Topping Presidential Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese reached its height of popularity in the 1970s when dieting in America also took off.     This was the era of TAB diet drink and chain smoking to curb appetites.    With the meat shortages during and after WWII, cottage cheese had been billed as higher in protein per pound and lower in fat than beef, pork or chicken.  It was on that steam that it continued to rise.   By the 1950s, local Cincinnati dairies like French-Bauer were selling cottage cheese in wax coated cardboard packages.

The first two Presidents of the 70s  Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford both were lighter eaters and both enjoyed their cottage cheese, but with some odd toppings and accompaniments.     Yogurt would outpace cottage cheese in sales in the 1980s, but with the rise of keto and diabetic diets, cottage cheese is again having a moment and a resurgence in popularity.

I have to admit.  I have always been a fan of cottage cheese.  Growing up, we were a cottage cheese household.  And I too have a suite of odd toppings for my cottage cheese.   I’m not a fan of the typical pineapple chunks or berries.  I’m more a savory topping guy for my cottage cheese.  I like to top mine with tabasco sauce or sriracha.   But I’m not against topping with a sauteed onion or mushroom relish or with an eastern European adjvar or eggplant relish.   I’m funky that way.   In a bind, cottage cheese makes a good dip for crackers for a party or pot luck.   Throw in some herbs, chopped nuts and you’re golden.

Richard Nixon was no foodie.   He didn’t care about his food’s flavor, texture or provenance.   To Nixon meals were a means to an end and a trial.    But he did enjoy his cottage cheese.   He once said, “I eat cottage cheese until it’s coming out my ears.”      He had his fave cottage cheese – made by the Knudsen Dairy in Los Angeles – flown to the White House weekly.     He ate a dollop of it nearly every day for lunch on top of a pineapple ring, occasionally with a Ry-Krisp cracker in it.   (I too like a rye club cracker or two with my cottage cheese.)   But he became most famous for his topping the cottage cheese with ketchup.    Maybe in a Freudian slip, Nixon said, ketchup disguises everything.     Too bad it didn’t cover up his Watergate affair.    Needless to say, ketchup-topped cottage cheese as a food trend did not take off in America.

The funny thing is that as anti-gourmand as Nixon was, he created some of the most lasting nutritional policies in the 20^th century, and his “chopstick diplomacy” with China opened up trade with that country for the first time and fueled the growth of our economy.

When Nixon resigned, his VP, Gerald Ford (who had replaced his first VP Spiro Agnew) became the only VP and P who would come into office without being elected.   Ford in probably his only funny statement said he was the first Instant President, and preferred instant coffee and instant oatmeal to the original versions.     He went on, “I just hope I prove to be as pure, digestible and as appetizing to the consumers who did not have a chance to shop around for other brands of Vice President before I was put on the market.”     This was quite a food testimonial to the instant coffee and oatmeal industries.

Ford too, was not a foodie, but also enjoyed his cottage cheese.     Raised in Michigan, he was a fan of Midwest faves like tuna casserole, spareribs and sauerkraut, stuffed cabbage and hamburgers topped with liver and onions.  President Ford too, had a weird topping.  His funky-ass topping was A-1 steak sauce, along with a slice of raw white onion.   Ok, I’m a savory cottage cheese dresser myself, but that’s a bit weird. 

Ford would make one of the worst food gaffes of any president while visiting San Antonio in 1976 by biting into a tamale still wrapped in its corn husk.   Mayor Lila Cockrell defended him saying he didn’t know any better and was not briefed on proper tamale eating.   Julia Child did not defend Ford and called him ‘tete de lard’ (Fathead) who lacked the wit to realize what he ate represented something far more important than what he looked like.    When the Fords hosted the Windsors at the White House later that year, Julia was invited but mad she did not get to taste the fine food of Chef Haller.   

Knudsen Creamery in LA – founded over 100 years ago in 1919 by brothers Tom and Carl – still make their lowfat small curd cottage cheese.   They’d be smart to rebrand it “I’m Not a Crook Cottage Cheese.”

