Lapin Poron kuivaliha

Appearance & taste

The dried meat consists of whole reindeer muscles or pieces of them, 1 to 5 cm thick and 10 to 20 cm long. The connective tissue between the muscles can be seen, but there is hardly any visible fat. The fibres are so fine and dense that they cannot be made out on the cut surface. The colour ranges from dark red through brown to almost black; a darker drying strip runs along the edges.

The meat is hard on the outside and soft inside, and does not easily fall apart when bent. When eaten it dissolves and seems tender and crumbly. It tastes relatively intensely of reindeer, but not distinctly gamey; the salt taste is mild. The meat contains little water and a lot of protein. The packaging states whether it comes from an adult reindeer or a calf.

Production

The reindeer are born, reared and slaughtered in the Finnish reindeer herding area. From spring to the beginning of winter they graze freely, eating mainly grasses, mushrooms and mosses. 70 to 75 % of the animals slaughtered are calves aged 5 to 8 months. Fillet, roasting, shoulder, back, rib and breast cuts are used, freed of surface fat and thick layers of connective tissue and cut into pieces about 5 cm thick.

The meat is cured by rubbing with salt (3 % of the fresh weight) or in brine with 6 to 7 % salt; curing and pre-ripening take 3 to 14 days. The meat then hangs on a roofed drying place set high above the ground and protected by a fine-meshed net. From February to April it dries there for 3 to 6 weeks, depending on the weather, through wind, frost and the warmth of the sun, and loses 40 to 60 % of its fresh weight. The degree of drying is checked several times and the meat is tasted; if dried too long, it turns grey and loses its flavour. It is packed only in the area of origin.

Origin & history

The reindeer herding area lies between the 65th and 70th parallels north. It covers the region of Lapland except Kemi, Tornio and Keminmaa, and several municipalities of the Oulu region, among them Kuusamo, Pudasjärvi, Suomussalmi and Taivalkoski. According to the specification, production is only possible in Nordic regions with large temperature swings in late winter: between −30 °C and +7 °C the meat becomes tender and develops its aroma.

Almost 20 % of the reindeer herders in the area are Sami. Most of the processing businesses belong to families who own reindeer themselves. Early records of dried meat are found in account books of the 16th century and in the work on the history of the Nordic peoples that Olaus Magnus wrote in 1555; later mentions come mainly from explorers of the 17th and 18th centuries.