View source for Pemmican

{{short description|Food mix with long shelf life, sometimes used as survival food}}
{{Infobox food
|name=Pemmican
|image=File:Pemmican ball.jpg
|image_size=250
|caption=Pemmican ball
|alternate_name=
|region=North America
|place_of_origin=North America
|course=[[Main course]]
|type = Agglomeration 
|served=
|main_ingredient=[[American bison|Bison]], [[deer]], [[elk]] or [[moose]]
|variations=
|calories= 
|other=
}}

'''Pemmican''' ({{IPAc-en|'|p|ɛ|m|ə|k|ɪ|n}}) (also '''pemican''' in older sources)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ballantyne |first=Robert Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/awayinwilderness00ball_0 |title=Away in the Wilderness |publisher=Porter & Coates |year=1876 |location=Philadelphia |pages=81–84}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Anne |url=https://archive.org/details/greatoutdoorskit0000ande |title=The Great Outdoors Kitchen: Native Cookbook |year=1973|publisher=Cree Productions |isbn=978-0-919864-29-0 }}</ref> is a mixture of [[tallow]], [[dried meat]], and sometimes dried berries. A [[calorie]]-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals such as stews or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of [[indigenous cuisine]] in certain parts of [[North America]] and it is still prepared today.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lakotarednations.com/2017/11/wo-lakota-making-wasna/ |title=Wo Lakota Making Wasna |publisher=Lakota Red Nations |date=2017-11-30 |access-date=2018-09-17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tankabar.com|title=NANF|website=www.tankabar.com}}</ref>

The name comes from the [[Cree language|Cree]] word {{lang|cr|ᐱᒦᐦᑳᓐ}} ({{lang|cr-Latn|pimîhkân}}), which is derived from the word {{lang|cr|ᐱᒥᕀ}} ({{lang|cr-Latn|pimî}}), 'fat, grease'.<ref>Sinclair, J.M. (ed) ''English Dictionary'' Harper Collins: 2001.</ref> The [[Lakota language|Lakota]] (or Sioux) word is {{lang|lkt|wasná}}, originally meaning 'grease derived from marrow bones', with the {{wikt-lang|lkt|wa-}} creating a noun, and {{lang|lkt|sná}} referring to small pieces that adhere to something.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sacred.indigenous.youth.education.circle.mysite.com/index_3.html|title=Native Recipes|website=sacred.indigenous.youth.education.circle.mysite.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lakotadictionary.org/phpBB3/nldo.php|title=New Lakota Dictionary Online|website=www.lakotadictionary.org|access-date=2020-02-12|archive-date=2020-09-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924041513/https://www.lakotadictionary.org/phpBB3/nldo.php|url-status=dead}}</ref> It was invented by the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous peoples of North America]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient|author=McLagan, Jennifer|page=195|isbn=978-1-58008-935-7|year=2008|publisher=Ten Speed Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities|publisher=Insomniac Press|author=Morton, Mark|page=[https://archive.org/details/cupboardlovedict0000mort/page/222 222]|isbn=1-894663-66-7|url=https://archive.org/details/cupboardlovedict0000mort|url-access=registration|year=2004}}</ref>

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 [[Robert Bartlett (explorer)|Captain Robert Bartlett]], [[Ernest Shackleton]], [[Richard E. Byrd]], [[Fridtjof Nansen]], [[Robert Falcon Scott]], [[George W. DeLong]], [[Robert Peary]], [[Matthew Henson]], and [[Roald Amundsen]].

==Ingredients==
[[File:Aronia prunifolia0.jpg|thumb|[[Aronia|Chokeberries]] (''Aronia prunifolia'') sometimes are added to pemmican.]]

Pemmican has traditionally been made using whatever meat was available at the time: large [[Game (hunting)|game]] meat such as [[American bison|bison]], [[deer]], [[elk]], or [[moose]], but also [[fish]] such as [[salmon]], and smaller game such as [[duck]];<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Merriam|first=Willis B.|date=1955|title=The Role of Pemmican in the Canadian Northwest Fur Trade|journal=Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers|volume=17|issue=1|pages=34–38|doi=10.1353/pcg.1955.0000|s2cid=130451803|issn=1551-3211}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Sherman|first=Sean|title=The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2017|isbn=978-0-8166-9979-7|location=Minneapolis, Minnesota}}</ref> while contemporary pemmican may also include [[beef]]. The meat is dried and chopped, before being mixed with rendered [[animal fat]] ([[tallow]]). Dried fruit may be added: [[cranberries]], [[saskatoon berries]] ([[Cree language|Cree]] {{lang|cr-Latn|misâskwatômina}}), and even [[blueberries]], [[cherries]], [[chokeberries]], and [[Ribes|currants]]—though in some regions these are used almost exclusively for ceremonial and wedding pemmican<ref>{{cite book|title=Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia|last= Albala |first= Kevn|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NTo6c_PJWRgC&pg=RA1-PA235|page=235|publisher= Abc-Clio |isbn=978-0-313-37626-9}}</ref>—and European fur traders have also noted the addition of sugar.<ref name=":0" />

