Pemmican

I tried my hand at making pemmican the other day and documented the process. I found a couple of sources to guide my inspiration and piecemealed a recipe together. I must say that the outcome was less than desirable, but the stuff seems to be holding together quite well. It's a bit greasy and looks and tastes a lot like canned dog food, but I let it sit out on my counter for a few days and it doesn't seem to be spoiling.

If done correctly it should last forever. And when I say forever, I mean FOREVER. Some archeologists supposedly found some of this stuff in an ancient pueblo jar in an excavation site. It was full of pemmican and it was apparently still good.

The idea is to separate the meat from the fat, turn the meat into jerky and the fat into tallow, and then recombine the two. The result is a concoction of dried jerky perpetually sealed by melted fat. No air or water can get in to spoil the meat. This stuff has a high protein and high fat content to maintain fat and muscle mass through the winter. Of course you can eat it any time of the year for the same purpose, but the idea is that food is typically scarce in the colder months and is used to augment your rationed food supplies throughout the season.

So with that, lets delve into the process that I used. You can double, triple or quadruple the recipe to make more, and you probably should if you're going to make a season's supply. I made only a small amount as an experiment. Here's my recipe:

PEMMICAN

yields 12 oz.

1 lb. fat

1 lb. lean meat

4 c water

Separate any remaining fat from the meat and meat from the fat. Slice and dice the fat and meat as thin as your patience will allow. The smaller/thinner the pieces the faster the process will go. If you're using a dehydrator or meat rack, slice it into thin strips instead of dicing so you can hang it and keep it together.

Rendering the Fat

Combine the fat and water into a container (either a pot or stomach pouch on a tripod in a survival situation) and boil over low heat (about 250°F) until fat has melted and the water evaporated (this took

about nine hours for me, but I could have sliced mine a lot thinner; and it works much faster in the oven than it does on stovetop). Careful not to cook the fat or you render it useless.

Remove from heat and let cool. The tallow will separate from the other liquids on the top. You can either scoop the liquid tallow from the top with a spoon or refrigerate and pry the solid tallow from the top and melt again in the pan as I did in the photo below (left). When liquid it makes a fine golden substance (right).

Drying the Meat

Use an oven (as low as it will go; mine set at 170°F) or a dehydrator (or a small fire under a meat rack in a survival situation). Put paper towels under the meat in the oven to absorb the grease. Let dry for several hours until the meat looks like jerky. Let cool, and shred in a food processor or grind between a mortar and pestle until the meat is a fine powdery substance.

Recombination

Once the tallow and shredded jerky are made, recombine the two into a pan/bowl, mix thoroughly, and let cool. It should yield less than half of the original materials in weight. What was lost in both ingredients was water and should now keep indefinitely. Store in a cool, dry, dark place.

I think you can also add dried fruit and seeds into the mix to add some flavor.

I've also heard that you can soak rags in the melted tallow, wrap them around a sturdy stick, and let them dry to make torches.

RESOURCES

Pemmican Recipe. Tamarack Song. 7 September 2009 [http://www.natureskills.com/pemmican_recipe.html].

The Pemmican Brief. Rix White. February 2007. WildeRix. 7 September 2009 [http://wilderix.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/the_pemmican_brief/].

How to Render Duck Fat. Katy. 20 March 2008. Sugarlaws. 8 September 2009 [http://www.sugarlaws.com/how-to-render-duck-fat].

Adore the Adorners

My latest project was inspired by a poem by Robert Pinsky. I found it in an old textbook of mine and I read it about half a dozen times through. I was captivated as it reminded me of all the work that goes into the things we take for granted. The next day I decided to make my own shirt. If you’re more traditional or like my grandmother, you might raise an eyebrow and say, “but guys don’t sew.” And I might say something like, “you’re wrong,” or “you’re sexist.” So why would I go to such lengths and troubles?

I made it out of respect for Koreans, Chinese, and Malaysians and all others who work in sweatshops for pocket change. I made it to understand the labor of the underappreciated. I made it to honor the intricacies and complexities of the fabric and weave. And it was no easy task.

