Deer Meat

[Enfield1]

I've read all that I can find to include the Mark Baker Books and the various Books of Buckskinning. How did indians and frontiersman keep venison from spoiling from the time that they downed the animal till it was consumed. Was the whole deer jerkied to keep it preserved? Obviously there were no coolers like we hang deer in today. Educate me.

 

[Black Hand]

Eat what you can and dry the rest. What is most likely is that you eat what you can, leave the rest and kill another on another day....

Long-term storage of meat involved drying, curing (with or without smoking), salting, pickling, etc.

 

[FishDFly]

I would think it would depend on the time of the year and where a person lives.

In the summer, eat what a person or group could and smoke the rest.

In the winter, if far enough north, let it hang and cut off what you need when it thaws out. Let it freeze over night and cut again.

The old wives tale about not re-freezing meat was started by the meat markets/butchers in Chicago.

RDE

 

[Captain outwater]

That would depend on whether they were traveling or staying somewhere. It takes a day or three to dry meat. They also would eat HUGE amounts of meat, when that was their sole diet. Several pounds at a time.
Probably much meat was wasted for lack of a way to preserve it, if they had to kill one in the heat.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

one method was cutting meat into strips and smoking/drying over fire built w/hardwood. thus preserved it will last awhile in hot weather.

 

[Pigman]

They also got sick and died.

There is a reason why we invented refrigeration.

Seriously though. If they could not dry it they could cook it.

Thanks,
Foster From Flint