Wasná, Lakota pemmican
Dried meat, dried berries and fat, pounded into cakes: the travel food of the Lakota.
Traditional use
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Makes
- About 12 cakes
Wasná is the Lakota word for what is elsewhere called pemmican. Dried bison meat was pounded until it was almost powder, mixed with pounded dried chokecherries and with melted fat, about as much fat as meat. The Lakota ate it as a meal on the road: a few cakes kept you going all day.
Ingredients
- 100 g well-dried lean meat without spices (bison, deer or beef, e.g. unseasoned biltong)
- 75 g dried, pitted chokecherries or cranberries
- 75–100 g beef tallow, melted
Step by step
- Grind the dried meat in a food processor or pound it in a mortar until shredded and almost powdery.
- Briefly grind in the berries.
- Stir in the warm fat until everything just sticks together.
- Shape into small cakes or balls and let them set.
Tips
- Today the fat is sometimes replaced with peanut butter; keep the balls in the fridge in that case.