Beef Pemmican

An associate offered up some “No Nitrite” beef pemmican from US Wellness Meats yesterday evening to a couple of us. It was described as “the perfect food.” While I am not prepared to confirm the statement “perfect,” I can probably conclude that it was, in fact, “food.”

Pemmican is a Native American food stuff consumed way back by a culture that was not yet aware of the Cheeseburger. It is primarily beef (loosely termed, as it is apparently beef jerky ground into a powder and mixed with water), beef tallow (rendered beef fat), salt, and water. As a bonus in the modern variety, it comes complete with honey and cherries. Not so much for flavor, but for the benefits of preservation. I’m not actually sure what the honey does, but cherries preserve the meat somehow.

US Wellness Meats packages your pemmican product in a vacuum-sealed pouch. It is supposed to remain frozen – made apparent mostly because when at room temperature, the substance is something akin to loose stool. The website recommends you keep it frozen, or at the very least, cold – for the sake of consistency. I tend to agree, though consuming this product cold is a unique experience.

Having allowed the product to freeze at work today, I opened up the package to try it out with some co-workers. Everyone that tried, and some did not, agreed that it wasn’t altogether bad, but certainly would not commit to anything near good either. If it was an issue of survival, I’d probably eat pails of it. As it is more realistically an issue of snacking between meals – it’s a definite “no.” I much prefer my granola or even protein bars over the pemmican. It’s not so much the taste, as it’s fairly mild, but the consistency. The taste serves as a reminder of what it should be, which is inconsistent with what it is…liquefied steak.