Dipped Cones and Creamy Whip Lingo

I’m a dipped cone snob from way back.  I’ve always liked the crispy hard candy shell and liked the race to eat the candy shell before the ice cream seeps out and melts between the cracks in it.   Do you eat off the entire coating first or eat it slowly and carefully together.

The dipped cone appeals to the family of mixed texture ice cream products like the flurry, the ice cream cake, and even the baked Alaska.   I like the cool crunch of the candy coating, and prefer ones that don’t leave a gummy mouthfeel, but that’s next to impossible, given their magic ingredients.

Many mistakenly think that it’s paraffin wax that makes the coating hard.   But that shell effect is due to the presence of coconut oil and sunflower oil, both of which contain high amounts of saturated fat, and sugar, which produces a mixture that becomes solid at higher temperatures than would otherwise be the case with normal ice cream toppings.

There are really two companies that supply these magic candy coatings for soft serve – J. Hungerford Smith, and Phillips. Hungerford Smith is the biggest and oldest – founded in 1879, now owned by the ConAgra group that also makes ReddiWhip and other shake and ice cream syrups, toppings and flavors.

I had Dairy Queen’s new Churro Dipped Cone over the weekend.   And, I’m not a huge fan of their creamy whip ice cream.   I think it’s less creamy, less vanilla-flavored and has more ice crystals than other creamy whips.    But, I have to say their candy dip is great – it’s a butterscotch candy shell with a sprinkle of crunch cinnamon sugar that gives you the taste and texture of eating a crunch churro.   And the coating is about twice as thick as any other dipped cone I’ve ever had, helping to hold off the melting ice cream as you eat it.  

So I thought I’d scan our local dairy bars and creamy whips to see what coatings are available to create the Cincinnati Dipped Cone Trail for you. The flavor I was on the lookout for locally was a root beer candy coating. But apparently the only chain that offers that is one called Wienerschnitzel, a western fast food chain that oddly (with its Germanic theme and that our own Kahn’s invented the wiener the world awaited) has not yet made it to Cincinnati.

Dairy Queen also invented another popular soft serve product, the Blizzard , which came out in 1985.   It’s soft serve mixed with candy or cookie bits like oreo, whoppers, toffee chips and more.   The McFlurry came out a decade later in 1995, introduced by a Canadian franchisee named Ron McLellan.   Then Sonic came out with their Blasts.    And finally, to top it off, Taco Bell in 2021 added frozen pineapple and coconut laced heavy cream to their highest calorie slushie drink,  creating the Mountain Dew Baja Blast Colada Freeze – rounding out over 700 calories – the highest calorie ice cream shake/drink in the world. Way to go Taco Bell.

Locally we have our own fusian version of the Blizzard– the SnoBall – invented in northern Kentucky in the 1930s, which is an icey snow cone with a plop of soft serve in the center.   Incidentally, much like our Nectar Ice Cream Soda, New Orleans claims they invented the Snoball, but they didn’t.     Some local dairy bars have their own term for a flurry or a snoball, like our Cincinnati Chili lingo.   The Cone in Westchester calls blizzards Wizzards.   Trailing on the new DQ churro dipped cone, they have a new fried ice cream Wizzard.      Putz Dairy Cream in Northside calls their blizzards Cyclones.   The Newtown Creamy Whip calls their snowballs Glaciers.

Another interesting new products at local dairy bars are the ice cream nacho – upcycling the bits of their broken or defective waffle cones as the “chips.”  

Not unique to Cincinnati, but certainly the Midwest is Superman ice cream.   It’s three flavors of ice cream associated with the colors blue, red, and yellow – the same colors in superman’s uniform.    The flavors are not defined as are their colors, so each parlor has their own blend of flavors associated with the colors.    It is said to have originated in Detroit at Stroh’s Ice Cream during Prohibition.    And, although I’ve not verified, it seems parlors could do a dipped Superman swirl cone.     This will be one of my tests as I travel the cream whips.

