Grandpappy’s Pemmican Recipe – A Native American Indian Survival Food

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Pemmican is a Native American Indian survival food that has a very long shelf life and it requires no refrigeration. It is similar to a Granola Bar except it contains no artificial preservatives. It is a compact energy source that contains protein, fiber, fat, carbohydrates, natural fruit sugars, vitamins, and minerals. It also tastes great because it is a simple combination of meat jerky and your favorite dried fruit.

To make pemmican you only need three basic ingredients:
1. lean meat,
2. animal fat, and
3. fruit or berries.

Pemmican has several very important and desirable characteristics:
1. It uses both the lean meat and the fat from an animal.
2. It conveniently stores your summer food harvest for winter consumption.
3. It requires no refrigeration or canning jars for safe long-term food storage.
4. It does not weigh very much because it contains no significant moisture.
5. It is a complete meal all by itself.
6. It is very nutritious and very tasty.
7. It can easily be made in the wilderness without any special cookware or equipment.

The following recipe uses equal amounts of dried lean meat, dried fruit, and melted fat. However, pemmican is a very flexible food and you can vary the quantities of these three basic ingredients to more fully utilize almost all of whatever food you may have available. For example:
1. Most animals have a lot of lean meat but very little fat. In this situation you should only use just enough melted fat to hold your pemmican together.
2. Depending on the weather conditions the summer wild fruit and berry harvest may be excellent or very poor. Depending on what you actually have available each summer you could use more or less dried fruit or berries in the recipe.
3. During the summer when wild game and berries are widely available you can harvest as much as you can and then process it all into pemmican for winter consumption when little or no food will be available. This is the reason pemmican was such an important survival food for the Native American Indians.
4. If you have more lean meat than you can use, then you can simply convert the extra lean meat into meat jerky.
5. If you have more dried fruit than you can use, then you can simply save the extra dried fruit for winter consumption.
6. If you have very little animal fat, then it is possible to make a simple granola snack for winter consumption by mixing some dried meat and dried fruit together without using any melted animal fat. However, if you have animal fat then you should use it because animal fat is a necessary food for long-term survival.

Instructions for Making Pemmican:

Basic Ingredients:
1 Cup of Dried Meat
1 Cup of Dried Fruit or Berries
1 Cup of Melted Animal Fat

Meat: Use deer, moose, caribou, or beef, but not pork. It takes between one to two pounds of fresh meat to make one cup of dried meat. The meat should be as lean as possible. Trim off all the fat. If possible, grind the fresh meat twice. If you don’t have a meat grinder, then cut the fresh meat into wafer thin slices about 1/4 inch thick or a little thinner. Then dry the meat using a meat jerky recipe. [JWR Adds: To reduce the risk of Salmonella or E. Coli contamination, meat should be thoroughly salt brined before drying or jerking.] Or you can spread the meat evenly and separately on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and dry the sliced meat at 180 degrees F for between 6 to 8 hours, or until it is crisp and chewy. Turn the meat strips over after two hours so they will dry evenly on both sides. You do not want to cook the meat. You only want to dry it. If the meat snaps or cracks when bent it is done. If it bends it still contains too much moisture. It it crumbles it is too dry but it can still be used. Grind or crush the dried meat almost into a powder. If you have an electric blender then blend the meat into a fine pulp. (Note: Or you can simply pound dried meat jerky into a powder.)

Fruit or Berries: Use one or two types of fruit or berries, such as blueberries, huckleberries, currants, raisins, apples, apricots, or cherries. Cut the fruit into thin slices or pieces and allow them to dry in the sun. Or dry them in the oven at the same time you dry your meat jerky. Or use an electric food dehydrator. Grind the dried fruit into a powder but leave some of it a little lumpy to provide for extra texture and taste. Mix the dried meat powder and the dried fruit powder together in a bowl. If you have an electric blender then add the dried fruit to the dried meat in the blender and mix them together.

Optional Salt: Add a little salt to the mixture to enhance its flavor. Salt will also increase the shelf life of the pemmican.

