Native Americans Dryed Meat Jerky
"Jerky...a name derived via Spanish from the native Peruvian "charqui," meaning dried meat. The noun spawned a verb. Jerking meat consists in cutting it up into long strips and then drying these in the sun or at a fire. The practice was widespread among American Indians and among colonists in pioneering days. In modern times jerky occupies a niche in the nostalgic realm of 'trail foods'. "
Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999
Jerky (charqui) is a dried meat product. This sensible preservation method was employed by Native Americans and frontiersmen. Buffalo (aka American Bison) was a popular meat source. Food historians tell us the practice may have originated in Peru. "In South America, where there has been a plentitude of meat for hundreds of years, simple drying traditions survive, at least among the poor. The Native Americans on the arid southern borderlands sun-dried venison and buffalo, and one can still find dried beef in the form of tassajo, which is made with strips of meat dipped in maize flour, dried in the hot sun and wind, then tightly rolled up into balls to be carried easily on journeys.
The modern American jerked beef" is derived from thin slices of air-dried meat called "charqui." This originated in Peru and was used to preserve excess game after large hunts, though later beef was more usually used. Charqui, a vital food for the western pioneers, was often broken up and crushed between large stones and then boiled before eating."
Pickled, Potted and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the World, Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000
"Jerky...Beef that has been cut thin and dried in the sun. The word comes from the Spanish charqui', which appears in English in 1700 as a verb, jerk' than as a noun in the nineteenth century. Jerky, in the form of pemmican, was a staple food among the native Americans on the plains. It is very rich in protein and may be cooked in a soup or smoked, but more commonly it is sold as a 'meat snack' in the form of a thin stick sold at convenience stores and bars."
Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999
"Jerky...a name derived via Spanish from the native Peruvian "charqui," meaning dried meat. The noun spawned a verb. Jerking meat consists in cutting it up into long strips and then drying these in the sun or at a fire. The practice was widespread among American Indians and among colonists in pioneering days. In modern times jerky occupies a niche in the nostalgic realm of 'trail foods'."
Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999
"Most land travelers...expected to live off the terrain, but took a store of provisions with them by way of insurance. Such provisions had to be light and compact when the traveler moved on his own feet and was his own beast of burden, and from native Americans, north and south, the European explorer learned the virtues of two sustaining and lightweight meat products, pemmican and charqui...Charqui was the South American alternative [to pemmican] and may have originated in Peru as a way of preserving some of the game slaughtered at communal hunts, although when cattle became established beef was more generally used.
The method was to cut boned and defatted meat into quarter-inch slices, which were dipped in strong brine or rubbed with salt. The meat was next rolled up in the animal's hide for ten or twelve hours for it to absorb the salt and release some of its juices, then hung in the sun to dry, and finally tied up into convenient bundles. It looked, said one German traveler, like strips of thick cardboard and was just as easy to masticate'. When opportunity offered, most travelers preferred to poind the charqui vigorously between two stones and then boil it before eating. The jerked' in jerked beef' is derived from the word chaqui..."
Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988
"Fresh meat was always preferable, but fontiersmen quickly accepted the Indian method of turning the dried meat called jerky into pemmican, and thus discovered one of best portable foods ever devised. ..The making of pemmican was an art..."
American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of American Eating & Drinking, Volume 1 [American Heritage:New York] 1964
