The new jerkies: Road snacks to elevate any journey
America is finally getting serious about its jerky game, said Ryan Sutton in Eater.com. Though most of the dried meat products you’ll find at a gas station or convenience store are still “massproduced and thoughtless,” consumer tastes are changing, and small producers are elbowing into the market with offerings that make a better case for a culinary tradition that spans many cultures and many, many centuries. Jerky, derived from an ancient Andean practice and the Quechua word “ch’arki,” has always been “easily the most gourmet” snack you can grab during a typical road-trip pit stop. Below, a sample of the best we found in a wide survey.
Urban Cowboy vegan jerky Don’t let the word “vegan” distract you. This is “my favorite American jerky at the moment,” and it can be found on Amazon. With every flavor it packages, Austin-based Urban Cowboy is proving that “high-quality mushrooms dried with care can exhibit eons more nuance than most commodity sirloins.” You’ll taste mushroom in the salty Black Pepper flavor. The Sriracha ’shrooms “pack a balance of heat and acidity while emitting a hint of smoke.”
Buc-ee’s mesquite beef jerky The beef jerky at Buc-ee’s, a growing chain of Texas-based convenience stores, actually tastes like beef and “exudes a musk that recalls fire-torched cumin and hardwood smoke.” Buc-ee’s jerky can also be found online.
Good Jerky habanero trout With this jerky, “the scent of clean fish” hits you as you open the bag and the soft flesh “pulls apart easily and coats the tongue with luxurious and luscious oils.” If you want neither the scent nor the oil and don’t mind aggressive salting, try Alaska Smokehouse king salmon jerky, yet another option findable on Amazon.