Pemmican

I was talking to my mother about beef jerky, and she asked if D and I had ever tried pemmican.  HOLY YUCK! I think I found a food source even worse than peanut butter Cliff Bars.

Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food.  It was invented by the native peoples of North America.  Traditionally, pemmican was prepared from the lean meat of large game. The meat was cut in thin slices and dried over a slow fire, or in the hot sun until it was hard and brittle. About 5 pounds of meat are required to make one pound 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.  In some cases, dried fruits  were pounded into powder and then added to the meat/fat mixture. The resulting mixture was then packed into rawhide pouches for storage.