If you’ve spent any time in Southern Africa, or in the company of someone who has, you’ve experienced or heard mournful laments and wistful pining for Biltong, if you haven’t… mention it and watch the ensuing roller coaster of a reaction.
So, what is it?
Calling it Jerky, would in times past, be justified grounds enough for a duel!
Typically beef or freshly harvested bok, closer to Bresaola in preparation than the sugary strips of jerked meat one finds in most stores stateside, it’s air dried, almost always in a simple box. All that to say… it’s damned delicious, keeps for ages, and makes for the perfect trekkos i.e. travel food.
Everyone I know who’s had Biltong, clamors for and ravenously devours it whenever on hand, but none make their own.
It can be made in the bush, it can be made at home. But I went years, if not a decade, without a steady supply.
Sure… every few years an uncle or aunt would visit, and occasionally some of that precious stuff would make it past “customs,” — a perfect excuse, I now realize for I ate it mid-transit — but withdrawal is not an adequate word for its absence! So why did I go so long without it?
Perfectionism.
There are other contributing factors i.e. embarrassing excuses, like taking over long to develop agency and realize it’s something that I could make, that it didn’t need to be handed to me.
It was the burden of taste that kept me famished for so long.
Knowing, well… believing, that nothing I could make would be as good as that which was on offer elsewhere or dispersed from on high by visiting family, was certainly a factor. But, it was the design and building of the drying box that held me back.
Beholden to a love of bevels and beauty, my first design naturally was a Carrera marble marvel that would make Marc Newson swoon. Having never worked with the material, not having access to adequate tools, and wanting to maintain the freedom of a nomadic life, I’ve yet to conjure, what surely must have been a perfect design on the first go.
In the absence of said sculpture, that centerpiece, I was left without. My world was decidedly less delicious.
But, when you crave something enough, when going without or not summoning it into reality will no longer do, you cannot help but act.
Perfection is still something I grapple with, and always will, but I’m learning the power of the incremental, flawed but fast, approach.
It started in secret, with a cardboard box, wooden dowels, butchers twine, a fan and foil.
The first few attempts were too salty, had bathed overlong in the wrong kind of vinegar, or were lost to mold.
But, eventually batch by batch it got a little better.
“an imperfect plan implemented immediately and violently will always succeed better than a perfect plan.” Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
If you were to lay eyes on my latest, :shudder: plastic, iteration and the butchery that was my first real attempt at dremel work and the resulting holes, violence would not be an inaccurate description.
But, the Biltong? The Biltong is now 91% of the way there.
There are a few things I’ll tweak on the next version of the box and test when I make this weekend’s batch, but my biggest complaint, is that I didn’t start earlier!
I regret, not having it on hand for winery camp outs, sharing with visiting relatives, or as a healthier option for road trips or late night fare.
Had I waited on the moment when I could build the marble version though, I’d also have missed out on a few memories I now hold dear.
Chopping and sharing some of my first successes on the tailgate of a friend’s FJ80 aka “Franks” while circling Crater Lake, or scouting for game with a close friend on the dusty logging roads, volcanic rock faces, and amidst the ponderosa pines of central Oregon’s forests.
In ten days, I’ll visit my brother in California, assuming it makes it past “customs” today’s batch will accompany us on winding canyon roads, be savored on a chartered fishing boat, and no doubt, be used to taunt our father who has yet to make an actual attempt.
All that to say…
I can now share something I love, something I’m proud of, with the world.
And one day, when I conjure the Carrera marble version, it will be better for it.
Be it Biltong, starting a business, or building a canoe, imperfect action are more filling in the long-run than that left undone, and will shape what we and those around us do next..
After all, something can always be more perfect.
Just start.
Resources:
Beaver Overthinking Dam. An Onion article I need to refer to from time to time.