Edible Pemmican, Anybody?

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

My first two attempts at making pemmican were complete

failures. I used organic beef jerky (homemade, from eye of round,

with no flavoring) and buffalo tallow (also rendered by me) each

time. In my first attempt I used too much tallow (which tastes and

smells revolting by itself, IMO) and not enough beef, which wasn't

even sufficiently pulverized . I managed to force down about 50 g,

but became nauseated. In my second attempt, I used finely ground

jerky (a blender works pretty well) and slightly less tallow than I

should have. It, too, was nauseating, but not nearly as bad as the

first batch. Has anybody actually made edible pemmican? I've come

across dozens of recipes, but most call for lots of honey, peanut

butter, too much fruit, etc. I want a recipe that tastes OK (not

even " good " ), makes use of tallow as a binding agent, keeps sugar

content to a minimum, and totally excludes artificial/processed

substances (teryaki, worchestershire, etc.). I plan to refrigerate

the pemmican, if necessary, and will consume it almost daily, so it

doesn't have to possess a long shelf life. I'll continue to

experiment, of course, but a wise person might save me lots of time

and money. Thanks in advance.

Dan

[Guest guest]

Hey Dan,

I don't have a recipe for you, but I do have an idea that I've been hoping

to try out for a " non-traditional " flavor of pemmican. Note, however, that

I have NOT tried it yet. In fact, it's been over 10 years since I've made

any pemmican. So experiment at your own risk! :-)

One of the principal differences is that I wanted to do away with the

tallow, but what I want to replace it with is extra virgin coconut oil. The

main reason is that I didn't want to cook the animal fat so that I wouldn't

be destroying any of the omega 3 FAs. The flavorings for the meat (other

than the coconut oil itself) would be fish sauce (also provides some or all

of the salt) and/or sea salt, thai chili paste to taste, and shredded

coconut. Depending on your carb goals for the finished product, you can add

honey, dried pineapple and/or dried papaya. The coconut oil should be your

main binding agent. On my mind's tongue, it's delicious, but that doesn't

*always* translate to being delicious on the real tongue. I also really

like southeast asian cuisine. If you don't like thai or vietnamese, this

probably isn't the recipe for you! :-)

In the same theme, I'd like to try pounding kaffir lime leaves, lime zest

and lemon grass in a mortar and pestle and mix that with honey, lime juice

and fish sauce (and/or salt). Use that mixture to brine the meat overnight.

Dry the meat with the remaining brine. Pulverize the whole mess mix again

with coconut oil.

I also want to find out about the relative perishability of the tiny dried

whole shrimp (long-grain rice size). I'd like to try a surf & turf

variation on both of the above substituting the shrimp for a portion of the

meat and using only sea salt instead of the fish sauce since I think it

would start to get overpoweringly fishy otherwise. If it works, this would

also provide the benefit of a TON of minerals and vitamin D from the shrimp.

Other variations:

Taco meat seasonings, tallow or coconut oil as binder,

papaya/mango/pineapple

Mole paste (the spicy chocolate stuff in mexican cuisine), tallow or coconut

oil, honey/raisins/dates

Sun-dried tomato flakes, italian herbs and garlic with tallow

Hope that gives you some ideas...

By the way, I'm not really a raw fooder, but I also liked that using virgin

coconut oil would actually enable the entire thing to be made only with

unheated ingredients.

If anybody tries this or anything like it, please let me know how it turns

out!

Thanks!