Pemmican, Jerky or Dried Beef

What did cowboys call it? Most modern western tails have a cowboy, the army or an Indian chewing on jerky somewhere in the story. But did they really call it jerky?

I have only been looking for a few days but can’t find a western tail written before the 1950s or maybe the 60s that mentioned jerky. If you look at supply lists for the Oregon Trail or cattle drives they list many foods, but no jerky. (Lots of salt pork, bacon, beans and even canned tomatoes and peaches)

 

 I found many references to the word jerky coming from the Spanish word, Charqui, which was corrupted to jerky, sounds plausible, but I have also found mountain man tails where they referred to all dried meat as pemmican, even though it did not fit the American Indian idea or recipe of pemmican.

I have published several short stories/historical pieces over the years and have a just completed (unpublished) novel. Now believe I may have made an historical error by calling dried meat, jerky.  Just wondering—any thoughts?

Ride Proud Rebel & Rebel Spurs

I consider myself to be a prolific reader (100+ books a year) and once in a while I run across something accidentally that is really terrific. The two novels in the title kept me very interested and eager to turn pages, I wish this was a trilogy, I need to know more. The first is set in the Civil War with the protagonist a scout for the Confederacy. The second is set in early Arizona immediately after the war.

Andre Norton (1912-2005) wrote the two novels but she (Born Mary Alice Norton) only dabbled in historical fiction, most of her writing efforts, and she published over 100 books, were science fiction and fantasy for young adult and children readers. And she was really good at it as evidenced by the dozens of awards she won in her more than 70 year writing career. Her novel, The Beast Master, became a classic to sci-fi readers and movie goers.

Ms. Norton, who published more than 30 books after the age of 80, also wrote under name of Andrew North and Allen Weston. Wish she would have published a few more westerns.

NOTE - I came across the first novel in a two dollar Kindle download of a 25  western megapack and found the second for free download. Both are worth the reading and each is only around 200 pages, (estimate).

 

Between Wyoming’s, wish it could have been more

 From time to time I review books, more for my own enjoyment than for others. The following review is of a non-western book, but one I never the less thought would be a good read.

Growing up in the 60’s and loving the music of that era I thought this book would be a natural for me. And the fact that it is named after the state I live in, how could I go wrong?

I knew of Ken Mansfield and felt like a road trip with him would be a lot of fun. Well, it was not. It took me nearly two years to get through this book, I started and stopped a dozen times, just could not get into it.  I felt like a thief in the night, getting this book for free, and then not reviewing it. In the meantime I have read 60 plus books, but not this one. I retired in May and forced myself to finally read, Between Wyoming’s, in its entirety.

This book just never hit the mark with me, much too long to tell what seemed to be not much of a story, or a series of short encounters stretched to make a book. The storyline of his journey to Christ seems to be lost in the endless stories of the 60’s.

The entire book reminded me of a self published memoir that only family and friends cared about. I hope others find this story better than I did.