Fort Peck Buffalo Mini-grant Project

Published: 2020
By Wendy Becker

The Fort Peck Reservation has an education program that is tied to their cultural buffalo herd. Fort Peck Reservation MSU Extension received a portion of funds to house an intern and work with school classes to teach about using buffalo meat in sausage and jerky making. There were eight classes of 75 students that participated in two schools. The intern was enrolled at the Fort Peck Community Project and funded through the Chante Program. The intern helped choose the project to work with area students to guide learning and provide relevant information from the Fort Peck Tribes Buffalo Project and Buffalo Treaty. Students learned about the health aspects of consuming buffalo meat, the difference in cooking practices for buffalo, the price differences, and what buffalo eat that affects their meat. For the hands-on portion of class, students paired up and created their own recipe for their final project. They cut and ground meat, used two types of grind settings for proper consistency and added spice mixture. After resting overnight, meat was cased into sausage or dehydrated for jerky. It was wrapped, packaged, and labeled for the final product. Students were able to take home what they had created. Youth connected the buffalo meat processing with their culture, as the program was centered around the Montana mandate of Indian Education for All. Youth learned the importance of calculating accurate amounts of critical spices and understood proper kitchen, equipment and food safety. They reported understanding many more new aspects of buffalo meat than they did before, and learning other uses for the meat.