Getting back to The Cincinnati Dipped Cone Trail – here’s the guide to your summer in creamy whip dips:

• Mt Healthy Dairy Bar wins the game of number of dips, offering chocolate, cherry, blue raspberry (also known as Kings Island Smurf flavor in many circles), butterscotch, cotton candy, birthday cake, peanut butter, and orange.    I’ve never seen or tasted orange, so a visit for me there is imminent.

• Dairy Queen has the standards, chocolate, butterscotch and cherry, but released their Cotton Candy flavor dip in 2020 – the only one of its kind, and in 2022, they released the Fruity Blast Dipped Cone, said to taste like fruity pebbles cereal

• The Whetzel Dip in Madisonville has ice cream nachos and a huge array of specialty Sundays including the Bursting with Pride – made of rainbow sprinkles, animal crackers, strawberry crunchies, and marashino cherry.  Their candy dips include chocolate, the only birthday cake confetti in Cincinnati and blue raspberry.

• Zip Dip in Dent has chocolate, cherry and butterscotch dip and flurries.

• Mt Washington Creamy Whip has chocolate or butterscotch.

• Newtown Creamy Whip has cherry, butterscotch and chocolate dips.

• Bold Face Dairy in Price Hill has Chocolate Peanut Butter and ‘seasonal’ , which intrigues me.

• The Dipper in Blue Ash has – chocolate,  cherry, and  butterscotch.

• A few others like Putz, Sweet and Eat in Delhi, and the Cone in Westchester have the standard dips, but are worth checking out for comparison

I’ve asked before if the candy coating could be dipped in sprinkles or nuts, but most refuse, saying it’s too difficult.    But clearly DQ has figured it out with their churro topping.

Given the churro and fried ice cream flavors appealing to the LatinX palate, I’m a bit surprised there aren’t some sweet and salty options at any of the local dairy bars incorporating Doritos or Taquis or Fritos into flurries or as toppings.   We’ve embraced the pretzel with ice cream years ago, so why not with some crunchy hot pepper snack products?

So my Product Development mind says let’s take this to the next level and  asks “What if you put candy piece-laden soft serve ice cream in a syrup-laden ice ball, and encase it in dipped coating on top?   Is that then sort of a poor man’s baked Alaska?  I would call it the Artic Core.   Are you listening Dairy Queen, Sonic, and Sweet Tooth Newport?

President Coolidge’s Cantonese Chef

Calvin Coolidge became the 30^th President in 1923 during Prohibition, but also during one of the most prosperous, seedy, and artistic times in American history, right before it all came to a crashing halt with the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  Flappers and bootleggers were everywhere.   Americans during this time were attracted to the exotic like moths to a flame.   Part of that exotic attraction was toward a new type of cuisine that was making it into the mainstream – Chinese or Cantonese, to be exact.   Refugees from the Chinese Civil War were flocking to the U.S.   Like the Greeks opened confectioneries, the Cantonese operated “Chinese” laundries and chop suey houses in America.

Cincinnati had a Chop Suey culture, that was mostly part of seedy after hour joints in rough neighborhood alleys and within steps of burlesque theatres.     But Wong Yie, a Cantonese refugee opened his Cantonese palace and taught elite Cincinnatians how to use chopsticks and how to enjoy Cantonese Cuisine and how to celebrate Chinese New Year with a bang.

Coolidge was said to be one of the most eccentric penny pinchers to inhabit the White House.  Weaned on a pickle as Alice Roosevelt Longworth described him, he liked simple rustic dishes like pork apple pie, and corn muffins.    He also was said to be fond of eating leftovers.     He and his wife Grace hailed from Vermont and focused their home and state dinners on rustic New England cooking

He insisted that chickens be eaten in the vicinity they were raised – an early farm-to-table testimonial.  He had the White House chicken coop built over Teddy Roosevelt’s former mint garden.   So, it was said the chicken served at the White House and on the presidential yacht had a distinct flavor.

