Note 2 — Chapter V · BOAT JOURNEYS AND PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER

It may be of interest to my readers to know just what pemmican is. The best lean beef is cut in strips and dried until it can be pulverized, then it is mixed with an equal quantity of beef suet. To this mixture are added sugar and currants to suit the taste, and the whole is heated through until the suet has melted and mixed with the other ingredients, when it is poured into cans and hermetically sealed. It is only a modification of the old-fashioned way of preserving meat when whole families drove out on the prairies and hunted buffalo. As soon as shot the buffalo was skinned and the green skin sewed into a bag, into which the meat, after it had been sun-dried and mixed with the suet, was packed. As the skin dried and shrunk, it compressed the meat, which in this way was preserved indefinitely. Pemmican is not at all unpleasant to the taste, especially if eaten with cranberry jam.