‘Siglo del sebo’

I must say that the sight of a red-bellied woodpecker at the suet feeder this morning goes a long way to consoling the heart; the bird’s crimson- stained hood sparkles against the heavy backdrop of sky. A downy woodpecker holds in place waiting for a turn at the grub with a lineup of chickadees not far behind. The calories from suet are much needed for birds year-round; nesting, feeding young ones, putting on the layers prior to migration and, for those who stick around, surviving ice blizzards and volcanoes of snow.

An interesting thing, this suet: It’s the raw beef or mutton fat from around the heart and kidneys of the animal. Fat plays an important role in both human and avian diets supplying protein and carbohydrates and is one of three dietary concentrated sources of energy. Suet is dense and hard and more saturated than other fat. Also, rendered suet can be stored at room temperature.

So I’m in the TSC store trying to decide a suet menu for my feathered friends. Bird cuisine you might say: ‘lemmee see…cranberry, chokecherry, Nuts ‘n Raisins’. A shopper arrives next to me; loads an armful of Simply Suet into her shopping cart then she’s gone. I carry on: ‘Peanut Butter n’ Jelly, Bird Bug Bites; no-melt stackables, hot peppers. Suet for vegan and vegetarian birders—come on? ‘Suet’ made of vegetable shortening? Sheesh! Not likely. Bark Butter Bits; Naturally Nuts—and I thought ordering a coffee could be complicated. Open the doors and invite the birds in why not? They otta know. Let them choose, I mumble.’ The Simply Suet lady is back. She adds Berry’n Bugs to her previous choice: Then glances to my empty cart. I can tell. She’s puzzled by how long it could possibly take for someone to make up their minds about suet. Not everything in life is easy I smile back at her.

Consider the human diet. Suet’s primary use is to make tallow, and tallow is an important ingredient in traditional cooking as it has a high smoke point that makes it ideal for deep frying and pastry production: Suet crust pastry, mincemeat, dumplings, haggis, Jamaican patty, steak and kidney pie…Christmas pudding: That sort of traditional.

While we may think of it as a basic commodity, suet has historically played a favoured role. Much like the County had boom years supplying barley to American breweries at one point; in the 16th century economy of the vice-royalty of Peru, Chile’s husbandry and agricultural based economy was driven mainly by selling suet to its neighbouring provinces. The wealth-producing era in Chile made that century the ‘Siglo del sebo’ – the century of suet. Think of it as an extended, warmclimate version of our own ‘Siglo del barley’.

It’s the high energy content that has made suet a staple in the diets of cold-weather explorers. A typical energy requirement is 6,000kcal per day for sledge hauling or dog sled travelling. Recipe: Take smoke-dried lean venison or bison meat or fish and pound it into bits. Blend with tallow 1:1. Add in a mix of Saskatoon berries, or cranberries or blueberries and press into small bars. Or snowball shapes. There we have it: the historic trade staple for the Metis of western Canada—pemmican. A food of indigenous peoples, pemmican was quickly adopted by the fur trade and other European explorers to become the human fuel of choice.

Alexander Mackenzie relied on the food for his 1793 ‘from Canada, sea-to-sea’ epic journey. While Scott and Amundsen relied on pemmican for their expeditions, it saved lives on Shackleton’s ill-fated voyage to the Antarctica. Crewmen lasted on the ‘sledging rations’—dog pemmican—also known as ‘Bovril pemmican’. In 1917, North Pole explorer Robert Peary wrote in Secrets of Polar Travel: “Too much cannot be said of the importance of pemmican to a polar expedition. It is an absolute ‘sine qua non’.”

So I’m now waiting in the checkout aisle of the store. I’ve decided on the variety ‘suet gift pack’ which includes the Apple n’ Mealworm. I’ll put the samples out and wait for the reviews from the bird crowd before over-committing to one flavour. The Simply Suet lady is two customers ahead in the lineup. I discreetly shove my suet choices in behind the bag of sunflower seeds and new mop in my cart: not wanting to appear indecisive in any way. Hell I figure; Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday—is nearly here. Absolutely guaranteed by then that my gang of feathered connoisseurs will have me in the know: Then look out aisle three; Suet shopping like never before.