Mine is a long sleeve muslin shirt with a collar, a yoke, and four-inch slits up the sides. I like the shirt because it looks kinda swashbucklery, but not too costumy, so I can still wear it anywhere. The whole project probably took around ten hours, being my first time to actually sew anything substantial. Sewing the collar and yoke into the shirt itself was an extremely difficult task, but I learned something about the craftwork of sewing, and more importantly, I think, about how many hands that a store-bought garment passes through. The clothes you’re wearing probably passed through a great number of hands before it arrived in yours. And they weren’t just any hands. They were human hands—hands of people worthy of dignity and praise that is deserved by every human being simply because they are human.

According to DoSomething.org, there are sweatshops for nearly every manufacturing industry from electronics to auto parts to shoes and toys, and some of them are right here in the United States. Consider these brands for a more humane means of clothing yourself. They’re generally a bit more expensive than sweatshopped clothes, so another alternative is to learn to make your own. Try this place for patterns.

Who's the Host with the Most?

I gave blood yesterday at the local blood sucker's union headed by the regional vampires. I've been in countless times to host my own whole blood. But this time a disillusioned spawn asked me if I would be interested in giving only red blood cells, which is much more efficient (And that was the only part they wanted anyway. Apparently vampires have little to do with white blood cells, platelets and plasma). So naturally entranced, I said, "Of course, anything to help the head vampire," or something like that.

So they rigged me up to this machine full of ticking dials and clicking cogs. The spawn gave me the needle which had not simply one, but three tubes coming off it. The machine started to beep and whir. And then it started to shake and rumble. This was not slight vibration mind you, but had I set a drink upon its surface it would be thrust on the floor by its gyrations. It was like a wild washing machine wobbling across the floor. I asked the lady if everything was alright. "Oh yes," she said, "it's supposed to do that."

I tried to calm myself. I saw a line of blood run along one of the tubes—the first draw. Soon a second line was drawn down the tubular triad. I followed it into the machine. I squeezed the pack of gauze that she had prepared for me (the FDA had disapproved that donors use the stress balls that were traditionally used in assisting of the blood pumping into the arm; they worried about swine flu and cross contamination). The machine, just beside and behind my bed, was looking over my shoulder, as if to judge how quickly and willingly I gave up my blood. It beeped in protest.

Then it stopped beeping and jumping. I looked over to a clear chamber in the machine that housed my blood. It was a lighter shade than the dark, thick fluid that came out of me. It was like cherry juice. Then my arm went cold and the cherry fluid, now cleansed of red blood cells, began pumping back into my arm along with a saline solution. I was unaware at the time of how this would be problematic upon returning home.

O how I wish I could say that this was the end of the ordeal, but the cycle continued for the better part of an hour, drawing and pumping, rumbling and criticizing, clicking and beeping, and I drained of my life force with my arm pulsating and throbbing.

When I got home I meekly crept into bed and slept for two hours. My intestines gurgled the saline solution and expelled the excess water from my body. I felt like Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula. I was in some dreamy stupor, and dying. I must recuperate. I only have two months until my next scheduled appointment with the dark ones.

Let it go

For some reason I can't shake the feeling that my life is cluttered right now. As I sit here typing this post, there sits upon my desk: a camera, my journal, dictionary, a book of poetry, a stack of ledgers, letters, and papers, a book on freelance writing, a book on law for writers and artists, the September issue of Texas Monthly magazine, the instruction manual for my camera, a stack of papers that need revising/editing, two bags of trail mix, and one rumbling and purring cat. Oh, and as he stirs, I find a calculator and a number of pens hidden beneath his expanse.

And what do I do with all this mess? So far I've let it build. Any attempts to cull the hoard has proven itself short lived. But after observing this practice for the majority of my short life, I've come to realize how much better I feel when it's gone. There is a lightness, a freedom. It's like cleaning out the closet during the spring rains. The cleansing makes a space and the spaces are light, and lightness is happy, unlike the burdensome weight carried by the need to store and collect.

I've always wanted to know what it feels like to have a clean closet. I mean an impeccably clean, spotless, near empty closet, wherein only a few shirts hang and a box or two sit upon the shelves. It sounds liberating, even exhilarating. And why wait? Why continue to torment myself by hanging on to all the excess baggage? That's what it's all about really. Physical baggage is spiritual baggage. There is no difference between the two. One manifests itself as the other, and once we decide to drop some weight we are instantly happier, so why do we insist on hanging on to it in the first place?