Other Optional Ingredients: Add a little honey. Or add some minced dried onion for flavor. Or add a few crushed nuts. However, keep on mind that nuts contain oil and that because oil goes rancid, the nuts will shorten the shelf life of your pemmican. When adding these optional ingredients you should begin with a very small batch of pemmican. This will permit you to experiment and determine if the results are agreeable to your family’s taste requirements without ruining a huge batch of pemmican.

Optional Granola Snack: If you have nuts, such as acorns, then a better use for them would be to crush them and mix them with your extra left-over dried meat and dried fruit to make a granola type stack. Granola is easy to mix together if you have the ingredients and therefore it should not be prepared before you are ready to eat it. If you prepare it too soon and one of your ingredients goes bad then it will ruin all your granola. But if you wait until you are ready to eat it, then you can easily detect the bad ingredient and discard it and not put it into your granola mix.

Animal Fat: Use fresh beef fat or pork fat or bear fat. Animal fat will quickly become rancid and it should be melted (rendered) as soon as possible. Cut the fat into one-inch cubes and melt it over medium-low heat in a small amount of clean rainwater in a clean cook pot. Do not allow it to smoke. If it starts to smoke then you are burning the fat. When the fat is completely melted gradually pour it over the meat-fruit mixture in the bowl and stir until the mixture is well coated and sticks together. Then spread it out like dough and allow it to cool completely. When cool cut it into pieces about 1 inch wide and 4 inches long.

Storage: If possible, wrap the pemmican in plastic wrap or store it in Ziploc bags or in plastic storage containers with a tight fitting lid. Pemmican can be safely stored for 8 months. If you can keep the temperature between 40 to 75 degrees then pemmican can be stored for several years.

Letter Re: Home Canning Your Garden Produce and Meat

Howdy!
I appreciate the SurvivalBlog site and loved your novel “Patriots”. Keep up the good work!

Let’s assume TSHTF in a long term way. Let’s further assume you have made reasonable preparations for food, both stored food, and open pollinated seeds for future gardens. How do you store all this future food?

Freezing will be iffy since the electricity may become unreliable. It only takes a few days to ruin a freezer full of meat and veggies.

Drying can be effective for some, but not all foods. It’s a very time consuming to prepare the food, and it has to be stored cool and dry, which is not always easy. This will affect flavor and texture a lot. Cooking with dried foods is also different.

Pickling works for some foods, and depends on acidity and/or salt to preserve the food. Limited shelf life if not heat sterilized. Definitely affects flavor/texture. Not everything tastes good pickled.

Canning with glass jars is very satisfactory, with good to excellent shelf life. Color, texture and flavor are often excellent for years. Recent studies suggest that
the nutritive value may be pretty good for a decade or longer, though flavor, texture, color and nutritional value does decline slowly. Shelf life varies a lot depending on the food too.

Now for the real problem with canning. Where are you going to get disposable canning lids and jars and canning equipment after TSHTF? The lids are only good for one use, though the glass jars may last for a hundred years.

The shelf life on the disposable lids is pretty good, and the jars last forever if you don’t break them. I’d bet real money that canning lids become excellent barter goods. [JWR Adds: I recommend that you stock up whenever you find lids on sale, purchasing above and beyond the supply that you anticipate needing for your own use–for barter, and for charity.]

If possible, buy a pressure canner that does not need or use a rubber gasket, but rather, uses precision machined metal surfaces to make the seal. Anything with a rubber gasket will probably be out of commission in ten years or less. A spare parts kit would also be a good idea. Here’s a nice one, though they are not cheap.

Another jar sealing alternative is using paraffin wax. It’s not nearly as reliable, but it is reusable to a point and may be more available after TSHTF.

The most up-to-date directions/instructions/recipes for canning is a product of our tax money (one of the rare good results of our tax money). This is a great book, it costs less than twenty bucks and that includes shipping to the continental U.S. If you do a bad job at canning, botulism has a pretty high mortality rate, meaning that it can kill you the first time. Do it right or don’t do it at all.

[The canning jar and lid maker] Ball also produces a nice little booklet for less money, but it’s not as extensive.

I’m sure there are other options out there, but I wanted to point out the urgent need for procuring canning lids and jars now. Finest Regards, – Troy H.

