Keeping the Essential Foods going

[Mortblanc]

Many of these "skills" for survival have come down to us in disguise.

Do you like "Corned beef" ? The name came from the course kernelled salt that was used in the process. You brine it and let is sit for up to a week in a cool spot, like a spring house, then cook it.

Just dumping fresh meat in a barrel of brine insured it would keep for months. It was the same with fish, which were more a part of the diet in the past then now. Fish would keep forever in a barrel of brine and could be salted and sun dried and kept for years.

That makes a big difference in how one views the food supply on the hoof. While many will say "no need to waste a calf/deer/hog, it will only last 24-36 hours and all the meat will be wasted", a savvy individual will look at the same animal and think "Veal fillets tonight, steaks tomorrow, stew for next 4 days, corned beef in a week and jerky for the next month!"

One must also consider that in the past they butchered animals differently than we do today. In the past they wanted more joints and stew pieces, today we go for steaks, roasts and prime cuts.

That was because in the past there was ALWAYS a kettle of stew on the hearth and it was seldom emptied. The cook simply added what was on hand to what was already there. Kept hot, there was little problem with bacteria growth.

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot 9 had old.

Now does that change the cookware one would want in a crisis situation?? (That two liter titanium backpacking pot or the aluminum cookware out of the kitchen might not be what you need. Probably ought to check into getting a good 3-5 gallon stock pot.)

Besides, they did not know what bacteria was. Washing the dishes was not a consideration. You ate off a wooden trencher that was scraped clean, not washed, and you used the cleanest spoon you could find, or ate with your knife. Everyone carried an "eating knife" and often the blade was wide enough to use as a spatula to transfer the stew from trencher to mouth.

Forks were not common in the general population until well into the 19th century. You did not need them, most foods were served as a stew and only the spoon was required.

Spoilage was also viewed differently due to their lack of "germ knowledge". They would add spices to slightly turned meat, which was why spices were in such demand, especially pepper, which covered a multitude of "off tastes".

Maggots would be scraped from the surface of what they were on, any particularly nasty bits removed and the food consumed. Mold on cheese or meat was simply trimmed off and the food used normally. That is still a common action today. You eat blue cheese don't you, and mushrooms are little more than a sophisticated fungus.

Often meat was hung for several days before it was consumed. since one was often eating only the oldest and what was about to die anyway, or what dropped dead during the night, the meat offered peasants was mostly too tough to chew with their few teeth anyway. The beginnings of decomposition tenderized the meat so it could be chewed, and was another reason why the foods were boiled to sludge.

Birds were often hung by their tail feathers and not considered good for consumption until they had fallen from the string.

Today, we refer too it a aging the meat.

Now, while smoking is an effective process for preservation of foods it does require a good deal of salt or spices if not accompanied by other processes. Just hanging meat in a Smokey room for an hour or two will do nothing to preserve it. The smoking process usually is added to some amount of heat, usually around 160 degrees f, rendered from the cold smoking process or the sun, or to heavy slating or spicing.

And a true smoking process lasts for quite a long time. From two days to two weeks of intense heavy smoke in a confined space. For preservation one needs far more than the "hint of smoke" we get in processed and gourmet foods today. The smoke has to permeate the meat, which was why fruit wood and wood with nicely flavored aromas were chosen.

Even when one makes jerky today it is a process which requires mild heat and lasts over night. It also varies by what spices are added to the jerky and how much salt is rubbed into the strips of meat. You remove the water and add spices to inhibit bacteria growth.

And yes, I am speaking from experience in all these matters. I have done each of the processes at one time or another.

Except for the maggot scraping and eating decomposed birds. I skipped that part of the historic experience.

---

I do live to get in on these common sense threads that can be used for life today as well as emergencies.

I think I will brave the snow, go to the store and buy the fixings for a good sauerbraten. I have not made one in several years.

Thanks for starting this one up Mary.