Among the [[Lakota people|Lakota]] and [[Dakota people|Dakota]] nations, there is also a corn {{lang|lkt|wasná}} (or pemmican) that does not contain dried meat. This is made from toasted [[cornmeal]], animal fat, fruit, and [[sugar]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nrcnaa.org/pdf/cookbook.pdf|title=Healthy Traditions: Recipes of our Ancestors|last=Goodwin|first=Janice|website=National Center for Native American Aging at the Center for Rural Health, University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences|access-date= 2020-02-12 }}</ref>

==Traditional preparation==
[[File:Pemmican.jpg|thumb|Demonstration at the [[Calgary Stampede]] of a traditional method of drying meat for pemmican]]
Traditionally, the meat was cut in thin slices and dried, either over a slow fire or in the hot sun until it was hard and [[Brittleness|brittle]]. Approximately {{convert|5|lb|g}} of meat are required to make {{convert|1|lb|g}} of dried meat suitable for pemmican. This thin brittle meat is known in Cree as {{lang|cr-Latn|[[pânsâwân]]}} and colloquially in North American English as ''dry meat''.<ref name="IGladue">{{cite news |last1=Gladue |first1=Ian |title=Interviewed with owner of Pânsâwân Dry Meat |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1WMH65ya3I |access-date=2019-01-29 |agency=Radio Active |publisher=[[CBC Radio]]}}</ref> The {{lang|cr-Latn|pânsâwân}} was then spread across a tanned animal hide pinned to the ground, where it was beaten with flails or ground between two large stones until it turned into very small pieces, almost powder-like in its consistency.<ref name=":0" /> The pounded meat was then mixed with melted fat in an approximate 1:1 ratio by weight.<ref name ="Angier1-107">Angier, Bradford. ''How to Stay Alive in the Woods'' (originally published as ''Living off the Country'' 1956) {{ISBN|978-1-57912-221-8}} Black Dog & Levanthal. p. 107</ref> Typically, the melted fat would be [[suet]] that has been [[Rendering (animal products)|rendered]] into [[tallow]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Pemmican Recipes |url=https://www.wildernesscollege.com/pemmican-recipes.html |website=Alderleaf Wilderness College |access-date=2019-02-23}}</ref> In some cases, dried fruits, such as blueberries, [[chokecherries]], cranberries, or saskatoon berries, were pounded into powder and then added to the meat-fat mixture. The resulting mixture was then packed into [[rawhide (textile)|rawhide]] bags for storage where it would cool, and then harden into pemmican.<ref name=":0" />

Today, some people store their pemmican in glass jars or tin boxes. The shelf life may vary depending on ingredients and storage conditions. At room temperature, pemmican can generally last anywhere from one to five years,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ultimateprepping.com/how-long-does-pemmican-last/|title=How Long Does Pemmican Last (GUIDE)|website=Ultimate Prepping|date=2017-05-27}}</ref> but there are anecdotal stories of pemmican stored in cool cellars being safely consumed after a decade or more.

A bag of bison pemmican weighing approximately {{convert|90|lb|kg|abbr=on}} was called a {{lang|fr|taureau}} (French for "bull") by the [[Métis]] of [[Red River of the North|Red River]]. These bags of {{lang|fr|taureaux}} ({{abbr|lit.|literal translation}} "bulls"), when mixed with fat from the udder, were known as {{lang|fr|taureaux fins}}, when mixed with bone marrow, as {{lang|fr|taureaux grand}}, and when mixed with berries, as {{lang|fr|taureaux à grains}}.<ref name="Thomas">{{cite web
| title =Pemmican Recipe: How To Make The Ultimate Survival Food Like The Pioneers Did |author1=Thomas, Stephanie 
|date=September 2019 
| url =https://thesurvivaljournal.com/pemmican-recipe/
| access-date =2025-07-06 
}}</ref> It generally took the meat of one bison to fill a {{lang|fr|taureau}}.<ref>{{cite book
| publisher = J. Lovell
| location = Montreal
| title = Red River |page=168
| url = https://archive.org/stream/redriver00harggoog#page/n175/mode/2up
| first = Joseph James |last=Hargrave
| date = 1871
| oclc = 5035707
}}</ref>