Odds ‘n Sods:

“The Other Jim R.” sent us this: Goldman Sachs sees recession in 2008. Since this recession was triggered by a global credit collapse rather than just a typical market cycle swing, the recession could be deep and long. (There is even the outside chance of it worsening into a full blown depression.) The nascent recession will also doubtless make the post-Housing Bubble period much longer and deeper. Be ready.

   o o o

Thanks to WW for spotting this article: Shortwave infrared: Next-generation night vision

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Steve in Pennsylvania flagged this BBC story: South Asia Hit With Food shortages. Steve’s comment: “Looks like you beat mainstream media to the punch by about two weeks.”

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Nathan M. recommend this 1-1/2 hour documentary on Google Video: Maxed Out. It does a great job of illustrating the huge whole that American consumers have dug for themselves.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I have had a taste of it myself, and it’s mighty bitter. A debt is a debt, whether it’s margins or mortgages; and debts are all the same, no matter how you try to camouflage ’em. You never get much out of ’em except trouble. On the farm or in Wall Street, if you use the other fellow’s money, it costs you a lot more than it’s worth.” – Sue Sanders Our Common Herd, 1940

Letter Re: Sources for Free Survival and Preparedness Information on the Internet

James:
K.L. in Alaska has presented a lot of interesting sources for information. I’ve noticed that you tend to link Wikipedia a lot when discussing various topics, I thought I would point out that there is a DVD with [a snapshot of] all of the English Wikipedia articles. It is a good general reference that can be viewed and searched offline when the Internet is not available.
There also exists a Wikipedia free DVD download site, but it’s only a small part of the depth that the whole database has to offer.
Great job on the blog! – Bman in Utah

Two Letters Re: Seed Catalogs and Heirloom Seeds

Sir;
I saw your post on The Memsahib’s collection of seed catalogs coming so soon. The reason for this is a simple one: to get your plants to a respectable size, and in the ground after the threat of frost has gone, they must be sent to the customers as early as possible to allow proper selection by the customer, mail processing time, order fulfillment, return processing, and in the case of some seeds, proper germination time before setting out into the garden. I know these things, because I have started a few gardens from seed before. This all plays out to the final objective, which is getting the garden to produce to it’s full capacity in the set length of your particular growing season. While a lot of people just buy their plants at garden centers and so forth to skip all this, some others go the seed route. While there is nothing wrong with this practice at this time, other than the fact that you are limited by what they produce and sell, in the case of TSHTF, this is probably not going to be an option. Everyone who visits this site to gather information to help them plan, should at least try to sprout their own seeds for some, if not all of their produce. And they should be looking at as many heirloom (or “open pollinated” seed)s to plant, so that they can re-seed the same plants the following years, in case TSHTF from the cargo bed of one of those massive dump trucks that work some of the Western open pit mines.

There are a lot of seed sources out there to choose from. Take your pick. Some preparedness sites like Emergency Essentials ( www.BePrepared.com ) sell packs of seeds for a survival garden, packed in a #10 can. I do not advertise for them or any other company, but use them as an example only. Whichever company you choose, order two or three, just to be on the safe side, in case you have a bad year in the garden that year (drought, pests, et cetera). Just like the Boy Scouts, you should always, be prepared! – Dim Tim

 

Jim,
I ran across a web site several years ago and thought you might be interested: Seeds Trust. I liked the fact they have varieties for high altitude gardens. Take care, – Tom

JWR Replies: Thanks for those suggestions. The non-hybrid (“heirloom”) seed vendors that we have done business with are The Ark Institute (a former SurvivalBlog advertiser), Territorial Seed (beware that they sell some hybrid seeds so read the descriptions carefully), and The Seed Savers Exchange. All are quite reputable and have mainly non-hybrid varieties.

Letter Re Advice on Valmet .308 Rifles and Magazines

Dear Jim:
I need your advice. Years ago, when it appeared likely that some type of an ‘assault weapon’ ban would be enacted, I began to look for a semi-automatic rifle which would be suitable for hunting, but which would also possess the absolute reliability and durability of a military weapon. I wanted something which wouldn’t look too ‘threatening’ to people who were not comfortable around military-style firearms, and something a bit more powerful, with greater penetrating ability and longer range than typical .223 based weapons.

