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February 21, 08:43 AM

The Most Practical Method of Meat Preparation

Most people are unfamiliar with the powers of dehydration as a cooking tool for meat. These people think that all meat must be cooked in an oven or on a stove or using a grill. This notion is ridiculous. These people are clearly dummies. This weblog entry is specifically written to dispel their closed-minded ideals.

What good is a freshly grilled steak to me if I’m not sitting at a table? If I’m hiding in an elevated perch during a paintball battle, that steak becomes nothing less than a burden. When combatants from the other squad smell the steak, it could lead them right to me. If the steak sits out too long in the sun, there’s a strong likelihood that it will turn rancid. Shortly after that point it becomes a silent but deadly killer waiting for my hunger to unwittingly lead me into the meat’s treacherous clutches. “Traditional Meat Cookers” would probably want that to happen to me. They would like to see me die. Well guess what, enemies? Dehydrated meat leaves me vulnerable to NONE of the situations I described previously. It can be eaten discreetly and in any location. It is delicious without being messy. Best of all, it is highly nutritious.

Dehydrated meat is commonly referred to as “jerky.” I do not know who came up with this name, so don’t bother asking me. Jerky can be made from almost any type of meat. Most people are familiar with beef jerky. This is the most pedestrian of jerkies. I much prefer venison jerky -- be it deer or bear. The nutty flavor of the meat works surprisingly well when all moisture is removed from it. Venison jerky, like all jerky, is incredibly chewy in a very pleasing way. I have also seen jerky made from rabbit, badger, vole, raccoon, squirrel, trout, and salmon. This is by no means a complete list; it’s just what I’ve tasted personally.

To make jerky, you don’t need any fancy cooking equipment. I’ve seen television advertisements for professional “food dehydrators,” but these are made for morons (a category you may fit into if you still deny the awesome power of jerky). All you really need to make jerky is a knife and the sun. The knife is for cutting your meat into long, thin strips. The sun is for drying the meat. This all happens thanks to a little scientific process I like to call evaporation. If you so desire, you may also choose to season the meat. I don’t do this. It’s a frivolous task and a waste of spices. There is nothing wrong with unadorned meat and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Salting the meat is a different story, however, and you should use salt liberally in order to remove as much moisture from the meat as possible. Once you’ve cut your meat into strips, find a clean area to hang the strips in the sun. Within a few days, your jerky will be ready for consumption, and when it is, the world is your oyster [NOTE: I have never seen or heard of oyster jerky].

Enjoy your newfound freedom as you travel the globe without worrying about where you’ll find a fresh source of protein. Your jerky will serve as a nutritional passport as you set your mind to other more important things, like how you will avoid the pickpockets that ruin most travel experiences both here in America and abroad.

Take heed, readers. Jerky will change your lives. All you have to do is open your mind.

This Entry Has Been Completed.

Dwight Kurt Schrute
Jerky Enthusiast

COMMENTS

Dwight -
Bear Venison? How ignorant. Below is the Wikipedia definition. (which must be true, since anyone could have submitted it) I see no bear! Please try to keep your blog ignorance free in the future.

Etymology

The etymology of the word derives from the Latin Vēnor (-to hunt or pursue). This term entered English via Norman in the 11th century following the Norman invasion of England, and the establishing of Royal Forests

Definition

Venison can describe meat of any animal killed by hunting. It was originally applied to any animal from the families Cervidae (deer), Leporidae (hares), and Suidae (wild pigs), and certain species of the genus Capra (goats and antelopes), such as elk, red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, moose, caribou, pronghorn, brown hare, arctic hare, blue hare, wild boar, and ibex, but its usage is now almost entirely restricted to the flesh of various species of deer.

This is a very informative and interesting entry, however it is not a form of cooking. Cooking is the application of heat to food.

What you're describing is drying, and if you add enough salt, curing!

We used jerky as an alternative to traditional burial methods when my great grandfather died. It was bizarre, but we got used to it after several batches.

Dwight,

I am always intrigued by your blogs. After I received your replica doll I decided to go to town.
Please go to the below link to view our weekend of fun.

Sit back and enjoy. When you're done you can find your socks by the door.... because they are about to be rocked off.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jjbg11&search_type=

Dwight,
I want to see you and Creed get selected for JURY DUTY. I know you would be enthusiastic about serving your civic duty, and Creed would loathe going. Then you might say some things that the attorneys would not want to hear, while Creed would make up a story and get selected. Creed would convince all the jurors to extend the deliberations so they can miss work and get paid for it. Then Creed would entertain jurors in their meetings with stories from his past. Also, you could sneak back into the hearings as an attendee and make comments during the trial. Just a thought. Keep rockin the office man!

