I have been looking for a good, portable food for camping and disaster kits recently. I’m well aware of the US military’s famous MRE’s. I’ve tried them and they are marginally palatable, last for years and are easy to carry while camping or storing for an emergency. My problem with them is that they are so heavily processed that I’m concerned with them as a nutrition source for more than one meal on any given trek. Hence my search for a tasty, healthy food item that could cover both camping and disaster contingencies.

I was doing some soft searches on the internet and came across Pemmican. Pemmican is a truly North American food used and discovered by Native Americans. It was used as a winter food source of meat that could be stored without refrigeration or excessive salt. I read multiple articles on pemmican and discovered that Europeans had largely ignored it as a source of nutrition for travelers. Except that is, for Arctic and Antarctic explorers, such as Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen who used it as a source of calories, with 16 oz per day supplying all the nutrition needed a hardworking explorer. While I’ve come across many variants for making pemmican it can best be described as 60% dried beef (jerky) and 40% tallow. Commercial jerky is too salty so I use home made with 1/4 to 1/5th the seasoning called for in the recipe and make sure the beef is dry and brittle. Some recipes call for no salt or seasoning, but I like having some seasoning.

The recipe for the aforementioned pemmican is simple. Pulverize dried meat into a coarse powder and add warm (<60C) tallow and mix well. The meat needs to be very dry. A way to check dryness is if you have a strip of dried meat, it should break when you bend it. You do not need to homogenize the mixture in a blender, it just needs to be well mixed. Spread on a cookie sheet about ½ inch thick and chill. Cut into bars and bring on your next expedition with confidence it will satisfy on the trail. The taste and texture reminds me of pepperoni. Some factoids I’ve learned about pemmican: There are a lot of stories explaining that the meat needs to be as dry as possible and not salted at all to taste good and preserve well. Definately keep the Pemmican dry. The tallow can be rendered suet or lard, but rendering the fat source is important. Also whatever fat source you use it should be a solid at room temperature. Using a liquid fat source like cooking oil would change the consistency of the Pemmican. Also adding dried fruit and dried flavorings and spices such as cinnamon or pepper can help mix up the flavors.

When I’ve made it my best results have been with beef and rendered beef suet. I have the dry meat shredded and ready to go when the tallow is done. Once the tallow is cool enough to handle I mix with the meat. Some reading on pemmican can be found at http://www.natureskills.com/pemmican_recipe.html.

After learning about and feeling productive by making several batches of Pemmican in preparation for my next camping trip I got a bit cocky and adventurous and decided to try to make something sweet that would compliment pepperoni-esque Pemmican. I did not want a dessert, but something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I played around with some simple ingredients that I had in the kitchen.

Believe me when I say I made multiple versions of what I am calling my peanut butter and jelly bars; but I came up with something that tastes great and nutritionally is compatible with the Pemmican bars and will also keep for extended periods. I am still trying to see how long they will last as a disaster food, but they will be a great source of nutrition and energy on the trail.

All I use is;
1 part peanut butter,
1 part dried unflavored breadcrumbs, and
2 parts raisons.

Blend the dry ingredients until they are a coarse meal consistency. Then add the peanut butter and blend until it rolls like a light dough. Caution if you have a blender with < 500 Watts of power you may wish to use a meat grinder or food processor. This mixture can overload a weaker blender – I fried one of my blenders. Layer the “dough” on a baking sheet like the Pemmican and chill; once chilled cut into bars.

I have noticed that some peanut butters seem to be excessively oily for the recipe. So if the bars feel tacky, I roll the freshly cut bars in a 1 to 1 mixture of breadcrumbs and cinnamon. This makes them easier to handle and adds a pleasant flavor. With the nutritional value of the peanut butter bars partnered with the Pemmican, it is a nice balance to meals on the trail and I will be letting some bars age to see how they keep.

Post script. I really want to emphasize a few things about the concept of eating an energy bar that is 40% fat. While many people have much too much fat in their diet, if you are hiking you want to carry as little weight as possible and get maximum energy from what you can fit in your bag. Also, if you are on an extended trek a lack of fat in the diet can lead to protein toxicity; sometimes called rabbit starvation. I am not advocating this as a permanent diet at all. However, it will be on the trail for me the next time I’m in the mountains of Kentucky.