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INTRODUCTION
The word pemmican is derived from the Abnaki word pemikan (pay-me-kan) and the Cree word pimikan (pe-me-kan). In the Cree language, the word was originally used to describe the action of bone marrow grease preparation, but later evolved to mean the product itself.
The origins of pemmican are shrouded in deep antiquity. One origin comes from the observation that meat dried in the hot sun and wind or over a fire could be preserved. Likewise, ripe fruit in season falling to the ground under a hot sun would dry up and be edible, or easily preserved. However, the stage for pemmican preparation took place when it was noted that melted fat, suet, marrow grease and tallow could be preserved by storing in sealed containers such as bladders and intestines.
There is no question that pemmican similar to that of today's existed before the historical period. The art of making pemmican was borrowed from the American Indians. It was the major food staple which enabled Alexander Mackenzie in 1793 to be the first European to cross the North American continent. By this time, it was stored in green bison skin bags called parfleches sealed with melted tallow. As the parfleches dried they shrank causing the meat to be compressed. Thus vacuum sealed it permitted ease of handling on long journeys as well as being convenient for storage. It could also be used for emergency rations if fresh meat was not available. It eventually became the food of many travellers.
The preparation of pemmican evolved over thousands of years, for the purpose of storing a present surplus of meat against future needs. It provided calories in a portable, lightweight and highly compact form which made it suitable for travellers. It became the best concentrated, unspoilable and easily transportable food in North America.
In today's context, the dried meat provided protein, the berries vitamins essential for warding off scurvy whereas the fat and marrow were important as a ready source of energy. No wonder it became the ideal staple food of the fur brigades. Dieticians today would find it difficult to concoct a better balanced basic meal or diet without the benefits of refrigeration or preservatives since greens, roots and tubers could be added to the pemmican when available.
From the record, pemmican was made from thin slices of lean meat from large game animals such as: bison, moose, elk, and deer. They were dried over a fire, or in the sun and wind. The dried meat was ground and shredded between stones, to which was added ground dried wild berries. Finally, melted fat, suet, and bone marrow grease was added to the mixture. It could be eaten as a soup, broth, stew or as is. When available, leaves of the peppermint plant or wild onions were added for flavour. It's greatest asset was that it kept well.
The Hudson's Bay Company bought tons of pemmican from the Indians and later the Metis had established a certain standard of quality. It paid a premium price for pemmican made solely from the best of lean meats and only bone marrow grease. This was called sweet pemmican, which could be preserved for years. The record shows that some eaten four years later could not be discerned from the fresh kind, either in taste or quality.
Pemmican was originally stored in the stomach or intestines of animals. The Hudson's Bay Company demanded that pemmican be stored in 45 kg parfleches sealed with melted tallow. It was prepared and reserved as the staple food of the fur brigades. During the fur trade, if a paddler requires 3.6 to 4.5 kgs of meat per day to sustain him, 0.7 to 0.9 kgs of pemmican would provide the equivalent nutrition. Hudson's Bay Company pemmican consisted of 50% dried meat and 50% fat/marrow.
Next to the fur trade, pemmican production was the most important industry on the high plains. It became so important to the fur trade that the Hudson's Bay Company sought to monopolize the pemmican market. This angered the Metis who were the main suppliers. Thus they withheld the supply thereby breaking the attempted monopoly.
The best pemmican was made solely from the red meat of bison cows and young bulls and could be stored indefinitely. Old bulls were slaughtered primarily as dog food or eaten in dire emergencies because of the toughness of the meat. When placed over a fire, the pebbling fat and oils are released making it pliable and very edible.
Since dried berries are easily preserved, only fat or bone marrow grease had to be melted and stored away in a sealed container if it was not used right away. To store pemmican, the use of hide containers sealed with hot tallow is mandatory. In a modern context it can be said that packaged pemmican was the forerunner to the canning principle and process in North America.
"Cut buffalo meat into strips and hang on a rack to dry in the sun. Pound the meat into shreds with a stone. Mix the shreds of meat with hot buffalo fat and berries. Pour the hot mixture into 45 kg buffalo-hide bags and let it cool and harden. To serve, cut off chunks with an axe and eat raw or boiled."