== Serving ==
In his notes of 1874, [[North-West Mounted Police]] Sergeant Major [[Sam Steele]] recorded three ways of serving pemmican: raw, boiled in a stew called "[[rubaboo]]", or fried, known in the West as a "rechaud":{{efn|also spelled ''richeau, rasho, richot, rouchou, rousseau, rusho(o), rowshow'', etc. see, http://dchp.ca/DCHP-1/entries/view/richeau}}{{blockquote|The pemmican was cooked in two ways in the west; one a stew of pemmican, water, flour and, if they could be secured, wild onions or preserved potatoes. This was called "rubaboo"; the other was called by the plains hunters a "rechaud". It was cooked in a frying pan with onions and potatoes or alone. Some persons ate pemmican raw, but I must say I never had a taste for it that way.<ref name="KostashBurton2005">{{cite book|author1=Myrna Kostash|author2=Duane Burton|title=Reading the River: A Traveller's Companion to the North Saskatchewan River|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1Rp--pi4oQC|year=2005|publisher=Coteau Books|isbn=978-1-55050-317-3|page=160}}</ref>}}

==History==
{{See also|Métis buffalo hunt#Pemmican trade}}
As bone grease is an essential ingredient in pemmican, archaeologists consider evidence of its manufacture a strong indicator of pemmican making. There is widespread archaeological evidence (bone fragments and boiling pits) for bone grease production on the [[Great Plains]] by AD&nbsp;1, but it likely developed much earlier. However, calcified bone fragments from [[Paleo-Indian]] times do not offer clear evidence, due to lack of boiling pits and other possible usages.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bamforth |first=Douglas B. |date=2011 |title=Origin Stories, Archaeological Evidence, and Postclovis Paleoindian Bison Hunting on the Great Plains |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0002731600040786/type/journal_article |journal=American Antiquity |language=en |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=24–40 |doi=10.7183/0002-7316.76.1.24 |s2cid=163282801 |issn=0002-7316|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

It has also been suggested that pemmican may have come through the [[Bering Strait]] 4–6 millennia ago. The first written account of pemmican is considered to be [[Francisco Vázquez de Coronado]] records from 1541, of the [[Querecho Indians|Querechos]] and [[Teya people|Teyas]], traversing the region later called the [[Texas Panhandle]], who sun-dried and minced bison meat and then would make a stew of it and bison fat. The first written English usage is attributed to [[James Isham]], who in 1743 wrote that "pimmegan" was a mixture of finely pounded dried meat, fat and cranberries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ngapo |first1=Tania M. |last2=Champagne |first2=Claude |last3=Chilian |first3=Cornelia |last4=Dugan |first4=Michael E.R. |last5=Gariépy |first5=Stéphane |last6=Vahmani |first6=Payam |last7=Bilodeau |first7=Pauline |date=August 2021 |title=Pemmican, an endurance food: Past and present |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0309174021001029 |journal=Meat Science |language=en |volume=178 |article-number=108526 |doi=10.1016/j.meatsci.2021.108526|pmid=33945979 |s2cid=233744039 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The [[voyageurs]] of the [[North American fur trade]] had no time to live off the land during the short season when the lakes and rivers were free of ice. They had to carry all of their food with them if the distance traveled was too great to be resupplied along the way.<ref name="Podruchny2006">{{cite book|author=Carolyn Podruchny|title=Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0AoqiZZZfYwC&pg=PA101|year=2006|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-8790-9|page=118}}</ref> A north [[canoe]] ({{lang|fr|canot du nord}}) with six men and 25 standard {{convert|90|lb|kg|adj=on}} packs required about four packs of food per {{convert|500|mi|km}}. Montreal-based canoemen could be supplied by sea or with locally grown food. Their main food was dried [[peas]] or [[beans]], [[Hardtack|sea biscuit]], and [[salt pork]]. (Western canoemen called their Montreal-based fellows {{lang|fr|mangeurs de lard}} or "pork-eaters".) In the [[Great Lakes]], some [[maize]] and [[wild rice]] could be obtained locally. By the time trade reached the Lake Winnipeg area, the pemmican trade was developed.<ref name="Podruchny2006"/>

