Pemmican | First Nations Development Institute (2024)

FAQs

Can you use Crisco in pemmican? ›

Do not substitute a soft fat such as lard, bear fat, duck, or goose fat, Crisco or butter. The denser and more saturated the fat, the better. Combine powdered meat and berries, pouring melted tallow until coated. The ratio is flexible, but I use roughly four parts meat, three parts berries, and two parts fat.

At room temperature, pemmican can generally last from one to five years, but there are anecdotal stories of pemmican stored in cool cellars being safely consumed after a decade or more.

Don't use lard. It's too soft and gives the pemmican an unsatisfying texture. You need a hard fat that has a high melting point and solidifies quickly at room temperature. Bison fat works great but isn't readily available.

Pemmican (Creepimikan, meaning "manufactured grease") is dried meat, traditionally bison (moose, caribou, venison or beef can be used as well), pounded into coarse powder and mixed with an equal amount of melted fat, and occasionally saskatoon berries, cranberries, and even (for special occasions) cherries, currants, ...

So, to sum it up, pemmican can shelf for a long time because it is dried to remove moisture and then coated with fat to keep away oxygen. This preservation method allows pemmican to stay edible for several years, making it a reliable and long-lasting source of food.

Just make sure that, as you mix ingredients to taste, you go little-by-little. You can always add more salt, fruit, honey, or pepper. However, good luck trying to squeeze tallow out of dried meat if you add too much in the first place!

There are accounts of people surviving off of pemmican for months at a time. Very active individuals say they can eat one-quarter to one-half pound of pemmican twice a day to help fuel their adventures. Pemmican is a much more nutritionally balanced food source than jerky alone.

Stir- ring in a few ounces of pemmican to some hot water can make a hot, nourishing and appetite-satisfying soup. You don't want to survive on pemmican alone. Strenuous backpacking will lead to daily glycogen depletion, best re- plenished with carbohydrates.

Jerky, here defined as seasoned and dehydrated meat, is porous — when exposed to humidity, the dry jerky actually absorbs water vapor out of the air and begins to spoil. Pemmican, on the other hand, is not porous. The rendered fat in Pemmican seals the pores in the dry meat, so that humid air can't moisten the meat.

Make Pemmican: Animal fat is the basis of this survival food that's been around for centuries. Combine bacon fat, lean dried meat, berries, and nuts and pound it into a paste. Flatten the mixture into patties and let it sit until it hardens.

How dry should berries be for pemmican? ›

Most dried fruits like raisins, cranberries, or blueberries still have quite a bit of moisture in them. For pemmican, you'll want to make sure that you have dried the berries as much as you've dried the meat. You can use a dehydrator or an oven. In a dehydrator it should take about 13 hours to get them really dry.

Vegan pemmican recipe

The fat is quite easy, you just need something with lots of saturated fatty acids which is solid at room temperature (or even below room temperature, as the dish is meant for cold climates). Refined coconut oil or vegetable shortening are both readily available and tick this box.

The Red River Colony imposed on that economic order and, when famine threatened the settlement in mid-winter 1814, Governor Miles Macdonnell (1767-1828) issued what became known as the Pemmican Proclamation. This law was meant to stop the export of pemmican to NWC forts in the West and retain it for the HBC settlers.

If stored properly, pemmican can last from 3 to 5 years.

What is Pemmican? Traditionally, pemmican was made with a mixture of dried meat and rendered fat. Made properly, pemmican would last indefinitely and could sustain an individual for months. Our modern-day version consists of a blend of bison, beef, berries, and other natural ingredients.

If you can't find suet then we have found that grated vegetable shortening (such as Trex, Crisco or Copha) is a good substitute.

Is lard the same as Crisco? In a word, no, but they can be used for similar purposes. Lard is made from rendered pork fat, while Crisco is vegetable shortening made from palm oil and soybean oil. Crisco can be used in pie crust recipes and for frying.

How to choose between Crisco and lard. Despite their differences, Crisco and lard are mostly interchangeable when it comes to cooking and baking, though if you want to bake with lard, we don't recommend using the fat leftover from cooking bacon or pork shoulder.

When melted into an oil, the shortening is helpful as fuel. When soaked into a piece of cloth, melted shortening will act like a candle. The empty can is useful in melting snow for drinking water. It is much safer to drink warmed water than to eat snow, since warm water will help retain body heat.