Jerky People Cookbook: Their Jerky-Making Recipes, Stories and Tips (paperback)
Jerky People is a storehouse of sound advice for beginner jerky makers as well as jerky sages. Within these pages you will find recipes for making jerky from beef, venison, turkey, chicken, as well as blue goose, musk ox, carp and much, much more.
From the back cover of Jerky People:
Mary Bell likes beef jerky and likes telling people's stories. "I believe people relate to each other's stories in a way that's easier and more fun than by following how-to directions."
Mary's storytelling style won her a 2002 award from the Minnesota Free Papers Association for her personal column, Vignettes, in the Fillmore County Journal, Preston, Minnesota.
"Jerky People passes its own taste test. The author, Mary Bell, gives us all a new appreciation for one of mankind's oldest treats." --Ron Schara, host ESPN's Backroads with Ron and Raven.
Jerky People presents an array of wildly adventurous individuals willing to share their great beef jerky recipes. Some of the Jerky People you will meet:
Mike Valley who makes an amazing wild catfish jerky from fish he catches in the great Mississippi River.
Glenda Ohs is a Montana rancher who combines apple leather and elk jerky into a unique and delicious pemmican.
Evan Clark, an adventurous backpacker shares his spectacular jerked chicken jerky.
Sandro Lane learned to cold smoke lox while living in Italy and applied his technique to making an outstanding Alaskan salmon jerky.
Manny Howard wrote "A Tricky Stick," which was originally published in The New York Times Magazine.
FOREWORD
Hon. Monte B. Carlson, Fifth Judicial District, Burley, Idaho
Making beef jerky is my hobby. It's my diversion from the courtroom. I find it satisfying and fulfilling to take a hunk of raw meat and make it tasty. Some of us make jerky because we are hunters. Not only do we want to consume what we kill, but we prefer venison jerky to venison chops. For over 30 years I've bow hunted deer and elk with the same loony partners and together we've turned a zillion deer and twenty-three elk into jerky. With that kind of tasting experience I think it is fair to say that I've become a pretty good judge of jerky.
Jerky has become a tradition in our family. While we were students with limited income, my wife and I practically lived on wild game. While pregnant with our first child, the smell of venison chops or steaks made her ill. Then, as well as now, she prefers her big game meat made into jerky. For three and half decades we've been making jerky in a food dryer and more recently we use our smoker.
Ever notice that he who controls food, is king? Several years ago I convinced my nephew, who was doing nothing other than waiting for college to begin, to backpack with me into Idaho's mountain country for an archery elk hunt. This non-hunting six-foot-seven-inch lad from Kentucky became my pack mule and carried all my heavy camping equipment. All he required was a slice of jerky every now and then. Like a trained seal being fed a fish, my nephew actually packed out my bull elk, with no reward other than a constant (but obscene) amount of jerky.
Some say that beef jerky makers are just a little off the plumb line. I make jerky for my odd assortment of wack-o hunting pals, but I charge them one-third of the result - my ambulance chasing days die slowly. Once, while practicing law, I drove to Eastern Idaho to meet with a client in his home. The whole house was filled with smoke. Up above me, hanging from the rafters, were strips of raw meat. This guy had killed a deer and right there in his living room was making smoked jerky.
My favorite jerky recipe is the Kevin and Annie one from Mary Bell's book, Just Jerky. I like the blend of soy sauce and maple syrup. I have to admit that sometimes I add orange peelings to give it a little more zing. Like most jerky makers, I always look forward to trying new recipes and tinkering with exotic flavor combinations.
Just Jerky is the beef jerky maker's bible. Not only does it teach the art of drying hamburger (which, by the way, works perfectly well with ground sausage and ground turkey), it also explains how to make traditional and even unusual tasting jerkies. Mary encourages her readers to be creative and blend unusual flavors. No book on the market is better. Mary fields more questions, solves more problems, and delivers better information than anyone else in the crowded jerky theater. Not only does she give solid jerky making advice, she even answers e-mails when something goes wrong with a batch. I know, I've appealed to her wisdom more than once.