Back then there were presidential yachts, where the First Couple could entertain dignitaries and guests with dinner cruises.   And the Presidential couple became fast friends with the Cantonese steward of the Mayflower, their presidential yacht.   His name was Lee Ping Quan (pronounced Chew-on).   Quan was steward on the yacht for both of Coolidge’s presidential terms.    His career had begun as steward on the naval torpedo boat Decatur.  He had been hired by Chester Nimitz, who would become Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific fleet.   When the Japanese captured Canton in World War II, the invading forces destroyed the two houses Quan had invested his life savings into.    .

The Coolidges hosted dinner cruises for up to thirty people on the Mayflower.  Quan had a staff of four cooks and eight waiters.   He made dinners of up to 20 courses that fused American and Cantonese standards – like fried soft shelled crab on corn cakes, roasted capon with cranberry sauce  and the famous (Teddy mint) chicken chop suey with rice, bamboo shoots and tomato salad.   Quan described himself as a gourmand and said that “food plays an important role in the destiny of man.”   A successful meal, he thought,  engaged all the senses – music, and conversation were as important as visual appeal and flavor.

Coolidge was said to have a huge sweet tooth, and his favorite dessert of Quan’s was his jelly roll, the recipe for which did not make it yet into any presidential or first lady cookbooks.   Quan also famously made Chinese almond cookies that he served with strawberries and cream.

Despite the president’s simple food tastes, he became a fan of Quan’s veal curries which were not simply accessorized with olives, sweet pickles, onions, peppers, eggs, chestnuts, almonds, lettuce, boiled ham, Bombay duck, American cheese and chutney.   Mrs Coolidge liked Quan’s chop suey so much she asked for the recipe and it became Grace Coolidge’s Chop Suey in the President’s cook book a bit later.

Grace was as eccentric as her husband, a lover of baseball and its statistics, and boarded a pet racoon named Rebecca  on the White House grounds. 

Quan would remain steadfastly loyal to the Coolidges even in retirement. It was Quan who meticulously worked on the President’s birthday cake every year. He made sure that these cakes not only made the trip to Northampton perfectly but also arrived just before dinnertime. It was also Quan who created the masterful wedding cake of John and Florence in September 1929, passing along some of the groom’s favorite recipes to the young bride. Quan also gave Florence the traditional hanfu, Chinese robes specially embroidered with blessings for the couple’s future.

Quan ended up opening a fairly successful restaurant in Boston, after leaving White House service in 1930 and then sunk into relative historical obscurity amongst white house chefs.

Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir: The Camp Meal that Solidified our National Parks

Summer vacation season is about to be upon us.    And, as many Americans head to the beach to lie on their asses in literally the same spot for a week, more active Americans will be hiking and camping our beautiful national parks.  In 2022 the National Parks Service reported the parks received 312 million recreational visitors.    And we have two men really to thank for this system of preserved parks – Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir.

In 1903 John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt embarked on a four day camping trip into Yosemite National Park.    The first night they camped at Mariposa Grove near a 209 foot tall sequoia named the Grizzly Giant estimated to be over 3000 years old.

They feasted on a dinner of beef steaks, and fried chicken.   Teddy was a devotee of both grilled steaks and fried chicken and remarked, “The only way to serve fried chicken is with white gravy soaked into the meat.” Teddy slurped down his dinner with a gallon of black coffee, his favorite drink, unlike his other family members, who enjoyed smoky Hu-Kwa tea from China instead. No campfire s’mores for the two as it would be two more decades before the girl scouts would invent them!

After dinner, as the fire crackled and its sparks streaked up into the night sky, Muir and Teddy talked about preservation of wilderness and the questions that had brought them into the mountains.

