PROJECT 3
PEMMICAN
From Native American Crafts Workshp. B. Berstein and L. Blair,
Belmont, California:
David Lake Publishers.
Pemmican was the most important food staple of groups in the Plains area. It was a mixture of pounded dried meat, berries or dried fruits and buffalo fat, which held the mixture together. Pemmican was lightweight, full of protien, and kept for a long time without spoiling - three important features to the hunters who travelled for long periods at a time in search of buffalo. The Plains horsement carried pemmican in parfleches, rawhide packs strapped to their horses. Although pemmican was made by many other Native American groups in other areas, none relied on it quite as much as the people of the Plains.
Supplies
|
2 ounces of dried beef jerky |
 |
Procedure
| Grind the dried beef jerky in the blender until it is chopped very fine. Stop the blender from time to time to scrape the sides with the spatula. | |
| Add the dried apricots and raisin or other dried fruit and grind these just as fine. | |
| Empty the blender container onto a sheet ow wax paper. Lay another sheet of wax paper on top so that the meat and fruit mixture is sandwiched in between. Then roll over the top with a rolling pin until the pemmican is flattened to about 1/8" thick pancake. | |
| Let the pemmican dry between the wax paper sheets a day or two in the sun. Or dry it in the oven. Remove the pemmican from the wax paper by flipping it over onto a pie tin. Set the tin in a 150 degree oven for two hours, turning the pemmican every once in a while as it dries. | |
| Break off pieces to eat as a snack. Store leftover pemmican in a sealed container or plastic bag in the refrigator. |
Inuit, Métis and Indian Art, Saskatchewan Education, May 1991, p. 79