Comanche Pemmican

Since I live in Austin, Texas my first blog posting will be about food of the Comanches who lived near Austin. Originally hunter-gatherers, the Comanches shifted to mostly hunting when they moved from the Rocky Mountain region to the Great Plains.

Comanche family by Tepee

 Wild horses that had escaped from Spanish explorers enabled this move. When the Comanches discovered the horses, they quickly became master riders and were able to travel vast distances to hunt. They mostly hunted bison (buffalo), but they also liked elk, black bear, pronghorn, and deer. Men hunted in groups and women prepared the meat brought home by the men. The women also gathered wild fruits, seeds, nuts, berries, roots, and tubers — including plums, grapes, juniper berries, persimmons, mulberries, acorns, pecans, wild onions, radishes, and the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. The Comanche also traded for maize, dried pumpkin, and tobacco.



Comanche women prepared meat into an interesting "concoction" called Pemmican, a high energy, nutritious mixture that lasted for a long time. Pemmican is basically smoke or sun-dried meat, that is pulverized and mixed with dried berries and nuts and pressed into cakes. The Comanches mostly made it from buffalo meat, but other Indian groups made it from meat found near their own homes. Often pemmican was given to children because it was slightly sweet and tasted good, sort of like candy. Below is a picture of pulverized dried meat mixed with ground nuts and dried berries. I used this to make my own version of pemmican.

 Pemmican was often carried in a pouch by the men when they left camp for hunting because of its high energy value. Traders ate pemmican sliced and dipped in honey, which they called Indian bread.




So I tried to make pemmican myself. I could have bought raw bison meat from the grocery store. Then, like Comanche women, I could have heated the meat to about 170 degrees using stones I heated over an open fire, then sliced the meat into thin strips to dry in the sun. However, the idea of doing that was not appealing to me...bacteria makes me nervous! (I shouldn't really be worried, because the process that the Comanches used was quite efficient in keeping the meat from spoiling...but I didn't want to take a chance.) 

Instead I bought packaged jerky, and it wasn't even bison jerky. I used beef jerky, and it gave me the same effect. I also bought dried cranberries, walnuts, honey and vegetable shortening instead of animal fat. I realize that the taste of vegetable shortening differs from that of animal fat, but I thought the vegetable shortening was healthier. Animal fat would probably give the concoction a more robust flavor, but I liked it with shortening anyway.

The recipe is below, although ingredient amounts can be varied according to taste.


12 ounces jerky
1 small package dried cranberries (other kinds of berries can be used)
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup ground walnuts
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening


I cut the jerky into quarter-sized pieces, then put the pieces into a food processor. I pulsed the food processor until the jerky was ground into small pieces. I then put the jerky into a bowl, and used the food processor to grind the cranberries. I added the cranberries to the jerky, then ground the walnuts and added them to the mixture. I stirred the mixture until it was homogeneous, then I added honey. I heated the vegetable shortening in the microwave oven until it was liquid, then added it to the mixture. I quickly stirred the mixture until thoroughly mixed. I then spread the mixture onto a cookie sheet, so that it was a small cake. I let it harden and cut it into serving sizes. I probably did not add enough shortening, because my result was a bit crumbly. I put the servings into plastic bags to save...except for the serving I tried. I really liked it and I hope you do to! Pemmican would be a wonderful high-energy snack to take on a hike. It does not spoil, and it has a wonderful mixture of sweet and savory elements. Below are pictures of my final product.

I believe that food can provide insights into people and how they adapt to their environment to survive. I can experience a bit of their lifestyle through their food. The Comanche mastered their environment, the grasslands of the Great Plains, and found many uses for the bison, or tasiwoo as they called them. Many other Indians created versions of pemmican with meat from animals they hunted. 

Making pemmican can be a good project to do with children. An adult needs to grind the meat, nuts, and berries if using modern appliances, however children can try grinding the ingredients with a mortar and pestle. The children will have more of a Comanche experience by grinding, but keep the samples small because it takes a long time to grind. The children will love to mix the ingredients with their own hands. They can even make the cakes once the shortening cools, and I'm sure they will have fun getting their hands into that greasy mixture! 

Below is a link to information about pemmican made by Indians in the Northeastern United States who used ducks and other animals for meat.
http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com/foodplay/2009/12 indian-summer-the-lake-duck-cranberry-wild-rice.html.


More information about the Comanche can be found at  http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/bmc72.html.