Antarctica: vegan pemmican

While Antarctica is technically not a country, I couldn’t resist “visiting” this majestic continent on this blog. Since 19th and early 20th century Polar exploration is such a riveting topic I knew I wanted to do something for Antarctica the moment I started this project of cooking one dish per country.

The winter 2021/2022 has been the coldest in Vancouver for some 50 years ​[1]​, with ~10 days of temperatures below -5°C and low record of -15.3°C. (Granted, this is not very cold, especially for Canada, but it is cold for Vancouver: the banana plants are dying and people are putting up heated humming bird feeders). Inspired by this cold spell, I set out to make some polar explorer food. In this post, you can find my recipe for vegan pemmican, the ultimate Polar explorer food.

Food in Antarctica

While Antarctica is not a country as such and has no permanent population, there are scientists and tourists there year round ​[2]​. But a small population of temporary international visitors in a country with no food production (there is only a bit of hydroponics agriculture and fishing and hunting is banned) does not make for much of a unique cuisine ​[3]​. Food is similar to what you’d eat anywhere else but with a very small contingent of fresh vegetables (the supply chain is very long). Outside of the research stations, the food is focused on being portable, easy to cook and very high in calories. Chocolate bars are high on the list.

Polar exploration

The food history of Antarctica is intimately linked with the food history of Arctic exploration and the lessons learned from expeditions to find the Northwest Passage – a continuous sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a highly sought after goal from the days of Columbus until the late 19th century. These numerous expeditions, many of which turned into harrowing survival stories and starvation disasters with rumours of lead poisoning ​[4]​ and cannibalism ​[5]​, laid the foundation for future expeditions. Without those hard won lessons, future expeditions would not have been successful.

During the heroic era of polar exploration, not much was known about nutrition in general. Scurvy was common place but the cause was not entirely understood and many different theories floated around, such as fruit deficiency or toxic compounds in canned food ​[6]​. Experimenting with food and testing different strategies for nutrition became an important aspect of expedition planning, alongside procuring the best gear, sled dogs, ships, manpower, etc.

Food was often canned or dried and brought along in copious amounts to last a voyage of years. This food was supplemented by hunting when possible. Seal and polar bear (in the Arctic) or penguin (in the Antarctic) were on the menu in many expeditions. Apart from just supplying calories, food was an important morale booster, especially during the long winters when travel was usually put on hold (ships don’t travel well in solid water).

While there were many different types of food on ship based expeditions, where weight was not an issue, the land based expeditions in Antarctica had to be much more streamlined. During the famous race to the South Pole 1910-1911, both Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen brought similar rations to feed their men​[7]​. Butter, chocolate, tea, biscuits and pemmican were essential parts of the diets of both teams.

Vegan pemmican

Pemmican is a food originally made from dried bison and fat from the same animal, often with dried fruits or berries mixed in ​[8]–[11]​. The word originates from two Cree words meaning “animal fat” or “lard/tallow” and “hand made” ​[12]​ and it was the Cree and other Indigenous Peoples in what is today called Canada who showed European fur trappers the value of this calorie dense food stuff. The value of the long shelf life and high caloric density of pemmican was seized upon and the trappers adopted this food stuff for practical reasons.

Through the fur trade, pemmican spread to Europe and saw use in many expeditions, in particular polar expeditions which started to gain popularity in the 19th century. Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie supplied his expedition with pemmican when completing the first crossing of Canada in 1792-93 ​[13]​; Polar explorer Robert Peary brought along pemmican on all of his North Pole expeditions ans saw it as an essential item ​[14]​; Fridtjof Nansen used it to feed his crew during the first (European) crossing of Greenland 1888-1889 ​[15]​; Both Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott used pemmican to fuel their teams during the race to the South Pole in 1910-1912.

Vegan pemmican recipe

How do you create a vegan version of a recipe which is pretty much dried meat and animal fat, sometimes with dried berries sprinkled in ​[8], [11], [16], [17]​? I did not have an easy time finding a recipe of this online so I decided to make my own recipe. The fat is quite easy, you just need something with lots of saturated fatty acids which is solid at room temperature (or even below room temperature, as the dish is meant for cold climates). Refined coconut oil or vegetable shortening are both readily available and tick this box. I went with coconut oil since I don’t want to eat hydrogenated oils.