Now she's done it again with Jerky People. It is filled with great stories, more recipes for us addicts, and it's flavored throughout with good advice. Jerky people are a goofy bunch that actually enjoy making jerky in their attics, basements, kitchens, living rooms or garages - with or without food dryers, smokers, or ovens - and they even use such dangerous chemicals as liquid smoke. Jerky people experiment by smoking, marinating, grinding, drying, salting and flavoring all kinds of meat (I've made antelope and cougar jerky.) Jerky people keep searching for that one great bite of jerky that has the perfect flavor. I judge this new book, Jerky People, as wonderful and I am personally grateful to all of those who shared recipes, wisdom and advice.
INTRODUCTION by Mary Bell
Let's get one thing straight - the people in book are not jerks - they are just people who like jerky. Granted, they are all characters who like to either hunt, fish, ride horseback, canoe, sail, backpack, or run a ranch, or are folks who run jerky companies.
"What's your story?" I asked each one of them. "How did you get started making jerky? What's unique or different about how you make it?"
Their answers were both fascinating and useful. These innovative and inventive jerky sages offer good advice and sound instructions along with some pretty terrific jerky recipes.
Since publication of my previous book Just Jerkyin 1996, I've met quite a few of the people who wrote, telephoned and e-mailed me, or connected with me through my website. I've met others at the Minnesota State Fair, where every year I put in 12 long, dizzying days selling dehydrators and passing out samples of jerky.
"I have this really great jerky recipe," they'd say, and I'd quickly write it down. Some of these folks and their recipes appear in this book. Some people got so into jerky that they went pro and now market their own brands.
Knowing that some jerky recipes are coveted treasures, I was delighted at how many people were willing to share. Businesses, of course, were not as disclosing with their techniques, but were willing to give tips, suggestions and insights into the commercial jerky industry.
Jerky is big business. The U.S. Snack Food Association declared that meat snack sales reached $1.74 billion in 2000, which was a 31.7 percent increase over 1999. In 2001 sales increased 13.8 percent. Kathy Mulady, from The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported in an April 26, 2002 article that "Oberto, the largest jerky manufacturer, exceeded sales of $100 million." Founder Art Oberto, whose story is in this book, expects yearly growth of 10 to 15 percent in slow years and 20 to 30 percent in better years - that's a lot of jerky!
As Dean Clark, founder of HI MOUNTAIN SPICE COMPANY, pointed out, these figures do not include the money spent by people who make their own jerky.
Drawn by curiosity, unsatisfied tastebuds or mysterious inner urges, an increasing number of people are making jerky these days. The jerky market has grown to provide a vast quantity of materials and supplies. When Cabela's, one of the largest outfitters, first starting selling Just Jerky in their catalog they had one page of products related to jerky. In the recent catalog, their jerky-making supplies cover eight pages, featuring various smokers, dehydrators, cures, jerky guns and shooters, meat grinders and slicers, wood chunks, various oven accessories, vacuum packers, tenderizers and, of course, books.
Jerky People and Just Jerky compliment each other. Just Jerky provides the basics for making all kinds of jerky. It's loaded with "how-to" information and lots of recipes for making jerky. At the end of this book you will find "My Jerky Suggestions" which gives you some basic jerky-making instructions (and a few surprises).
If the stories and recipes in this book are not enough and you need a little more inspiration to make your own jerky, sing a little! In fact, to spur you on here are my favorite jerky tunes: Try, "Come On, Do The Jerk!" by the Miracles, or "Cool Jerk" by the Capitols, or "The Jerk" by the Larks. Then there's "Can You Jerk Like Me" by the Contours. And, of course, Rodney Crowell's tell-it-like-it-is ballad, "She Loves The Jerk."