The turn of the century was a moment of precipitous change in America.   In the 19^th century many Americans perceived the country’s vast swaths of wilderness as  dangerous realms—places that should be mined for their rich economic resources but ultimately tamed out of existence. But by the turn of the century, attitudes were shifting. Artists and writers were bringing new views of the natural world into pop culture.  More and more people found themselves turning to the great outdoors as a respite from a new age of encroaching technology. At the same time, Americans were becoming more aware that wild lands were being stripped of the nation’s most spectacular animals, trees and rivers. Worried about losing a sublime part of the American character, the battle for public lands turned political.

At that time, there were only a few moderately protected wildernesses in the U.S. In 1832, Congress had approved Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas as the first nationally protected land reservation. In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant signed the Act that made Yellowstone the first official national park. But there was no central mechanism to create, protect and manage national parks in perpetuity.

That might have remained the case if it were not for Muir, one of the most vocal, poetic and effective advocates for preserving wild places. A character unto himself, Muir had been born in Scotland but grew up in Wisconsin before heading West as a fledgling writer and glaciologist, where he fell madly in love with Yosemite. He wrote of the stirring emotions he felt there: “It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hand of man.”    Muir is also the one behind the adventurist saying, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

He argued that it would be an incalculable loss if these “temples of nature” were to be hunted, logged and mined into oblivion. Muir—and the breathtaking beauty of  Yosemite—convinced Roosevelt. Already a devoted conservationist, the President returned to Washington fired up to argue that America’s wild assets must belong to the public and must be staunchly preserved by the laws of the land.

The next night Muir fixed the President a bed of boughs and he slept soundly. Roosevelt loved Yosemite, the giant sequoias and the ponderosa pine, the forest animals, and especially the horseback ride to Glacier Point, where he woke up covered in snow. During their four days together, John Muir told him many stories about the geology and natural history of California.

On his return, Roosevelt took a series of decisions to preserve our vast wilderness.  In 1906 he signed a federal law to make Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove part of Yosemite National Park, after a 17-year campaign by Muir and the Sierra Club, which he had founded, while declaring Petrified Forest in Arizona a national park. Two years later he proclaimed the Muir Woods National Monument, a forest of elegant sequoias north of San Francisco, in honor of his Yosemite pal 

Not only did Roosevelt resolve to protect Yosemite—he would go on to sign into existence five more national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges and 150 national forests.

Roosevelt also enacted The Antiquities Act, a precursor to the park service, which obligated federal agencies to preserve “scientifically, culturally and historically valuable sites,” and authorized the President to designate national monuments. In doing so, Roosevelt told the people: “We are not building this country for a day. It is to last through the ages.”

Muir died in 1914, two years before the U.S. Congress created the National Park Service (August 25, 1916), one of Muir’s old dreams

The History of the American Jalapeno Popper

The American Jalapeno Popper is one of our country’s favorite appetizers.    Popularized by TGI Friday’s and Applebee’s in the 1990s, it’s been standardized into a form at fast food and fast casual restaurants and grocers’ freezers.   It’s a gooey cheese filled, typically two inch jalapeno, breaded and deep fried to a crispy golden brown.   It’s usually served with a dipping sauce – anything from sweet chili or Arby’s Bronco Berry sauce to a spicy creamy ranch-like dressing, and is small enough to dip into McDonald’s chicken nugget sized condiment sauce package.    The most common cheesy filling is cream cheese, but others fill with a gooey nacho cheese.    It’s like a hot McDonald’s pie.  If they’re fresh out of the deep fryer, you gotta let them cool, else, you’ll burn your mouth with the hot lava-like cheese that explodes on first bite.

White Castle, Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., Arby’s (cream cheese), Jack-in-the-box, Wendy’s,  Sonic and Popeyes all have versions.     Burger King has Jalapeno Cheddar bites, which aren’t whole pepper poppers, but chopped jalapeno bites in cheddar goo.    Taco bell is testing its new massive Jalapeno Popper Queserito.   McDonald’s has not entered the popper market and shows no signs of following the many others who have.

