Making Dried Fruit During the harvest season, Native Americans prepared for the winter months ahead by drying foods. Dried foods kept longer without spoiling and were easier to store and carry. When out fishing or hunting or gathering, people enjoyed a small meal of dried fruit, nuts, and, perhaps, pemmican. After the harvest, the Pueblo peoples filled basket trays with fruits and corn and put them on rooftops to dry. They cleaned flat rocks and used them as community drying racks for berries and cherries. They cut strips of watermelon, squash, pumpkin, and cantaloupe and hung them up to dry. The melon and squash pieces were especially good for winter stews, often sweetened with a few dried peaches. Procedure: 1. Wash the fruit thoroughly. Get rid of any leaves, stems, or pits. 2. If the fruit is large, cut it into 1/2-inch slices. Squeeze lemon juice on the slices to keep them from turning brown. 3. Cover the board or tray with cheesecloth. Place the slices or whole fruits on it. They should not touch one another. 4. Cover the fruit with a second layer of cheesecloth. Move the board or tray into a sunny spot. Let the fruit dry outside for several days. Turn the fruit three or four times. Take the tray in each night and in the daytime if it rains. Depending on the kind of fruit, it may take from 2 to 6 days to dry. 5. Store the fruit in a covered jar or in a refrigerator. Making Pemmican Pemmican was the most important food staple of groups in the plains area. It was a mixture of pounded dried meat, berries or dried fruits, and buffalo fat, which held the mixture together. Pemmican was lightweight, full of protein, and kept for a long time without spoiling--three important features to the hunters who traveled for long periods at a time in search of buffalo. Although pemmican was made by many other Native American groups in other areas, none relied on it quite as much as the people of the Plains. Materials: 2 ounces of dried beef jerky Blender or food processor Rubber spatula 4 dried apricot slices (or other dried fruit slices) Handful of raisins, dried berries, or dried cherries Wax paper Rolling pin Pie tin (optional) Procedure: 1. Grind the dried beef jerky in the blender until it is chopped very fine. Stop the blender from time to time to scrape the sides with the spatula 2. Add the dried apricots and raisins or other dried fruit and grind these just as fine. 3. Empty the blender container onto a sheet of wax paper. Lay another sheet of wax paper on top so that the meat and fruit mixture is sandwiched in between. Then, roll over the top sheet with a rolling pin until the pemmican is flattened to about a 1/8-inch-thick pancake. 4. Let the pemmican dry between the wax paper sheets a day or two in the sun. Or dry it in an oven. Remove the pemmican from the wax paper by flipping it over into a pie tin. Set the tin in a l50 degree oven for 2 hours, turning the pemmican every once in a while as it dies. 5. Break off pieces to eat as a snack. Store leftover pemmican in a sealed container or plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 22:24:55 +0000
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