Beef jerky finds its day in the sun

This rediscovered frontier food is low in fat and carbohydrates, and you probably use up quite a few calories chewing it.

By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food and Wine Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2000

[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer] Backwater Bayou beef jerky is made in Tarpon Springs.

To nibble doesn't always do it for me. Sometimes carnivores just want to gnaw.

When there isn't a big ol' turkey drumstick, leg of lamb or haunch of beef at hand, more and more Americans reach out for something flat, brown and wrinkled that looks and feels like leather. Grab a hold with one of your canines, clench your jaw and pull hard like your hand is playing tug of war with your mouth.

It's not leather, it's beef jerky. The easy way to tell the difference is that you have to chew leather for days to dissolve it; some jerky takes only half as long. (Just kidding; molars in overdrive can dispatch an ounce of new, moist brands in 20 minutes.)

All that gnawing, jawing and chawing is great oral exercise -- aerobics for eaters -- but what makes this primitive, red-blooded snack good for unabashed meat-eaters is its nutritional profile. Jerky is a high-protein snack that's low in calories and fat (70 to 80 calories and less than one gram of fat per ounce). It packs almost zero carbohydrates.

Add the low-fat seekers and the carb-haters to the longstanding market of hungry beefeaters stuck in taverns, tackle shops and convenience stores, and you've got a $1-billion business at $1.50 or more an ounce.

Jerky's getting bigger every year, with some gas stations, bait shops and c-stores stocking more jerky than motor oil.

The Internet is full of entrepreneurs, ranging from big brands made out West, such as nationally advertised Pemmican sold by Goodmark (the meat snacks giant that also makes Slim Jims and Penrose's pickled sausages) to Backwater Bayou Beef Jerky, made by a three-person outfit in Tarpon Springs.

Aleck Alissandratos' operation is small and tucked into an outbuilding behind his family's old plumbing business on U.S. 19. His lifelong love of cooking has become a full-time business inside the sterile USDA-inspected plant. (Backwater jerky can be found at stores and bars in north Pinellas can be ordered at (727) 942-2968 or online at http://www.backwaterbayou.com.)

Big or small, jerky manufacturers subscribe to the same low-tech principles as centuries of native peoples and frontier scouts: that meat with the moisture removed would keep and that jerky provides the nutrition, flavor and fulfillment of a piece of freshly prepared beef three to five times its size. But Blackfoot scouts or Jim Bridger and his mountain men pals probably used the sun rather than mesquite to dry their jerky, and they darn sure didn't add teriyaki sauce.

Even so, the steps are much the same now as then. Whether jerky is made at home, in a small shop like Backwoods Bayou or in a giant factory, the difference is technology and ingredients.

Alissandratos takes 15-pound chunks of raw beef, freezes them so that they can be sliced in inch-thick slabs, marinates them in a vacuum and then dehydrates them.

On the frontier, meat was hung outdoors on sticks and rope; today the meat is placed on racks in dehydrators or a low-heat stoves (fans of South African biltong say it can be dried out in a cardboard box with a light bulb). Health officials warn that meat should be heated to 160 degrees to kill bacteria first before reducing the heat to let it dry overnight.

The big difference among commercial jerkys is the quality of the meat, whether it comes from real cuts of beef or is chopped and formed, something like the difference between filet mignon and hamburger, Alissandratos says.

"We're in production every day," cranking out hundreds of pounds of beef jerky in original, hot and, not surprisingly, Greek variations. "That's my favorite," Alissandratos concedes, although the garlic and oregano mixture is the saltiest. He thinks "Mediterranean" might have a broader appeal, but Backwater Bayou is already shipped as far as Denmark.

Jerky does have drawbacks. For all its dietary attractions, jerky is high in sodium, from 400 to 700 mg an ounce, almost a quarter of a day's allotment (although some big manufacturers may introduce low-sodium forms). And, since a two-ounce pack of jerky may be made from as much meat as a small steak, it's not cheap, $1.50 and ounce and up.

Salt and cost, however, are outweighed by jerky's ancient advantage of being lightweight and portable. That mattered to Arctic explorers and matters to modern Americans who don't cook, don't buy groceries, don't sit down to eat and don't have time for the drive through: They buy jerky when they buy gas.

Such fueling for on-the-go breakfasts, lunches and afternoon snacks still counts as "meal occasions," according to Mark Slater at Goodmark. He's glad consumers now see jerky and other products as "better for you than potato chips." He does, too -- and gives out Slim Jims at Halloween.

The dirty little secret about American eating is that meat snacks, like chips and candy, have always been big sellers despite cyclical protest about trends to healthier eating. Jerky and kippered meat (slightly fattier and moister) got a real boost from modern nutritional labeling, which made it obvious that they were exceptionally low-fat. In fact, beef jerky has so little fat that turkey, bison, ostrich and other alternative meats have made minimal inroads in jerky.

Indeed, the diet pendulum has swung back to protein so far that meat in any snackable form is booming. That includes pork rinds, which are now seen as "diet food," because while they are high in fat, they have virtually no carbohydrates, which is what counts with followers of Dr. Atkins and other high-protein diets.

As usual, we're talking -- and eating -- out of all sides of our mouths.

With our hands.

Transplant from Safety Harbor

The Blue Gardenia, which gave Safety Harbor's social scene a New American bistro (231 Main St., Safety Harbor; (727) 712-0645) for three years, is about to be uprooted and transplanted to Tampa.

Tom and Emily Golden will serve their last dinners Friday and say farewell to Safety Harbor with an open house and a big pot of paella for the community from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday.

Golden, former winner of the Tampa Bay chefs' cook-off, grew up in Tampa and said, "I always knew I'd come back." He's had a strong following in Safety Harbor, but it has still been slow, so he and his wife have decided to take over the Hyde Park space vacated by Ibex. The Blue Gardenia should open in its new location in September.

Meanwhile, in Safety Harbor, another door is indeed opening. Renovation is in progress to create Greensprings Cafe (122 Third Ave. N; (727) 669-6762) in the former site of One Door North just behind the Gardenia.

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