Here's an prescient comment from the ep. page (4012), edited for clarity:

~ TV shows typically have a strict policy against pitches or story suggestions, but in light of the recent writers' strike, a nice short bit could be Dwight casually lending out a [marital arts or other?] video to a co-worker, then immediately discouraging them from attempting to view it in a hospital or on an oil rig--as these restrictions are part of certain int'l public performance/clearance laws.

(See www.walport.co.uk/public/entertainment_law.php)

Dear Mr. Schrute,
Oyster jerky is, in the parlance of our time, the bomb. It is vastly superior to all jerky except that made from the delicious vole jerky that you mentioned. Your friend,
Alan

Steak is dangerous Dwight. I repeat, do not eat the steak. More instructions will follow.

your my hero~

So Dwight,
Question(s):
You jerk your own meat?
When you were with Angela, did she help to jerk your meat? Or was jerking your meat something you liked to keep private in the woods surounding Schrute farms? Does Mose ever assist in the jerking process? Or does he have enough meat of his own to jerk? Now that you have more free time on you hands, do you find yourself jerking your meat more offten? And is there such a thing as 'too much' jerking of meat? I have heard that one can damage one's meat through over jerking, thus rendering the meat all but useless.

A fellow jerky enthusiast

Dear Dwight,

I was wondering if you could forward the following letter to Andy. Unlike you, Andy does not have a blog and is therefore unreachable and not as awesome as you. Maybe I should add that to the letter. Or maybe you could do what the letter is asking, since you have henceforth surpassed Andy in awesomeness by having a blog.

That is all. And here's that letter:

Dear Andy from "The Office",

I was wondering if you could give me and my friends some awesome lessons. If you recall, you once told Jim that Ryan is awesome, and if you don't think he's awesome then you need to take awesome lessons. Sometimes I'll be scaling the wall of a large mountain and I'll think to myself, "If only I had taken awesome lessons, then I'd know how to save the people falling around me." Or sometimes I'll be sharing a tender moment with my friends and I'll think "Gee, I sure do love my friends...but imagine how much more interesting they'd be if we had all taken some awesome lessons. I bet we'd all be on fire right now. If only t'were so."

Here are some of the things one would expect to learn from taking awesome lessons:
-How to be completely hilarious all the time
-How to make a super intense PowerPoint presentation
-How to blow peoples' minds
-How to dance like a black person
-How to sing a four-part harmony by yourself
-How to behave when you're in a public restroom with your boss and/or teacher
-How to fool people into thinking you smell like the person standing next to you
-What happens when men drink the femme boost at Jamba Juice
-What your roommate does when you're not around
-Where to find the best grappling hooks
-Where trans fat came from and why food companies make a big deal over its existence, only to not have it in their products
-When to send care packages containing porn
-When to use "air quotes" appropriately
-When to start giving gifts to the person you just started dating
-When to stop

And that's just the beginning. I think awesome lessons should be taught in an arena. I'm not sure if many arenas exist, or what differentiates an arena from a stadium, but "arena" sounds like a place where you'd play Global Guts, whereas "stadium" sounds like a place Celine Dion would sing the national anthem at. Also, I think awesome lessons should come with a free t-shirt. The shirt would have some sort of animal or mythical creature on it, like a centaur or a cat wearing a mask, and it would glow in the dark to reveal a secret message about the meaning of life. Finally, I think that once you complete awesome lessons you should get a certificate and some sort of card you can carry around in your wallet to show that you are certifiably awesome. The card would also get you a discount at participating gift shops, and would remove your face oil if you rub it all over your face.

I sincerely hope you take me under your wing and teach me to be awesome. It's not that I'm not awesome already, it's just that ever since I've become aware of the existence of awesome lessons, my own awesomeness pales in comparison to the extreme awesomeness that could be. If you think you'll have trouble selling the idea, I'm willing to help you shoot a commercial to advertise awesome lessons on public access television. It'll be simple...just you, sitting in the office, doing whatever it is you do. Because being awesome is all about not even trying to be awesome but you are. Awesome, that is.

Thanks dude.

Awesomely,

Songco

WHY DO YOU HATE ME DWIGHT

I don't want to be confrontational here, but I think Megan from Mass # 2 shouldn't so blatantly plagiarize Megan from Mass # 1.

Or maybe it's just that she's had too much traditionally prepared meat?

Dwight!

It was a pleasure reading your crazy blog entries and I look forward to seeing what you are up to in April! Until then, please continue to let us know more about Schrute Farms and the wonders of eating jerky!

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