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 day…and the next day, too. Every little while I went out to the clothesline and removed the cheesecloth in order to flip the strips…and 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.
Questions and Answers
Dehydrating food is something that has been done, probably almost as long as man had been around and is possibly one of the oldest ways of preserving foods of all types. Back, before freezers were invented, foods were preserved by drying, smoking or salting and also in more recent times, bottling and pickling.
As the name suggests, it is food that underwent the process of dehydration or drying. This is done to the food in order to preserve it. The water is removed from the food, which keeps the growth of microorganisms and prevents decay. Dehydrating food can either be done through sun drying, wind drying, air drying, or smoking. Through these processes, the shelf life of it is increased.
Dehydration is a process that has been around for thousands of years, since biblical times. This is an excellent way to preserve food. Dehydrated food is much easier to store than canned food because they are in much smaller packaging.
This individual post, with its accompanying recipe, was "incubator agnostic." They in essence do not care what you use to continue to keep the mixture warm though the cultures go to function creating yogurt. The only important standards is the capability to hold the mixture in the 108 to 112 diploma Fahrenheit collection critical to culture growth. Meals dehydrators demand only a several options to qualify them as yogurt makers: An adjustable thermostat that consists of the ...
If someone would like to create a very popular and tasty treat for themselves while saving a ton of money, then one of the best things they can invest in is a beef jerky dehydrator. Beef jerky dehydrators are simply a type of machine that works to dehydrate food.
Please remember when comparing the dehydrators, keep in mind your needs now and in the future. Most of the folks we talk with will comment they should have gone with the larger machine. Once you use one and reap the benefits it will be in almost constant use.
How did Mustafa Kemal Ataturk become the most beloved founding father in the world? It's easy to understand if you know the impact he had on Turkey. After all, Ataturk's influence on the country cannot be overstated: he was the military, legal, and cultural founder of the Turkish Republic, and he has no corollary in American history. It would be as if Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were one man who had accomplished as much as all three combined.
When corrupt or mislead passions go beyond the individual, & become both legally & religiously sanctified by nations, it forces humanity to face a vital question: how does one survive when fear disguises itself as reason? The question of survival, fear, and the fallibility of so called truths must have been in every mind when, in the year 1480, King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella of Spain gained papal approval for the initiation of one of history's most notorious doctrines: the Spanish Inquisition.
When it's time to retire for the evening, find a campsite for your rental campervan or stay at a local inn or MacKay accommodation and have a mesmerizing holiday.
How did a poverty-stricken hunter from an obscure corner of the globe create an empire three times larger than Rome? Part luck, part skill, but mostly through his shrewd ability to negotiate the brutal politics of the Central Asian Steppe.
North East India is the land milting pot of different tribe and non tribes. The Singpho tribe is one of the vibrant tribe in this part of the country. The tribe is distributed geographically into three countries namely India, China and Myanmar. They have own socio-economic and demographic character.
When I first saw this topic I was beginning to think that someone was putting me on. While I do like food, and enjoy cooking, I am in no sense of the word a baker. But, the thought of making cookies in a food dehydrator did get my attention.
This presentation centers around the handling, preparing, and processing of food in your food dehydrator where the key issue of food safety is emphasized. While there are some risks the steps discussed herein will minimize, or eliminate, those threats to the products coming from food dehydrators.
This article outlines the process of preparing and drying natural herbs in your food dehydrator, whether it be from your herb garden, or the produce section at the grocery store. The savings in costs, over prices paid at the market for herbs, will more than pay for your dehydrator in a short time.
This article is about preserving flowers, leaves, and other foliage from your garden, yard, or bouquet, thus extending their beauty in flower arrangements that will last to, and through, the winter months, or even beyond. Here you will find simple steps on drying flowers with a food dehydrator to produce a potpourri of color and fragrance.
Discuss this Article
