Pemmican

Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food. It is part of Canadian cuisine. The word comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, which itself is derived from the word pimî, "fat, grease". It was invented by the native peoples of North America.

Pemmican was widely adopted as a high-energy food by Europeans involved in the fur trade and later by Arctic and Antarctic explorers, such as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, Fridtjof Nansen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Roald Amundsen.

The specific ingredients used for pemmican were usually whatever was available. The meat was often bison, deer, elk, or moose. Fruits such as cranberries and saskatoon berries were sometimes added. Blueberries, cherries, chokeberries, and currants were also used, but almost exclusively in ceremonial and wedding pemmican.

Traditionally, pemmican was prepared from the lean meat of large game such as buffalo, elk, deer, or moose. 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. (About 5 pounds (2,300 g) of meat are required to make 1 pound (450 g) of dried meat suitable for pemmican.) Then it was pounded into very small pieces, almost powder-like in consistency, using stones. The pounded meat was mixed with melted fat in an approximate 1:1 ratio by volume. In some cases, dried fruits, such as blueberries, choke cherries, 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. It can be stored for a maximum of 10 years.

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