[[File:Buffalo Meat Drying, White Horse Plains, Red River.jpg|thumb|Bison meat drying at a Métis settlement in [[St. François Xavier, Manitoba]], Canada (1899), Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-492-2]]
Trading people of mixed ancestry and becoming known as the [[Métis people (Canada)|Métis]] would go southwest onto the prairie in [[Red River cart]]s, slaughter bison, convert it into pemmican, and carry it north to trade from settlements they would make adjacent to [[North West Company]] posts.<ref>
O'Brien, Sam, [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-energy-bars-at-home "How to Make a 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar"], ''Atlas Obscura'', April 30, 2020</ref> For these people on the edge of the prairie, the pemmican trade was as important a source of trade goods as was the beaver trade for the Indigenous peoples farther north. This trade was a major factor in the emergence of the new and distinct Métis society. Packs of pemmican would be shipped north and stored at the major fur posts: [[Fort Alexander, Manitoba|Fort Alexander]], [[Cumberland House, Saskatchewan|Cumberland House]], [[Île-à-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan|Île-à-la-Crosse]], [[Fort Garry]], [[Norway House]], and [[Edmonton House]].

So important was pemmican that, in 1814, governor [[Miles Macdonell]] started the [[Pemmican War]] with the Métis when he passed the short-lived [[Pemmican Proclamation]], which forbade the export of pemmican from the [[Red River Colony]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Atlas of Canada|last=Hayes|first=Derek|year=2006|page=178|publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |isbn=978-1-55365-077-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KvtEUChw9uAC&pg=PA178}}</ref>

[[Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)|Alexander Mackenzie]] relied on pemmican on his 1793 expedition from [[the Canadas]] to the Pacific.{{cn|date=July 2025}}

North Pole explorer [[Robert Peary]] used pemmican on all three of his expeditions, from 1886 to 1909, for both his men and his dogs. In his 1917 book, ''Secrets of Polar Travel'', he devoted several pages to the food, stating, "Too much cannot be said of the importance of pemmican to a polar expedition. It is an absolute {{lang|la|[[sine qua non]]}}. Without it a sledge-party cannot compact its supplies within a limit of weight to make a serious polar journey successful."<ref>{{cite book|title=Secrets of Polar Travel|publisher=Century Company|last=Peary|first=Robert E.|year=1917|url=https://archive.org/details/secretspolartra01peargoog|pages=[https://archive.org/details/secretspolartra01peargoog/page/n95 77]–83}}</ref>

British polar expeditions fed a type of pemmican to their dogs as "[[sledging rations]]". Called "[[Bovril]] pemmican" or simply "dog pemmican", it was a beef product consisting, by volume, of {{frac|2|3}} protein and {{frac|1|3}} fat (i.e., a 2:1 ratio of protein to fat), without carbohydrate. It was later ascertained that although the dogs survived on it, this was not a nutritious and healthy diet for them, being too high in protein.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Taylor|first=R. J. F.|date=January 1957|title=The physiology of sledge dogs|journal=[[Polar Record]]|volume=8|issue=55 |pages=317–321|doi=10.1017/S003224740004924X |bibcode=1957PoRec...8..317T |s2cid=129952806 }}</ref> Members of [[Ernest Shackleton]]'s 1914–1916 expedition to the Antarctic resorted to eating dog pemmican when they were stranded on ice during the antarctic summer.<ref>Alfred Lansing (1969), ''Endurance'', New York: McGraw Hill, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-59666</ref>

[[File:British Emergency Ration 1899 - 1.png|thumb|[[Emergency rations|Emergency Ration]], c. 1899, as carried by British soldiers in the [[Second Boer War]], consisting of four ounces of pemmican and four ounces of cocoa paste]]
During the [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902), British troops were given an [[iron ration]] made of {{convert|4|oz}} of pemmican and 4 ounces of chocolate and sugar. The pemmican would keep in perfect condition for decades.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stefansson |first=Vilhjalmur |title=Not by Bread Alone |url=https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef |url-access=registration |publisher=MacMillan Company |year=1946 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef/page/211 211], 270 |oclc=989807}}</ref> It was considered much superior to [[biltong]], a form of cured game meats commonly used in Africa. This iron ration was prepared in two small tins (soldered together) that were fastened inside the belts of the soldiers. It was the last ration used and it was used only as a last resort—when ordered by the commanding officer. A man could march on this for 36 hours before he began to drop from hunger.<ref name="notbybreadalone">{{cite book |last=Stefansson |first=Vilhjalmur |title=Not by Bread Alone |url=https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef |url-access=registration |publisher=MacMillan Company |year=1946 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notbybreadalone0000stef/page/263 263]–264, 270 |oclc=989807}}</ref>

