, or dry meat, is a type of dried

smoked Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food, particularly meat, fish and tea, by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. In Europe, alder is the traditional smoking wood, but ...

meat product made by the

Indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

of Canada including the

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

Dene The Dene people () are an Indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal, subarctic and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages and it is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term ...

, and

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

. The term is loosely translated from the

Cree language Cree ( ; also known as Cree–Montagnais language, Montagnais–Naskapi language, Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 86,475 people across Canada in 2021, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to ...

as "thin-sliced meat" with the meat used for its production from

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

, or

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

. It is commonly made in the Indigenous community, considered a delicacy, and is also culturally significant. Due to the popularity of the product and interest in Indigenous foods, the product is sold globally and many Canadian grocery chains have begun to sell the product domestically.

Production

is traditionally produced by first slicing the meat parallel to the muscle grain into thin sheets. This can be done either in by slicing meat into separate layers that results in many smaller sheets, or by meticulously slicing a large piece of meat from a single muscle in a rolling fashion that produces a single long extended "scroll". The sheets of sliced meat are then placed on a wooden frame to simultaneously dry and smoke over a small controlled flame. This is sometimes done inside a covered smoke shack. Many North American jerky foods had derived their production from this or similar Indigenous methods. The product is shelf-stable, can kept for long periods without spoilage despite the lack of added modern preservatives, and can be consumed directly similarly to

beef jerky Jerky is lean trimmed meat strips which are dehydrated to prevent spoilage and seasoned to varying degrees. Normally, this drying includes the addition of salt to prevent microbial growth through osmosis. The word "jerky" derives from the ...

or pounded to make

pemmican Pemmican () (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigeno ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pânsâwân Cree language Native American cuisine Dried meat Indigenous cuisine in Canada Métis cuisine First Nations cuisine Traditional meat processing Métis culture Indigenous culture of the Great Plains Smoked meat

Production

See also

References