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MSU Extension helps Crooked Bow take a bow

The newest addition to the made-in-Montana pantry, Crooked Bow smoked beef strips, had an impressive preview: It was first offered for sale in September at the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

By SCOTT FREUTEL, MSU News Service

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/11/22/news/crookedbowfoods.txt

The museum gift shop’s first consignment of 200 packages sold out almost immediately.

Crooked Bow’s beef strips — a very old recipe in a brand new package — are made of grass-fed beef raised by Salish, Kootenai and Pend O’Reille tribal members of the Flathead Native Agricultural Cooperative.

A high-resolution version of this graphic is available on the MSU Web at:

http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csnews/hires.php?img=862

The beef is hand-stripped and seasoned with locally grown huckleberries and chokecherries, a touch of apple cider vinegar and a touch of honey, then smoked over alder.

The agricultural cooperative is a result of work done by Joel Clairmont, a Salish who is the Montana State University Extension agent on the Flathead Reservation.

Clairmont was "the key player" in pulling together the cooperative, according to Jan Tusick, a manager with the Mission Mountain Market Cooperative Development Center http://www.mt-missionmtnmrkt.com/ in Ronan. Five years ago, Clairmont began talking with the ranchers about ways they might combine forces and develop value-added products from what they produce.

The co-op now has six members, owns the Crooked Bow brand and its members raise the beef that is smoked and turned into strips. Other Flathead Reservation producers have shown an interest in joining.

The beef strips are prepared and packaged in Mission Mountain Market’s licensed commercial kitchen and certified organic food processing center. The facility was created to help area entrepreneurs test, develop, refine, and prepare and market value-added food products of all kinds.

A nonprofit entity, the market is also a business incubator that provides expertise on food-related regulatory issues and business and cooperative development, including possibilities for capitalization.

Other MSU faculty helped develop the product, adapt the original recipe for commercial production, and train the people who prepare the strips in food handling and food safety.

The Crooked Bow product line is to be enlarged soon with the addition of a beef stick product.

For more information on Crooked Bow Beef Strips or to place an order, call the Flathead Native Agricultural Coop, (406) 745-7500, ext. 2202.

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