The above is a recipe for pemmican as the Metis used to prepare it after a bison hunt. Experiments in making pemmican, like all other such projects warrant long term planning and preparation. A basic knowledge must be acquired in order to proceed; therefore archival research is mandatory. The necessary equipment must be conceived and made in advance, just as the horse should always preceed the cart. Most of the items of importance will be itemized and explained. They include: hearths/fuel, drying racks, meat, berries, and bone marrow grease.
DRYING RACKS
These were made of dried willow branches gathered along the Notukeu Creek. The cross pieces were made from cut willows, about 35 cm in length. To remove the bark, they were scraped with a stone tool and then seered over a fire. The meat was then hung over the willows at a desired but variable height in proportion to the size of the fire.
The frame with its cross pieces could also be covered with a cloth and used for drying berries. The strips of meat should be well spaced on the racks; and removed the moment they are dried. Some of the strips will take more time to dry than others depending on length, width, and thickness. An ideal place to dry meat would be in the centre of a willow thicket. It would provide an efficient wind screen and a handy source of fuel.
Some of the meat from the experiment was dried in this manner. To accelerate the process, the drying rack was replaced by an open pit barbecue equipped with an adjustable fire box and glowing red charcoal briquettes as fuel. With constant vigilence in tending the fire, the meat was dried in six hours. As a control, the dried meat sample in the display was dried in an electric oven. It took 14 hours to dry at 25 to 30 degrees Celsius with no drippings.
HEARTHS
The main hearth was constructed and maintained with an ample supply of dry willow branches and twigs. However, any type of wood could be used as long as it does not produce a lot of pitch while burning.
The fire was allowed to reach the glowing embers stage before the meat was placed on the rack. Dry willow twigs can be added to the fire to produce smoke if so desired. Since the option was for smokeless drying, an auxiliary hearth was maintained to provide the necessary embers for the main hearth. Warm windless weather is preferable or a wind break should be erected.
SASKATOON BERRIES
Four litres (by volume) of ripe saskatoon berries were washed, then dried in the sun for five days at 26 to 32 degrees Celsius. This time period can be reduced by drying the berries over a small hearth. For practical reasons, a 5 mm mesh screen used for archaeology was covered at the bottom with a cloth. The berries were deposited on this bed, the top was covered with a cheesecloth to ward off the flies. Dried saskatoon berries can be stored indefinitely.
Weight of ripe berries......2.997 kg
Weight of dried berries......743.5 grams
Percentage reduction by weight......75%
BONE MARROW GREASE
Bone marrow grease should not be equated with bone marrow only; it is more complex. Femurs and tibias were used because they contain the greatest amount of marrow. All meat and excess fat was removed. The bones were then cracked and broken between two stones in order to release the marrow. The split bones were then boiled for three hours and let left to cool overnight.
MEAT
Meat is the primary ingredient for pemmican, while preservation is the main reason for its development. For the experiment, long thin strips (0.5 cm) of beef sirloin steak cut cross-grained were used. All sinew, connective tissue, fat and gristle were removed leaving only the red meat. The slices were then placed on the drying rack over the hot coals. Periodically, the strips of meat would be rearranged as they tended to adhere to the willow racks, causing moisture to be trapped at the point of contact.
Meat strips cut cross-grained dry faster but tend to be shorter because of connective tissue. Whereas lenticular slices are much longer, hang better on the rack, but take longer to dry. The meat is dried when all the redness is gone out of it.
The dried meat was shredded using a flat stone as a mortar and a small round stone as a pounder. The rest of the meat and the berries were passed through a meat grinder. Dried berries when pounded produce a thick paste-like product. A Blackfoot woman in the Calgary Stampede was heard to comment, "My ancestors used stones to pound and shred the dried meat because there was no other way. I am not stupid, I use a meat grinder." Nonetheless, the final product tends to be crumbly.
Weight of the red meat......2.613 kg
Weight of the dry meat......958.5 grams
Percentage reduction by weight......64%
PEMMICAN
The ground meat and berries were thoroughly mixed prior to being added to the hot bone marrow grease. The mixture was then blended to produce an even consistency. The final product was then sealed in a bologna-like casing. Finally the casing was rubbed with hot tallow to seal it.
