican War with the Métis when he passed the short-lived Pemmican Proclamation, which forbade the export of pemmican from the Red River Colony.{{cite book|title=Historical Atlas of Canada|last=Hayes|first=Derek|year=2006|page=178|publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |isbn=9781553650775|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KvtEUChw9uAC&pg=PA178}}

Alexander Mackenzie relied on pemmican on his 1793 expedition from the Canadas to the Pacific.{{cite web|url=https://milkwoodrestaurant.com/survival-on-the-frontier/|title=Survival on the Frontier: How Pemmican Powered Alexander Mackenzie's 1793 Expedition| website= milkwoodrestaurant.com |date=16 December 2024 }}

North Pole explorer Robert Peary used pemmican on all three of his expeditions, from 1886 to 1909, for both his men and his dogs. In his 1917 book, Secrets of Polar Travel, he devoted several pages to the food, stating, "Too much cannot be said of the importance of pemmican to a polar expedition. It is an absolute {{lang|la|sine qua non}}. Without it a sledge-party cannot compact its supplies within a limit of weight to make a serious polar journey successful."{{cite book|title=Secrets of Polar Travel|publisher=Century Company|last=Peary|first=Robert E.|year=1917|url=https://archive.org/details/secretspolartra01peargoog|pages=[https://archive.org/details/secretspolartra01peargoog/page/n95 77]–83}}

British polar expeditions fed a type of pemmican to their dogs as "sledging rations". Called "Bovril pemmican" or simply "dog pemmican", it was a beef product consisting, by volume, of {{frac|2|3}} protein and {{frac|1|3}} fat (i.e., a 2:1 ratio of protein to fat), without carbohydrate. It was later ascertained that although the dogs survived on it, this was not a nutritious and healthy diet for them, being too high in protein.{{cite journal|last=Taylor|first=R. J. F.|date=January 1957|title=The physiology of sledge dogs|url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S003224740004924X|journal=Polar Record|volume=8|issue=55 |pages=317–321|doi=10.1017/S003224740004924X |bibcode=1957PoRec...8..317T |s2cid=129952806 |url-access=subscription}} Members of Ernest Shackleton's 1914–1916 expedition to the Antarctic resorted to eating dog pemmican when they were stranded on ice during the antarctic summer.Alfred Lansing (1969), Endurance, New York: McGraw Hill, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-59666

File:British Emergency Ration 1899 - 1.png, c. 1899, as carried by British soldiers in the Second Boer War, consisting of four ounces of pemmican and four ounces of cocoa paste]]

During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), British troops were given an iron ration made of {{convert|4|oz}} of pemmican and 4 ounces of chocolate and sugar. The pemmican would keep in perfect condition for decades.{{cite book |last=Stefansson |first=Vilhjalmur |title=Not by Bread Alone |url=https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef |url-access=registration |publisher=MacMillan Company |year=1946 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef/page/211 211], 270 |oclc=989807}} It was considered much superior to biltong, a form of cured game meats commonly used in Africa. This iron ration was prepared in two small tins (soldered together) that were fastened inside the belts of the soldiers. It was the last ration used and it was used only as a last resort—when ordered by the commanding officer. A man could march on this for 36 hours before he began to drop from hunger.{{cite book |last=Stefansson |first=Vilhjalmur |title=Not by Bread Alone |url=https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef |url-access=registration |publisher=MacMillan Company |year=1946 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef/page/263 263]–264, 270 |oclc=989807}}

While serving as chief of scouts for the British Army in South Africa, American adventurer Frederick Russell Burnham required pemmican to be carried by every scout.{{cite book |last=Burnham |first=Frederick Russell |title=Scouting on Two Continents |publisher=Doubleday, Page & Company |year=1926 |location=New York |oclc=407686}}

Pemmican, likely condensed meat bars, was used as a ration for French troops fighting in Morocco in the 1920s.Rupert Furneaux, Abdel Krim, p.177 Pemmican was also taken as an emergency ration by Amelia Earhart in her 1928 transatlantic flight.{{Cite web |last=Earhart |first=Amelia |orig-date=1932 |title=The Fun of It, Chapter 5 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fun_of_It/Chapter_5 |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=Wikisource |publisher=Harcourt Brace and Company |language=en}}

A 1945 scientific study of pemmican criticized using it exclusively as a survival food because of the low levels of certain vitamins.{{cite journal|title=Defects of Pemmican as an Emergency Ration for Infantry Troops |volume=3|issue= 10|date=1 October 1945| pages= 314–315 |journal=Nutrition Reviews |doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1945.tb08500.x }}

A study was later done by the U.S. military in January 1969, entitled Arctic Survival Rations, III. The Evaluation of Pemmican Under Winter Field Conditions.{{Cite journal|date=2009-04-27|title=Pemmican|journal=Nutrition Reviews|volume=19|issue=3|pages=73–75|doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1961.tb01895.x|s2cid=252701647 }} The study found that during a cycle of two starvation periods the subjects could stave off starvation for the first cycle of testing with only 1000 calories worth of pemmican.

{{No citations section|date=August 2024}}

Today, people in many indigenous communities across North America continue to make pemmican for personal, communal, and ceremonial consumption. Some contemporary pemmican recipes incorporate ingredients that have been introduced to the Americas in the past 500 years, including beef. There are also indigenous-owned companies that produce pemmican or foods based on traditional pemmican recipes for commercial distribution.

{{portal|Food}}

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• {{annotated link|Mincemeat}}
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{{Commons category-inline}}

{{Wiktionary-inline|pemmican}}

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category|Pemmican}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20000116003121/http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/4832/buffalo3.html Métis Nation in the pemmican trade]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20021219200612/http://collections.ic.gc.ca/notukeu/pemmican_e.htm Experiments in traditional pemmican preparation]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100209232511/http://www.smokylake.com/history/native/pemmican.htm How to make pemmican]
• [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-energy-bars-at-home How to Make a 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar]
• [https://www.gwern.net/docs/biology/1958-drury.pdf Arctic Survival Rations, III. The Evaluation of Pemmican Under Winter Field Conditions]

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Category:Métis cuisine

Category:Native American cuisine

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