The History of Jerky

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Maybe too many companies that make Jerky have confused the issue with their various marketing claims. But in any event we thought that we would throw in our "two-cents" worth here and "confuse the issue even further" We hope to expand on this subject as time permits, and add some little charts or pictures, but for now here is just the nitty gritty of the "text-only" version of our version of "the story of jerky..."</div> <bR> <div> We want to break the subject down into bite-size chunks (which only seems fitting, considering its Jerky we're talking about!) and look at Then and Now, Cows Front and Back, Things Good and Bad.</div> <bR> <div> Then and Now - </div> <bR> <div> Then it used to be that people dried things to preserve them. The process of preserving fruits, meats and perishables through dehydration is thousands of years old. Now people eat dehydrated food mainly as a snack, and the flavor and texture are more important reasons now to eat dried meats and fruits than the need to keep them from "going bad." This has led to tremendous changes in what types of meats are dried, what cuts are used and what processes are added to enhance or change flavors of the dried items. In the 1850s you could find, on any given summer day, all over the Southwest of Texas down near the Big Bend, up in Arizona, or across in California Mining Camps on the flumes of the Tuolumne River some cowboy or ranch hand drying meat. </div> <bR> <div> It used to be that the cowhand or cook didn't care much what part of the cow he dried. Most likely he dried "all he could" time and weather permitting. In those days there were no little 2 inch slices of meat in plastic bags or worse yet, those shredded little squares that some companies are now putting up in bags for you to grab at the supermarket checkout stand. No sir,.. in those days the slices were 3 feet long and two feet wide and stretched between two "Y" shaped sticks that were hammered into the ground. The operation was out under the hot sun, out in the dust, and that's how it was, no fancy marinating, no secret recipes, just cut the meat as thin as you could and stretch it out to dry.</div> <bR> <div> But it also used to be that this meat was almost never eaten dry. The actual use was on the trail by the trail cook that used to carry bags and bags of the stuff. Actually it was usually wrapped in a material that resembled cheesecloth. This was a way to keep the flies off, but that was seldom successful, and you could always see the clouds of flies in the cooks wagon landing and taking off endlessly from the white cloth bags full of jerky. The cook would cut up pieces of this jerky and throw it in boiling water. From this he would create stews of various sorts and whatever else he could dream up. The idea was to make the flavor and texture as close to fresh meat as possible, not to create some newfangled dried snack food.</div> <bR> <div> Now, its a lot different. If you want to get across Texas you find your keys to your BMW, not your saddle and best horse. So has the use of Jerky changed. No more trail stew, no more flies in the camp wagon. What a shame! I miss the old days, even if I wasn't there to enjoy them. Now we want Jerky that is somehow in the realm of what is called gourmet (whatever that is!). Generally this means that the better the quality, the more it fits into what we are likely to call the best Jerky. I have a little trouble going along with this all the way. Even though we make "high quality Jerky" here at Reindeer Brand Jerky Co., from the best raw fixings we can find, I somehow believe that how someone finds the taste of Jerky is pretty much up to him or her. If you like the shredded little stuff that they put up in the bags, and it makes you happy to eat it, then I am happy for you, and I say, "go right on enjoying it!" But what I do think is that you have a right to know how and from what that shredded stuff is made. After all, you're eating it and maybe your head wants to know what's going in your belly!</div> <bR> <div> Cows Front and Back - </div> <bR> <div> Not too many people have cut up a cow. Not because they haven't thought about doing it, but because, like me, most people are just plain lazy. The average Angus weighs 1200 pounds, and when the damn thing is dead and won't walk around anymore where you lead it, (mostly they're dead before you try to butcher them, or it turns into a sort of dangerous wrestling match for the butcher..), its just a darn lot of hard physical work to manhandle the thing up onto the table where you can get that first slice on him. As this first hand experience has not touched too many folks, it's not hard to understand that not too many of us really grasp how much real estate is in one cow and how many different things in that animal there are to cut into usable pieces of meat. As if this weren't bad enough, all those different places on a cow have different tastes, textures, and behave differently when you go to cook them and eat a piece here and there. It's just darn confusing. </div> <bR> <div> Basically the most tender cuts, and the most flavorful meat depends on three factors. What the animal ate and how active he was, and where the meat is cut from on the animal. Beef that have eaten rich first crop alfalfa, good grass on the range, or corn, and don't move around too much make the best meat. Such rich food and little physical activity leads to flavorful deposits of fat in the tissue and the meat is not made stringy or tough because the muscle has been little used and has had very little physical stress imposed on it. Meat is, of course just the animals muscles that he uses for locomotion, breathing, and moving anything that needs