Weight of the dried meat......958.5 grams
Weight of the dried berries......272 grams
Weight of the bone marrow grease......833 grams
Total weight......2.063 kg
PERCENTAGES
Meat: 46.5%, Grease: 40.5%, Berries: 13%. The pemmican was kept at room temperature for one week, then placed in a freezer. This portion of the experiment was completed on 16 July, 1987.
DISCUSSION AND OBSERVATIONS
Pemmican making proved to be a very interesting project. However, archival research gave contradictory information. Authors who wrote from actual field observations are very accurate whereas others tend to be vague, perhaps due to the choice of words or the tendency to summarize.
The bison hunt was the greatest peace time activity on the high plains. Killing a large group of bison took much planning and preparation, which was even ritualized. However, it was nothing compared to the actual purpose of the hunt which was to salvage all the animal resources. Since it was labour intensive, it warranted a communal undertaking. The labour involved killing, skinning, butchering, cutting, drying, and the pounding of meat, salvaging tendons for sinew, breaking and boiling bone. Gathering the fat and suet, cleaning hides and making pemmican on the spot were all part of the varied tasks.
In prehistoric time, only the choice cuts of meat, suet, and marrow were used to make pemmican. Secondary cuts were roasted or boiled, which is still done to this day. Dependence on pemmican for the fur trade made it into a business. It was a guaranteed food supply, and time was not to be lost for the procurement of fresh meat.
Most authors state that the strips of dried meat were pounded to a powder. One observer refers to shredding, which our research has shown to be accurate. Dried meat still contains pebbled fat and oils released by pounding, which also causes heat buildup. For the meat to be ground to a powder, it would have to be dried and cooked to a carbon state. Excess drying of the meat lowered the quality of the pemmican and was considered a waste.
The breaking of bones is to release the marrow and shorten the boiling time for making the bone marrow grease. They should be struck at their weakest point. The femur for example is broken by pounding at the centre of its flat side. The resulting two jagged points are very similar to those observed at the Niska and Napao sites. They imply bone marrow extraction, not pemmican production. Before the coming of the Europeans, broken bones were boiled in a hide covered pit to which hot stones were added. Later, large iron kettles and hearths were used.
This field work brought to mind a possibility. Excavated small cairns having a gravel lined bed in an otherwise different soil matrix; but showing no signs of cultural materials, may have been used as storage areas for surplus pemmican (food for thought).
CALORIES
Archival research shows that 0.8 to 1.0 kg of pemmican was equivalent to 3 to 4 kgs of fresh meat in nutritional value. The Hudson's Bay Company factors calculated a supply of food for a long trip on the basis of four kgs per man per day or the equivalent in pemmican: a ratio of 1 to 5. Today nutritional value is measured in calories. Since half a kilogram of red meat or steak contains 1400 calories, the allotment was 14,000 calories per man per day. People in sedentary occupations today may find these figures preposterous. But on the other side of the coin, the employees on the fur brigades paddled from sunrise to sunset and negotiated numerous portages under heavy loads. The name of the pemmican game was concentrated calories.
The saying that good pemmican should contain 2% flies and 5% hair is but a bad joke. The experimental pemmican was made from red meat, saskatoon berries and bone marrow grease. No salt or spices were added. Rest assured that it was made under the strictest hygienic conditions, even the stones were washed.
Supplemental pemmican was made 23 April, 1988. The meat was all shredded using a pemmican pounder and a large stone as an anvil. An equal weight of bone marrow grease and melted suet were used. The resulting pemmican had a smooth taste and was not crumbly.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
1832 -HBC bought 600 bags of standard pemmican each of 90 lbs. plus 50 bags of fine full pemmican in 45 lb. bundles for a total of over 28 imperial tons.
1840 -HBC bought 3500 lbs. of fat, 450 bags of 90 lb. standard bags of pemmican, 150 bales of dried meat and 500 bison tongues.
Pemmican at Fort Edmonton was stored in 150 lb. bales and was meant for northern posts of the HBC on the Peace and Mackenzie rivers.
Reference:
Liboiron, Henri & Bob St-Cyr. "Experiments in Pemmican Preparation". Saskatchewan Archaeology, The Journal of the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society. Vol. 9. (1988). pp. 43-45.