Pemmican

we used it on a paddling trip once – I really don't like the stuff (for me I just can't get past the though of how much fat is in it) – the fellow we were paddling with loves it though

Colin Fletcher ate it every day on his length of California and Grand Canyon hikes.

I think that Peanut Butter has almost the same nutritional value as Pemmican ….. kind of the modern equivilant

Fat is fat is phatt. Calories are the same. Consequences are different. Original pemmican was made with suet, the hard, sold beef kidney fat. It is packed with cholesterol. Not a good thing in the long run.

The recommendations about peanut butter are dead on. You can get it in many forms with healthier fats.

Here is an old home recipe for pemmican: 1 pound peanut butter (or substitute any nuts), 2 pounds dried fruit (prunes, raisins, currents, figs, anything) 2 cups dried cranberries or graited orange peel. Chopped jerky is optional. Run everything through a grinder, adding a handful or large spoonful at a time to promote mixing. Press into oiled/greased cookie sheets and put in warm (200 degree) oven. Put a spoon in the oven door to prop it open and leave the stuff for 5-8 hours until dry enough to be chewy, but not hard and brittle.

The pemmican making process was a bit of a disaster. We followed a recipe in a meat curring book. The first step was to soak the meat in salt water. We used Elk meat.

Next we put the dried meat, berries, and raisins into a food processor.

After that we melted beef suit and poured it over the ground up meat in a container and left it in the fridge.

The end result tasted ok to me but both of my parents and our foreign exchange student hated it. I think that I will stick with peanut butter. On its plus side it doesn't weigh much and probable has alot of calories and supposedly it wont go bad.