While serving as chief of scouts for the British Army in South Africa, American adventurer [[Frederick Russell Burnham]] required pemmican to be carried by every scout.<ref name="scouting">{{cite book |last=Burnham |first=Frederick Russell |title=Scouting on Two Continents |publisher=Doubleday, Page & Company |year=1926 |location=New York |oclc=407686}}</ref>

Pemmican, likely condensed meat bars, was used as a ration for French troops fighting in Morocco in the 1920s.<ref>Rupert Furneaux, Abdel Krim, p.177</ref> Pemmican was also taken as an emergency ration by [[Amelia Earhart]] in her 1928 transatlantic flight.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Earhart |first=Amelia |orig-date=1932 |title=The Fun of It, Chapter 5 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fun_of_It/Chapter_5 |access-date=2024-08-30 |website=[[Wikisource]] |publisher=Harcourt Brace and Company |language=en}}</ref>

A 1945 scientific study of pemmican criticized using it exclusively as a survival food because of the low levels of certain vitamins.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Defects of Pemmican as an Emergency Ration for Infantry Troops |volume=3|issue= 10|date=1 October 1945| pages= 314–315 |journal=Nutrition Reviews |doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1945.tb08500.x }}</ref>

A study was later done by the U.S. military in January 1969, entitled ''Arctic Survival Rations, III. The Evaluation of Pemmican Under Winter Field Conditions.''<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|date=2009-04-27|title=Pemmican|journal=Nutrition Reviews|volume=19|issue=3|pages=73–75|doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1961.tb01895.x|s2cid=252701647 }}</ref> The study found that during a cycle of two starvation periods the subjects could stave off starvation for the first cycle of testing with only 1000 calories worth of pemmican.<ref name=":1" />

== Contemporary uses ==
{{No citations section|date=August 2024}}
Today, people in many indigenous communities across North America continue to make pemmican for personal, communal, and ceremonial consumption. Some contemporary pemmican recipes incorporate ingredients that have been introduced to the Americas in the past 500 years, including beef. There are also indigenous-owned companies that produce pemmican or foods based on traditional pemmican recipes for commercial distribution.

==See also==

{{portal|Food}}
* {{annotated link|Alaskan ice cream}}
* {{annotated link|Biltong}}
* {{annotated link|Food drying}}
* {{annotated link|Forcemeat}}
* {{annotated link|Jerky}}
* {{annotated link|Mincemeat}} 
* {{annotated link|Montreal-style smoked meat}}
* {{annotated link|Nutraloaf}}
* {{annotated link|Pastirma}}
* {{annotated link|Smoked fish}}
* {{annotated link|Smoked meat}}
* {{annotated link|Tolkusha}}
{{Commons category-inline}}
{{Wiktionary-inline|pemmican}}

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Pemmican}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20000116003121/http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/4832/buffalo3.html Métis Nation in the pemmican trade]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20021219200612/http://collections.ic.gc.ca/notukeu/pemmican_e.htm Experiments in traditional pemmican preparation]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100209232511/http://www.smokylake.com/history/native/pemmican.htm  How to make pemmican]
* [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-energy-bars-at-home How to Make a 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar]
* [https://www.gwern.net/docs/biology/1958-drury.pdf Arctic Survival Rations, III. The Evaluation of Pemmican Under Winter Field Conditions]

[[Category:Cree language]]
[[Category:First Nations cuisine in Canada]]
[[Category:Métis cuisine]]
[[Category:Native American cuisine]]
[[Category:Dried meat]]
[[Category:Indigenous cuisine in Canada]]
[[Category:Traditional meat processing]]
[[Category:Fur trade]]
[[Category:Indigenous culture of the Great Plains]]
[[Category:Historical foods in American cuisine]]
[[Category:Cuisine of Minnesota]]
[[Category:Bison as food]]