I settled on a little-known rifle, the .308 Hunter made by Valmet Company of Finland. It boasted one of the best AK mechanisms ever made, fired the most satisfactory 7.62 NATO or .308 Winchester cartridge, and cleverly concealed it’s ‘mean looking’ gas tube and mechanism under conventional-looking wooden stocks.

My Valmet Hunter came with three magazines, one each of: 5, 9 and 20 rounds capacity. I did not attempt to add any extra magazines at that time. Sadly, our family’s home back then, was located in the populous Baltimore-Washington corridor, and opportunities to ‘exercise’ my Valmet were infrequent.

Now I live in a small south-central Pennsylvania town, and my wife and I are working feverishly to improve our family preparedness situation. Regrettably, during the intervening years, a ‘friend’ managed to lose the 20-round magazine, Valmet went out of business (After 40 years?!!) , and magazines for the hunter have become unaffordable at best and unobtainable in general! In-spite of the fact that the Valmet is not the most accurate rifle for long range shooting, I have become quite fond of it, and I am reluctant to let it go, but a personal protection weapon with only two small magazines is not the most useful.

What would you advise? Our family has very limited means. Right now we have only two handguns, a shotgun, one small caliber and one larger caliber rifle (the Valmet) . Should we give-up on the Valmet, sell it, and buy something else? Or, keep vainly searching for magazines which I might be able to hammer, file and grind to fit what we’ve got? Sincerely, Steve W.

JWR Replies: If you can find magazines, then keep that Valmet! OBTW, you can tell your friend that he lost a magazine that is now worth between $250 and $300.

My wife a has a shortened Valmet .308 Hunter (called a “Petra” in Finland”) with a Trijicon 3-9x scope, and she loves it. When I offered to build an L1A1 for her in the same stock and barrel dimensions, for the sake of magazine compatibility with our primary rifles, she refused to part with it. Luckily we had bought 9 spare 20 round Valmet magazines back when they were still affordable.
I recommend that you buy at least of a dozen of the 12 and 25 round Galil .308 “waffle” magazines (much easier to find than Valmet mags!) and have them converted to fit Valmet M76/Hunter pattern, by a competent gunsmith.
One good place to find 25 round Galil .308 magazines is Buddy Hinton’s board. (You might try a “WTB” post there.) Some very inexpensive Galil 12 round .308 magazines–originally made for blank firing, but the the blocking plate is quick and easy to remove–are available from WhatACountry.com. OBTW, when you call, please tell Yasha that Jim Rawles sent you. You might also try Ohio Rapidfire (ORF) as a source for 25 rounders. They have apparently tapped into all of the importers for magazines from Israel since ORF has started building Galils in the US with surplus parts sets and American-made receivers.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"At this point the debate is not about a soft landing or hard landing; it is about how hard the hard landing will be." – Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University

Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $340. The auction is for a scarce original 1980s-vintage Heckler und Koch 19mm Emergency Flare Launcher (EFL) aka “Notsignalgerät“ from my personal collection. It comes with three magazines and 28 scarce original German 19mm flares–10 red, 10 white, and 8 green. Together, this package is worth approximately $400. It is not classified as a “firearm” under Federal law. (Consult your state and local laws before bidding.) Sorry, no overseas bids will be accepted for this auction. This auction ends on January 15th. Please e-mail us your bids, in $10 increments.

Understanding Labor, Wealth, and Real Money

Our generation in the First World is presently living in a time of unprecedented wealth, luxury, and leisure. Technology has allowed huge advances in transportation, health care, and commerce. But much of the “wealth” that has been created is transitory.

Real Wealth

In essence, the only real wealth in the world is extractive. Extractive wealth come from mining, oil drilling, timber cutting, farming, ranching, or fishing. Manufacturing, while important, is essentially re-arranging what was originally extracted. And all other “wealth creation” in the so-called service economy is even more abstract–it is merely shuffling around bits of paper or electronic digits that represent someone else’s original extractive labor, or manufacturing labor.

Our society has put unrealistic values on services. What would you rather own? One share of Google stock (currently worth around $650), or 10 shares of Caterpillar, Inc. (“Cat”) stock–also currently worth around $650.) Google does not produce any tangible products. They only provide a service. Their capital assets are a just office buildings, computers, desks, and chairs. In contrast, Cat has huge factories with almost 100,000 employees that produce many thousands of machines each year that can be used to extract real wealth through mining, farming, and forestry. But oddly, the market capitalization of Google is larger than that of Cat. What is wrong with this picture?

