George of the Jungle wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Jean-Louis Tu wrote:
> > I guess it depends. I think it's on average 1 to 2 weeks (at cold temperature).
> > That's enough if you eat your meat cooked (or rare), but usually I find that
> > meat becomes edible at the "sell by" date + 2 or 3 days.
> The beef that I come across in the stores that is on or over the "sell by"
> date is usually turned grayish and has - what seems to me - a rancid,
> put-offish odor. I cooked some once, and it tasted awful to me.
> Is this what you mean by "aged" meat? If so, it must be an aquired
> taste...
> I supose if I grew up eating it all the time I might feel otherwise - like
> that tribe in South America that eats meat that's been rotting in the
> jungle for a week or more.
> Just what should aged beef taste like???
>
   When I was a member of the National Health Federation about 25 years
ago, their motto was "Don't eat anything that doesn't rot;  but eat it
before it does!"  A certain amount of aging of meat is necessary to
overcome the effects of rigor mortis when the animal dies, but there
*is* the matter of overdoing it (like the Cajun "green chickens").  If
the meat is aged too long, you'll have more to worry about than a minor
case of E. coli.
   Ever notice how all ground meats tend to be shot in a day or two?
It's called oxidation of the greater meat surfaces, as well as easier
access to the meat by various microbial organisms.  That's why ground
meat should not be used for making pemmican or jerked meat.  When my son
learned jerking in Boy Scout Camp, the assistant scoutmaster stated that
the Indians said, "You have killed the animal once.  Why kill it
again?"  The troop learned to jerk muscle bundles, not cross-grain cut
meats.

Nieft wrote:
>
>> Some tidbits related to the idea of aged meat:
>
> Those of you making pemmican might want to taste the jerked strips of meat
> before powdering them for pemmican. What you would be tasting is raw aged
> meat (assuming your dehydrating method was room temperature). I much prefer
> fatty jerky to pemmican. Jerky won't keep for years, but it will keep for
> weeks in the fridge...brisket usually has some nice surface fat for jerky.
>
>  It seems that one day at room temp is about equivilant to a week (or
> longer) at 36 degrees or so. Aging meat/seafood increases the tenderness
> dramatically. Thats good when you find pastured meats which are not much
> marbled and can be tough when fresh. With some serious aging they become as
> tender as heavily-marbled grain-fed prime meat. BTW, part of the attraction
> to "certified Angus beef" is that it is usually aged for a month or so
> before sale. I found in CA it was hard to find any butcher who aged more
> than a couple weeks.
>
   Dehydration of the meat (muscle bundles) for jerky or pemmican can be
done in one of two ways to assure greater success:
1.      Dry in direct sunlight (remember all those old Indian movies where
meat is drying on racks in the sun?).  Turn occasionally so that all
surfaces have contact with the rays of the sun.
2.      Dry in a dehydrator machine or - if you're blessed with a pilot light
- on racks in a gas oven set at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  The
latter usually takes overnight.
   Don't smoke over an open fire.  McCandless - the 20-year-old who lost
his life in Alaska - made that mistake when he killed a moose and tried
to preserve it.  Most of the meat rotted.
   His other mistake was to eat the seeds of a plant that proved to be
inedible & poisonous (the seeds, that is), although the book he was
following had no comments concerning this.  He had had success in eating
other parts of the plant.
   Fat on meat being jerked turns the entire product rancid more
quickly.

Mary Anne Unger
The racing penguin from Corsicana, Texas