Pemmican . . . and Tanka Bars
When early European explorers began to trade with American Indian tribes of what is now the northern plains and Canada, they were introduced to a compact food made from dried bison (or deer or elk, sometimes even salmon or duck) meat pounded into a near powder, then mixed with tallow (rendered fat), and crushed berries, usually chokecherries, blueberries, or cranberries, the acid from which helped retard spoilage in the meat. The explorers called it pemmican, derived from the Cree word for it, pimihkan. Pemmican was dense, high in energy from fat and protein, and stable for traveling. Unlike many portable rations of the time (salt pork and hard biscuit for example), it actually tasted good as well. The Lakota word for the same combination was wasná (they even had a semi-vegetarian version made from corn meal, albeit still in animal fat).
Later, pemmican was produced commercially be several companies, and supplied to expeditions and military campaigns around the world. During the Boer War an emergency ration tin was distributed that comprised a half tin of pemmican and a half tin of cocoa powder. A bloke on YouTube famous for sampling military food on screen recently tried some out of a 120-year-old tin, (here).
I first read about pemmican in the books I devoured as a child, with heroes such as Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, and other mountain men, along with their equally heroic Indian counterparts and sometime foes such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, as well as the Canadian Voyageurs and the trappers and traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. But no one knew anything about it, and I couldn’t find it in any camping or backpacking catalog. The closest product then was the Wilson’s Meat Bar, or Bacon Bar, little bricks of highly condensed beef and pork or bacon. I carried them on a few trips; they were decent crumbled into freeze-dried pasta dishes. But they weren’t pemmican.
Flash forward several decades. In Trail of the Jaguar, Clayton Porter makes considerable use of a product called Tanka Bars while evading hostile forces on Isla San Esteban. I’ve made use of them myself in the field—although, fortunately, not while evading hostile forces. Tanka Bars are about as close as you can get today to genuine pemmican unless you kill a bison and make it yourself. Even better, they’re produced by a small Native American company headquartered on the Pine Ridge reservation, where a herd of bison still roams in a microcosm of the prairie environment of 150 years ago.
Tanks bars comprise bison meat and cranberries and a few spices—that’s it. The only thing they lack from the original pemmican is the tallow, undoubtedly in deference to today’s nutritional guidelines. They are delicious and pack a nice shot of protein, if not the calories provided by the fat (which such arctic explorers as Ernest Shackleton, Fritjof Nansen, and Roald Amundsen found critical). I kind of wish they offered a full-fat version, but they’re great as is. Of course they need no refrigeration, and are shelf-stable for at least a couple of years. I keep a stash around for hiking, hunting, and bicycling. You should too.
Incidentally, you might see a competing product from a company called Epic Provisions, now owned by General Foods. That should be enough for you to stick with the authentic product, but if not, please read this.