The grandfather of the Jalapeno popper is the chili relleno, a Mexican dish that has been around for over two centuries.   It’s any roasted pepper, halved and filled with a meat, cheese, and herb mix that is then baked or broiled or even battered and deep fried.     The stuffed jalapeno popper is a Tex-Mex version of the chili relleno.   And, jalapeno poppers are smaller than their chili relleno ancestor, all the better for sharing and double-dipping by the platterful.    This standardized form has made it so popular in American casual dining.

The stuffed jalapeno popper came to the US in 1926 to Texas via a French entrepreneur based out of Mexico City.    A man named Don Clement Jacques had started an import company in Mexico in 1887, importing items as diverse as lottery game, playing cards, grains, seeds and canned foods.    He decided to start his own food processing and canning factory, which became a pioneer in the industry in Latin American.  One of his signature foods was pickled jalapenos, or jalapenos escabeche.

Along with pickled peppers and salsas, Don Clement Jacques also offered jalapeños stuffed with tuna, cheese, and shrimp. While others may have prepared this dish as the chili relleno as well, it was Jacques’ version that first received a mention in the press.

Don Clement used a unique marketing technique to market his products in Mexico and America.   He had imported along with his Spanish foods, a card game similar to bingo popular in Latin America called La Loteria.  It consisted of 50 specific cards, one of which featured a bottle of ketchup made by his company.  He would print cards for the game displayed with his firm’s name and include them with the products.    He even printed a small tabla within tinned rations given to Mexican soldiers to help them while away on duty.   Soldiers played the game with their families when they returned home.     The version of La Loteria created by Jacques is known as “Gallo de Don Clemente,” with Gallo meaning rooster, the national emblem of his native France.    His version became the accepted classic version and helped the game spread outside Mexico to the US.

From that point, stuffed jalapeños were found across Texas and New Mexico. Snack-sized stuffed chiles began to appear in the 1950s, when other import stores in Texas started advertising a canned Mexican product consisting of “jalapeños stuffed with cheese, sardines, red snapper and shrimp.” By 1960, newspapers were running stuffed chile recipes, like one in the Austin American-Statesman that included an illustration of stuffed jalapeños and detailed instructions for filling with “ground beef, chicken, turkey, ham, or grated cheese of your choice.” 

The dish also became more elaborate, with the jalapeños often breaded and fried. Or they could be wrapped in bacon then roasted, grilled, or smoked, which were later nicknamed Atomic Buffalo Terds.  Along with the meats, cream cheese was regularly incorporated, too.

If the jalapeno is  covered in sausage it’s called an Armadillo Egg or Dragon Egg, a take on the Scotch egg.   Stuffed jalapenos expanded even more and were served in restaurants with diverse fillings like crab Rangoon, chorizo, boudin sausage, and Buffalo chicken.  

My sister served one at her daughter’s Baby Yoda themed birthday party a few years ago, called Yoda Ears, which were blanched halves filled with pimento cheese.   They were super-delicioso!     And recently, I had a non-breaded stuffed pickled pepper at an historic restaurant called the Fort in Denver, Colorado.    It was a peanut butter and mango chutney-filled pickled jalapeno served cold.   Although it’s been a signature of the Fort, this Jalapenos Escebeche was invented by New Mexican chef Lucy Delgado in the 1960s.

It’s not clear where the term poppers first came about with stuffed jalapenos, but the first company to launch snack sized poppers commercially was Leon’s Texas Cuisine, out of Dallas, who launched a line of cheese-stuffed, breaded, fried jalapeno product in 1985 called Jalitos.    The company claims it was the original popper product that was nationally distributed.   

But it was Anchor Food Products of Appleton, Wisconsin, who was the first to file a trademark for the term poppers in 1992.   The term  had already begun appearing on bar menus around Middle America at the time, like the one at the Time Out Lounge in Owensboro, Kentucky, which advertised jalapeño poppers among the assorted tasty freebies served at that year’s Kentucky Derby party. 

National chains quickly caught on, and by early 1995, both Applebee’s and TGI Friday’s had added jalapeño poppers to their menus, firmly fixing the dish in the culinary consciousness of the U.S. 

