This would taste really good covered with chocolate.”
Daughter number one had just given me a little heart-shaped morsel that was the color of chocolate but didn’t taste like it.
It was pemmican. Have you ever heard of it?
Pemmican is survival food.
It’s an old preparation used by the Native Americans, the early pioneers, and the cavalry to keep them going on long treks.
Now it could keep a backpacker going like the Energizer Bunny.
Daughter and I were attending a conference and didn’t bring a lunch—and found none that suited us, but she, being smarter than me, had a snack in her purse.
Heart shaped? From a candy mold? How deceiving, but it tasted, well, better than I expected. Okay really.
I learned of pemmican from a book called The Lost Ways by Claude Davis (Hey, is he related to my husband?), and watched a man preparing the concoction on Youtube, in a modern kitchen using all the gadgets we have at our disposal—seemed like an oxymoron.
Daughter’s pemmican began as lean hamburger, and when dry she ground the meat it in a coffee grinder, making the texture fine as a chocolate bar. (Guess I have chocolate on the brain, and I’m not a chocoholic.)
I wasn’t as smart as she when I prepared mine yesterday.
It took me four days.
I began with steak as I had seen the man preparing it on Youtube.
It’s a simple recipe: dried lean meat, dried blueberries, ground together and moistened with tallow to play dough consistency.
Stir up your three ingredients, place the mixture in a plastic bag or air-tight container, and that food has been known to last for 50 years without refrigeration.
Truly a survival food.
Pemmican is packed with protein, fat, vitamins and antioxidants.
(Fat will make you feel full, is essential for energy, for the brain, and the absorption of some vitamins.)
I asked the butcher to cut the steak into strips, but they were about an inch wide. I was embarrassed to ask him to cut them smaller, and too lazy to do it myself, instead I stuck those thick strips into the food dryer.
Four days later they were still moist in the middle. I ground them, making a total mess of the kitchen, using a tiny little grinder than smeared grease, and threw shards of dried steak , looking like wood splinters, all over the countertop.
I put the ground meat in the oven for another day (at 250 degrees) and a day later it was done.
The blueberries were easy.
I bought tallow from the same butcher. It was spaghetti-fied and melted easy. After pouring off the clear oil, I gave the pan (with cracklin’s stuck to the bottom) to the dog.
Lafayette chased that pan all over the kitchen floor.
At heart, I’m a vegetarian, at body, I’m not.
Okay, this is not a food blog, but I have learned that survival seems to be the name of the game, and without food, you don’t survive.
And I know that our two-million-year-old brain has been designed to help us survive.
So, eat your food, and let’s get on with it.
The rub is that beautiful two-million-year-old brain of ours looks for what is WRONG.
No wonder fear controls it.
You know that. Look around.
But here—we’re not going into fear.
Life’s too short to suffer.
I learned from Tony Robbins that thoughts are vibrations that have been around for eons. You know those thoughts : “I’m not good enough, I can’t make it, it’s not my fault. I’m poor, stupid and ugly.”
STOP IT!
You think you were the first person to think such thoughts?
Nope. They’ve been through many brains before yours.
Let them pass through.
“Thanks for sharing.”
Instead, say this: “ I am a magnificent being, full of hope, joy, and happiness.”
Don’t be afraid. Say it. You are magnificent.
When you are in worry, frustration, anger, irritation, resentment, look around and find something to appreciate. This is not positive thinking. Really find something to appreciate.
I appreciate you coming here, reading this.
You make my day.
“What people really want is a masterful life, a magnificent life, which is life on their own terms.”
