When was beef jerky invented?!
Beef jerky is thought to have originated in South America during the 1800s. The Quechua tribe, who were ancestors of the ancient Inca empire, produced a meat similar to beef jerky called ch'arki, or charqui. It was made by adding salt to strips of muscle tissue from game animals such as deer, buffalo, and elk, and allowing them to dry in the sun or over fires for extended periods of time. This method of preparation enabled the people to preserve meats during times when it was readily available and eat it when food was scarce. When the Spanish encountered this method of meat preservation, they adopted it and made it available to the rest of the world. It became a staple foodstuff for American cowboys and pioneers. Early explorers built smoke huts and hung cuts of meat over a fire to smoke cure the meat. True jerky was made when the meat was first flavored and then cured. Over the years, people discovered that the meat could be made more palatable by the addition of various spices.
Answers: History
Beef jerky is thought to have originated in South America during the 1800s. The Quechua tribe, who were ancestors of the ancient Inca empire, produced a meat similar to beef jerky called ch'arki, or charqui. It was made by adding salt to strips of muscle tissue from game animals such as deer, buffalo, and elk, and allowing them to dry in the sun or over fires for extended periods of time. This method of preparation enabled the people to preserve meats during times when it was readily available and eat it when food was scarce. When the Spanish encountered this method of meat preservation, they adopted it and made it available to the rest of the world. It became a staple foodstuff for American cowboys and pioneers. Early explorers built smoke huts and hung cuts of meat over a fire to smoke cure the meat. True jerky was made when the meat was first flavored and then cured. Over the years, people discovered that the meat could be made more palatable by the addition of various spices.
Thousands and thousands of years ago, probably by cavemen.
I am a former chef and food history buff and I would go with the same ideals as the last guy answer, they have ben drying meats for century, the North American Indians made something called pemmican, a dried meat and fruit mash dried for use during the long cold winter, they were doing that going back 300-500 years ago.
The Mongols did it to, by keeping there meat under there saddles and tenderizing it and then reconstituting it in broth inside the helmets over a fire.
Cavemen would have done the smae to have meat during the long harsh winter, and ones that lived near salt water would have had salt or saltwater to soak it in to add more of a preserving quality to it.