Recipe: Rubaboo (Pemmican Soup)

As promised at the end of my Pemmican blog post, here’s my first cooking experiment with my pemmican. This is rubaboo or pemmican soup. The recipe is based on a description in the book Forty Years in Canada by Col. Samuel B. Steele. It was published in the early 1900s, and of pemmican, he says,

“It was cooked in two ways in the west; one a stew of pemmican, water, flour and, if they could be secured, wild onions or preserved potatoes. This was called ‘rubaboo.’”

As a one-pot meal, it’s easy to make; just simmer until the veggies are tender. Toward the end I took the notion to add some chopped fresh kale leaves too.

A more authentic meal would likely serve it with hardtack, but alas, hardtack is something I haven’t tried my hand at making yet (but it’s on the list). I served it for lunch with the closest modern equivalent – plain saltines.