to be moved. The more he walks, runs or is stressed with physical activity the more the muscle meat toughens up, the more internal connective tissue is created, and the meat becomes less flavorful and less tender. </div> <bR> <div> When the animal is butchered the meat that is cut from the Back of the Cow (Rump, Round, and Shank), and the meat cut from the front legs (shoulder, brisket and fore shank) are the muscles that are used the most and have been exposed to the most stress and are the toughest. These are the muscles that have been used for walking. </div> <bR> <div> The meat cut from the upper Front of the Cow, (Chuck, Rib, Loin, and Sirloin) are the most tender as these muscles are not used to move the animal about, and have been exposed to much less work than the parts mentioned above. </div> <bR> <div> The USDA grading system of Prime, Choice, Good, Standard, and Utility, meats attempts to take many of the above factors into account and give the purchaser some idea of what the relative quality of the meat is. It is our opinion here at Reindeer Brand Jerky Co., that given the current use and customer expectation of snack jerky, and taking into account that we wish to produce as high a quality gourmet jerky as we can, that there are some definite boundaries in the original meat we use that can not be crossed. We believe, for example, that it is possible to make a good jerky from Round Cuts from USDA Prime, and that it may be possible to make a good jerky from USDA Choice Round, but never from USDA Choice Rump, and that it is never possible to make a good jerky from Rump or Round of USDA grades less than Choice. We here at Reindeer Brand Jerky Co. use only USDA Choice from Cross Rib (Chuck) cuts, thus insuring that the final quality of the jerky will be firmly in the "gourmet" category! We believe that it is risky to use Rump or Rounds to make any jerky and then claim that the result is "great jerky". </div> <bR> <div> Things Good and Bad - </div> <bR> <div> Well, now we get to the part of the Jerky Story that is a little ugly. But hey listen folks, I didn't create any of the things that I am reporting on here, I am just the messenger! To continue on a bit with the above discussion of meat, we are sad to report that there is a whole class of "meat products" well below the solid muscle cuts of USDA Graded Beef that we were just talking about. These are the "rendered products" . </div> <bR> <div> In large scale commercial meat packing operations skilled butchers work at a furious pace to cut hundreds and hundreds of pieces of meat from the bones of thousands of cows. But they can only cut just so much meat, and inevitably a considerable amount of meat is left on the bones and carcass. One day, some clever soul got the inspiration that if you took all these carcasses and bones and put them in a huge pressure cooker and heated them for hours, you could get every darn little remaining bit of meat to fall off. Then you could make a machine that shredded this stuff, compressed it into little strips and squares after the addition of binder adhesives like Dextrin and Carboxyl Methyl Cellulose, and wham! There you have it: "Flaked and formed" meat! </div> <bR> <div> Of course there are still some remaining problems with this stuff. It has no flavor! So every bit of flavor that you taste when you eat such a product must be artificially added back into it. These items are listed under the Nutritional Facts Label you see on the package you buy as "Flavorings". In most part these "flavorings" are simply chemical additives that have been created by industrial processes. There is no legal requirement that any of this material be from natural sources at all. </div> <bR> <div> Further problems for our "flaked and formed" jerky is that it is seldom really dried jerky at all. As you know the reason that you can keep jerky for some months without refrigeration is that it is dried to a very low moisture content. No such luck for our "flaky product"! In order for you to taste the artificial flavoring when you put it in your mouth considerable moisture must be already present in the product to transport the flavor molecules to your taste buds. And most importantly for the purveyors of such concoctions, the all import texture, and tenderness that you as the consumer will expect, can only be achieved by adding much more moisture than would be found in true jerky made from real meats. If they did not add moisture at levels well above what is required of normal jerky the product would taste very similar to cardboard, and would have no pleasing texture or taste whatsoever. </div> <bR> <div> Because of the high moisture content, and because the manufacturer wants this product to have as long a shelf life as possible, these types of "jerky" have countless chemical additives to prevent spoilage. Names like Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrate, are just a few. </div> <bR> <div> As it turns out, in our opinion, the result of all this processing and additional moisture leads to a soggy disappointing product that is as far away from being real jerky as can be. The tip off to look for, to help you spot this type of product: Look at the Facts Label and see if the word "Flavorings" appears anywhere, and look at the expiration date of the product, if it is more than three months from date of manufacture then something's wrong! Real jerky doesn't last forever, and it certainly does not last a year and a half like I have see on some of these labels! </div> <bR> <div> So anyhow, if you like these processed meats, go for it and enjoy them, but if you want to purchase a product that hasn't been subjected to all that abuse then please try our Reindeer Brand Jerky. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>