What does pemmican taste like?

Most people have never heard of Pemmican and fewer still know what it tastes like. In this blog, I’m going to tell you about what it tastes like but it’s not an easy question to answer and it’s going to open up a discussion about taste generally, flavour-feedback mechanisms, and what it means to rewild our palates. 

The truth is that Pemmican tastes unusual. It’s unlike anything else you’re likely to have come across. A friend likened it to a ‘meaty flapjack’ and I think this is the closest approximation I’ve found but it still doesn’t quite capture it. Ultimately you’ll have to try it for yourself. 

Note that because of the high fat content, the texture will change depending on the temperature. If kept in the fridge the fat often leaves a bit of a waxy aftertaste so I wouldn’t recommend eating it straight from the fridge. At room temperature, the tallow has a much more buttery texture which I enjoy more. You can also melt it into more of a liquid and eat it with a spoon or drizzle on other food. When you’re camping, just add a bit of hot water to a mug with your pemmican in and enjoy a meaty soup along with any other ingredients you have to hand. You can even freeze it and eat frozen for a whole other experience. Meaty Ice-cream anyone?

Naturally, the people that will enjoy it the most are those that are used to eating lots of meat and fat like those on a carnivore or ketogenic diet. People with modern palates may find it a bit strange, particularly the plain one. However, the flavoured and sweetened varieties could be much more to your liking if you’re more in that category. 

On a personal note, it has been fascinating to see how my own tastes have changed. Initially, I liked Pemmican and I felt that it was a great way to help people who want to follow ancestral diets in a modern world that makes it so hard. However, over time I came to enjoy it more and more to the point where I now regularly crave plain pemmican. Just meat, fat, and salt. As it turns out, this seems to be a recurring theme. Other people have reported how much it has grown on them after trying it for a second, third, or even fourth time. Why would this be the case? I can’t tell you anything for sure but I certainly have a theory!

Let’s go on a small tangent away from meat and talk about herbivores. Have you ever wondered how cows or sheep know what to eat? Maybe you think they just eat grass but last year I had the chance to spend a significant amount of time with a small flerd (flock and herd) that were grazing a relatively large area, rich with trees, hedges and meadows. The small numbers meant that the animals could eat whatever they wanted whenever they wanted allowing them to fully express their nutritional wisdom. They were also heritage breeds, much closer to their wild ancestors than the modern varieties bred to fatten quickly on rye-grass monocultures. Their nutritional wisdom was self-evident. They didn’t just munch on whatever was underneath them but selectively sought out certain plants that they knew they needed. 

Fred Provenza has studied livestock feeding habits extensively and his book Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom explains how these animals learn what to eat. A lot comes from their mothers and family members when they are young but they also tap into something called flavour-feedback mechanisms throughout their life.

Flavour feedback mechanisms are the means through which animals access their innate nutritional wisdom. Let’s say a goat comes across a new plant they haven’t seen before. It will likely have a nibble and as the plant is digested it will make the goat feel either good or bad. If it was a good feeling then chances are that the plant had something in it that the goat needed. The next time it encounters the plant it will taste really good and the goat will know to eat more of it. However, once it has got its fill of whatever it needs, the taste will likely become much less enjoyable. If, on the other hand, the goat felt bad after eating it, then the next time that plant won’t taste very good and it won’t bother with it again. 

It’s a nifty system and it is thought to be how all wild animals intuitively know what to eat. This is very important because any animal that didn’t intuitively know what to eat wouldn’t last long in the wild. But now you are probably thinking ‘Why do I want to binge eat Pringles and sweets even though I know they’ll make me feel ill?’ Good question. 

Unfortunately, we don’t live in our wild environment anymore, we live in a strange world where food is made in factories with ultra-processed ingredients you’ve never heard of. In other words, it’s not you, it’s your environment. 

The problem is that our satiety mechanism (the thing that makes you feel full) only measures the nutrients that we need, including protein. This is why meat, particularly fatty meat, is so filling. It’s full of fat-soluble vitamins and the highly bioavailable protein that your body needs. It is highly satiating. Conversely, your body has no mechanism to tell you that you’ve consumed enough energy because why would it? We evolved in an environment where it was virtually impossible to obtain too much energy. This is a very modern problem. Ultra-processed foods, which now make up the majority of many peoples’ diets, are full of strange compounds and ingredients that contain a lot of energy but no nutrients. Therefore, no matter how much we eat, we don’t get the nutrients that would satiate us and stop us from eating more. In a nutshell, we are over-eating but undernourishing. 

So maybe you’re in this cycle and you wondering how to stop it and regain your innate nutritional wisdom. The answer is simple but not easy. You have to spend a significant amount of time eating only the foods that our wild hunter-gatherer ancestors had access to. At first, before your palate adjusts, this is likely to feel like quite a boring diet. This will change with time, however. When it does you know that you are successfully rewilding your palate and you can enjoy trusting your body to tell you what it needs. 

So, back to Pemmican. Pemmican is an extremely nutrient-dense food. The meat provides a nourishing dose of satiating protein, and the tallow is rich in vitamins which are very bioavailable. Bioavailability is the extent to which your body can use nutrients. Not all vitamins or proteins will behave the same way when we consume them. More on this later. I believe my body has become more and more aware of this the more I have eaten it whilst also avoiding ultra-processed foods wherever I can. I now absolutely love the taste of pemmican, even without any flavouring. This does change when I feel very full though, when it becomes significantly less appealing.

In time I’m hoping Primal Gift can produce Pemmican that suits everyone, whatever your palate. The paleo-dieters will likely enjoy it plain as I have come to, but there will be options flavoured with wild garlic, for example, as well as fruit and sweetened with honey which I hope everyone will find delicious. Maybe with time, peoples’ palate will adjust, allowing them to enjoy the unsweetened varieties. 

So far I have only found one video of someone of indigenous ancestry making Pemmican. It’s a Cree man (remember these are the people from modern-day Canada that gave us the word ‘pemmican’) and his wife making it with caribou meat and bear fat. They don’t even add salt, let alone other ingredients but they certainly think it tastes good. The settlers and Europeans reportedly used it more like an ingredient, cooking it with onions and potatoes and whatever else they had to make a stew. There’s no wrong or right way to eat Pemmican but I do wonder if it makes sense to think of it as a barometer for how much we can tap into our innate nutritional wisdom.

Get in touch and let me know what you think about it.

References:

Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom (Fred Provenza)

Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food… And Why Can’t We Stop? (Chris van Tulleken)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHkl8i97Mq0 (Video of a Cree man and woman making pemmican)