Now consider this: What would you rather own? 12 shares of Caterpillar Tractor stock (currently worth around $850), or an ounce of gold (also currently worth around $850)? The Caterpillar corporation could go bankrupt, making your shares of Cat stock worthless. (Just ask anyone that owned Pan-Am stock. Those stock certificates are now useful only as bird cage liner.) Can the value of an ounce of gold ever reach zero? Certainly not.

Letter Re: Prepared Individuals and the OODA Loop

Jim-
You are probably familiar with Bill Whittle’s web site. Whittle’s writings are always arresting. His latest essay has relevance for all of us SurvivalBlog readers who are going through OODA loops [“Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act”] unwittingly and therefore inefficiently. His essay observes that although OOD is far more important than Action, success after all depends on Action–done with speed. So this subject is timely for those of us watching events unfolding. Many are pretty good at Observing and Orienting. Fewer are Deciding (which is a concrete term–not ephemeral “planning”).
Your site is very good at presenting the issues with an underlying OODA concept. It’s up to readers to understand it and to Act!
Maybe Whittle’s essay will help. – Bob B.

Letter Re: Preparedness Implications of the Global Food Shortages

Jim,
I thought you might find this interesting as I recall a posting about this some time back. Here is a link to an interesting article about a foreseen food shortage that is described as not if but when it happens.

I would like to point out the implication of this towards those who are interested in survival in that it would directly impact those trying to establish long term food storage using raw ingredients such as wheat and corn as they are highlighted in this article. The United States has more than enough ability to feed our nation and pretty much all nations around the world with our domestic food growth capabilities, however, the irony is that we have over a period of time reduced that output and depend more on imports. Yet another reason why government involvement makes absolutely no sense at any level with decisions made 30, 40, and 50 years ago impacting us today in such negative ways.

I have personally felt it would be more constructive to grow and store your own food while you can still readily by food for your day to day needs. This would serve a couple purposes; the practical experience of growing crops in volume, and of course the cost saving of producing your own long term food stores minus the Mylar bags and storage containers. Your brother in Liberty, – Dave in Florida

Letter Re: North Dakota as a Retreat Locale

Jim,
I couldn’t help but enjoy and giggle at the article that painted North Dakota so empty, old, and bleak. I am proud to be a North Dakotan, and find living here a blessing. “Brutal climate”, well it is the debt we North Dakotans pay to live in a beautiful land, with solid people, and raise our children in a nurturing environment. Young, strong, very well educated youth are our best export . Of course grain, oil, and livestock are good too. And, I regularly see youth returning back to good ole North Dakota for the quality of life once they figure out the grass really is greener here; I did! I’m betting most of your blog readers are strong enough to handle a North Dakota winter – it’s a character builder! “Nuclear weapons”, well, every place has its down side. There are many places well west of the [nuclear missile] silos, and with our solid westerly winds, I don’t worry too much. Finally, “lack of jobs” … this is a bit misleading, to say the least. We are desperate for reliable, solid people who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Especially in Western North Dakota, the oil industry is especially desperate for good workers and starting them out at mid-$20s per hour. A person can make that go a long way in an area that has land prices starting at $500 to $1,000 per acre. Something to consider for people looking for a little freedom. Here, one does not need to buy a whole town for concealed carry. Is that really how bad it is in other parts of the country? Spike in ND

JWR Replies: Thanks for your comments. I rank North Dakota 8th out of my list of 19 western states, for retreat potential. I would probably rank it higher if it weren’t for its harsh climate. You can of course make up for a lot of that by building a large greenhouse and by keeping extra home heating fuel on hand. I advise keeping a three year supply, whether you heat with coal, firewood, propane, or home heating oil.

All of North Dakota is potentially down wind of nuclear targets in Montana, most notably Malmstrom AFB and extensive surrounding missile fields. I recommend that every family in North America have a fallout shelter, since in this age of terrorism you never know when and where the next nuke will be detonated. (And terrorist nukes will almost assuredly be ground bursts that will kick up plenty of fallout.)