For the “dried meat” ingredient, my first impulse was to follow a vegan beef jerky recipe based on tofu, mushrooms or soy curdles and then grind this and mix it into the oil. But while reading about the topic, I found that Roald Amundsen (first explorer to reach the South Pole, the North Pole (by airship) and to sail the elusive North West Passage (not the first to do all three but rather the first to perform any of these spectacular achievements)) built his very own pemmican factory and added oats, peas and vegetables to his pemmican as a “secret weapon” to boost the nutritional contents of this all important provision ​[18], [19]​. This really caught my attention so I decided to go this route. Dried meat then became dried vegetables, oats and pea flour with dried mushrooms for a bit of umami flavour.

Vegan hoosh

While pemmican is perfectly fine to eat on its own, it is more often rehydrated by melting snow and mixing in ship’s biscuits (aka sledging biscuits) to create a thick stew called hoosh ​[20], [21]​. While nibbling at a frozen hunk of coconut fat does seem interesting as an experiment, hoosh sounds like a better bet for an ok tasting outdoors meal. So I also made some ship’s biscuits which is just flour, water and salt and served on long voyages over land and sea ​[22]–[24]​.

Conclusion

To test the vegan pemmican and the hoosh, I brought a thermos of hot water, the pemmican and the biscuits on a snow shoeing day trip on one of our city mountains here in Vancouver where I made some hoosh during our lunch break.

I must say I was very skeptical about the pemmican before I made it, as can be seen by the very preservative amount I made. But I must say that it tasted better than I expected. It does remind me of one of those seed and fat balls you could buy in Sweden to feed birds in winter (seeds in coconut fat, hanging in a small net). But this vegan pemmican is pretty much a stock cube and once dissolved in warm water, it becomes an old-timey powder soup with extra calories in the form of fat. I’m glad I finally made some vegan pemmican and got to try this, after reading about it so often in different polar exploration books but I probably won’t make it for my camping trips…

Vegan pemmican and vegan hoosh

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Vegan pemmican

Pemmican is a long lasting, hardy dish that is great for long expeditions. Extensively used by arctic and antarctic explorers, the food originates from the first peoples in modern day Canada.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Arctic, Explorer, First Nation, indigenous

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Cooling 3 hours hours

Servings 1

Ingredients

Vegan pemmican

• 1 carrot
• 50 mL green peas, thawed
• 4-5 dried mushrooms
• 2 tbsp yellow pea flour optional
• 3 tbsp rolled oats
• 1 tbsp raisins or other dried fruit
• ½ tsp smoked paprika optional, see note
• ½ tsp salt
• ~60 mL coconut oil or vegetable shortening

Ship's biscuits

• 150 mL whole wheat flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ~70 mL water

Instructions

Vegan pemmican

• Cut the carrot into thin strips using a peeler. Chop the thawed peas as finely as you can.
• Spread peas and carrots into a thin layer on a baking sheet or similar and dry in the oven. I ran it at 150°C for 20-30 min, using a convection oven. A higher temperature means a faster dehydration but also means you can burn the vegetables, going beyond basic dehydration (which is undesirable in this case.)
• While the vegetables are dehydrating, grind the oats and mushrooms to a coarse powder using a blender.
• Finely chop the raisins.
• When the vegetables are dried, grind them into a coarse powder as well.
• Mix all the dry ingredients. Add salt and smoked paprika, if using.
• Optional: weigh the combined ingredients and measure out an equal weight of coconut oil or vegetable shortening.
• Melt the coconut fat in a small pot and add all the ingredients. Stir until a thick slurry is formed.
• Pour the slurry into a mould such as a cake pan or a mug. Let cool to solidify. A few hours in the fridge is enough.
• Demould by gently adding hot water to the outside of your mould. Warp in aluminum foil or wax paper.

  The vegan pemmican is now ready to go on an adventure.

Ship's biscuit

• Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Add a little water at a time and work it into the flour. Keep doing this until a hard dough has formed.
• Let the dough rest for 20-30 min.
• Roll dough into a 15 mm thick slab. Cut into desired biscuit shapes, such as squares. Stab with a fork.
• Bake biscuits at 190°C for 20-30 min. They should be dry and tough. Think "will this survive a year at sea?".

Hoosh

• Enjoy the pemmican with ship's biscuits as is or melt some snow and break pemmican and biscuits into the water, creating the stew known as hoosh. Makes both the pemmican and the biscuits much more palatable.

Notes

Note on smoked paprika:  first peoples in so-called Canada would smoke their meat to dehydrate it, a flavour potentially captured by the smoked paprika. I can not find information on how the arctic and antarctic explorers dehydrated their meat for pemmican. I opted not to use the smoked paprika.

References