My Jerky Journey

My Jerky Journey

My Jerky Journey

I first developed an interest in making my own jerky after reading several sagas revolving around early Native American life. These novels were filled with rich descriptions of how the ancestral hunters prepared for their hunts then carried through with great success bringing home much needed food for their people. The women took on the tasks of butchering the animals, preserving the meat and turning nearly every inch of the sacred kill into a valuable life-sustaining tool. I mention here the preserving of meat because it was vital to the survival of these early people. Without it, the harsh winters would have left them famished and vulnerable in their continual search for food.

The ancestral native women cut the wild meat and sometimes pounded it before stretching it across large rocks and boulders, leaving it to bake in the sunshine. I thought about trying this method, initially, in my desire to imitate the ancient women and their culinary skills. Not having any good big rocks around, I turned to plan "B". It was a lot of work but I was determined to make my own jerky as close to the "old way" as possible.

It was during the late eighties and I had never even heard of food dehydrators. I stood at my kitchen counter one summer morning and sliced a nice eleven dollar slab of beef brisket into thin strips, making sure to cut with the grain in order to turn out a chewy jerky. I placed my strips into a baking dish filled with a large bottle of cheap soy sauce and half of a bottle of liquid smoke. After ten minutes, I drained the liquid and ran each strip between my fingers to dry them off a little. I proceeded outdoors to the clothesline, which I had already wiped down, and began to lay each strip of brisket over the clothesline, making sure to leave a space between each piece. The flies had already begun to make their appearance before I managed to hang the last strip of meat. I stretched long rows of cheesecloth over the hanging jerky and hoped the sun would stick around. The flies sat on the cheesecloth, the sun came and went that dayand the next day, too. Every little while I went out to the clothesline and removed the cheesecloth in order to flip the stripsand the flies. It was a long process. When I took the cheesecloth down and threw it away, I couldn't help but wonder if the ancient jerky makers worried about flies.

The jerky was good but was it worth the trouble? I had decided that the ancients had more perseverance than I did when my friend called with the good news that she had heard of this thing called a food dehydrator. Mine arrived in the mail and I was ready to go. Instead of hanging my jerky slices over the clothesline and providing a picnic for the ever-ready flies, I layered the strips on five trays which I rotated occasionally over a six hour period. Best jerky ever. Soon, I moved on to making raisins and dried apple and pear slices. I am positive the ancestors would have approved.

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