Like so many other trends, jalapeño poppers caught on by shaking up a familiar formula. They diverged, though, by proving their staying power. TGI Friday’s started selling a frozen version in grocery stores, after buying the rights to the Anchor Food products jalapeno poppers.

Today you can even find them on restaurant menus from Tokyo to Pretoria to Belgrade, The ’90s boom of jalapeño poppers may have passed, but their popularity, and deliciousness, endures.

Pemmican: America’s Native First Power Bar

I recently visited the Anschutz Collection of Western Paintings in Denver, Colorado.   They have the largest collection of German-American artist, Winold Reiss’ portraits of Blackfeet Indians.   Most of the over 250 portraits of the Native Americans he painted were commissioned by the Great Northern Pacific Railroad to use in calendars, playing cards, and other swag to promote tourism through Glacier Park and Montana.      They are amazing portraits and although somewhat appropriated for their primitive and exotic appeal, they really do paint an intimate portrait of the Blackfeet nation.

I was able to see what I think is one of the most important portraits.  It’s called Women Making Pemmican.   It’s the only painting in Reiss’ whole series that depicts women preparing food.   And, it might be the only  depiction of Native Americans making pemmican in fine art, one of the most important foods to the American Plains Indians.   The work was painted in 1935, and depicts Cecile Black Boy in a red dress pounding dried meat into powder, and Ragged Woman in a light blue dress holding the animal hide bag where the pounded meat is mixed with melted animal fat and wild cherry paste to make the final product.   A final mixed portion is shown in the foreground of the painting.

For the Montana Blackfeet, bison was the most important meat they ate, and it was used for their pemmican, and flavored with local wild cherries.    In addition to foraged products and meat from the hunt, the Blackfeet also ate duck eggs and a local bulb called camas root that they boiled and roasted, tasting like sweet potato.

Pemmican can be thought of as the first American power bar, kind of like jerky with a twist.   It was probably the most important food of the plains Indians – the Cree, Ojibway, Lakota, Sioux, and Blackfeet of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana – because it kept well, the meat having been dried, and the fat preventing the seeping of moisture in which allows for bacterial growth.   It also needed no cooking, and also packed a wallop of calories that provided needed energy while moving on the trail or on hunting trips or when other food was scarce.   It’s probably more keto than any of the power bars out on the market today.   It was adopted by Europeans involved in the fur trade in the Americas, and later the Artic and Antarctic explorers, such as Ernest Shackleford.

It can also be made from dried fish – typically sturgeon.    Many variants exist throughout the tribes.   First Nation Peoples of southern Canada make it with moose.   Some makers use elk, beef or venison.   Others use their local berries like cranberries, chokecherries, service berries, and wild blueberries for flavoring.   Non-native people who have eaten it say it tastes similar to Swedish meatballs.

Typically the meat is cut into thin strips, and dried by sun or smoked over fire.  It’s then pulverized into a powder, and then mixed in a hide bag with melted fat and flavor additives like berry paste and mixed altogether.   It’s then made into bricks, like goetta for cutting, slicing, and portioning.

At one time colonial Canada law even prevented it from being sold.   It was during the 1810s in the fur trading colony of Red River in Canada.   Provisions were scarce for this colony and in 1814 Governor Macdonnell issued the Pemmican Proclamation, preventing it from being sold outside the colony.   This proclamation sparked armed skirmishes called the Pemmican War between the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company, ending in 1821 when the two companies merged.

As far as which tribe  invented it, there remains doubt.  Pemmican is a Cree word meaning fat or grease, and the Cree migrated from the Northeast to the West as active participants in the fur trade.    There is a Lakota word used to describe it called Wasna, which means “anything ground up.”

It’s supposed to be simple, with only two or three ingredients.   Today it can be found from native-owned business like  Lakeside Gourmet, available on Amazon, whose pemmican bar is made with grass fed beef and cranberries.   But there are others that add salt, honey and other ingredients that complicate it.