Keeping the Essential Foods going

[Tartar Horde]

(16 February 2015, 16:50)Devonian Wrote: Great thread Mary.

Another great food preservation technique is smoking ie: smoked Herring which was once very popular and a mainstay for many families in this area.

Similarly in Alaska, Salmon is smoked to preserve it and to keep it available through out the winters.

Plus the smoking process is relatively simple and it has the benefit of not needing huge quantities of salt.

But these are all preservation skills that I really need to sharpen up on.

The humble Kipper is the food of Empire dont ya know, fantastic way of preserving meat and fish without Salt, as long as it is cold smoked and does not cook the meat. On the East Coast where I am we used Oak to smoke the fish. Smoked Eel is superb!! and a backyard smoker is easy to make. There are plenty of fish in the rivers you can smoke, and if you are nearish to the coast you can go "Day Fishing" when the Mackerel are in and get enough to last a good time, and it's fun.

[Devonian]

Yep and the Danish are also very keen on them.

When I was over there for a business conference there were literally 20 or more different types of smoked herring/kippers!

There are very few traditional suppliers left these days, but the Manx are still producing them the old way:

http://www.manxkippers.com/about-kippers...ng-process

[Steve]

Even food grade salt is quite cheap: http://www.salt-supplies.co.uk/acatalog/PDV_Salt_.html.

[Tartar Horde]

(17 February 2015, 16:20)Devonian Wrote: Yep and the Danish are also very keen on them.

When I was over there for a business conference there were literally 20 or more different types of smoked herring/kippers!

There are very few traditional suppliers left these days, but the Manx are still producing them the old way:

http://www.manxkippers.com/about-kippers...ng-process

When we still had a fishing industry on the East Coast you could walk down Hessle Road in our town and find "Smoke Houses" that would sell to you a fresh smoked Kipper wonderful food. But when they cooked a batch of hot smoked Trout that was really something to savour.

[SecretPrepper]

Great post

In regards to carbs, sweet and regular potatoes grow well in England and you can grow hundreds of pots in a relatively small space.

I am experimenting with grain (quinoa and amaranth) this year and trying to grow them vertically with different methods. Don't forget you need yeast for bread which you can make your own

Preserving meat will be really hard. Canning is an option and you can do it without electricity and it lasts a fair old while

[Mortblanc]

Canning is great as long as you have a pressure cooker, bottles, lids, rings, and plenty of fuel.

If all that, or even one part of it, is absent canning is out of the question and one will have to revert to the methods used for thousands of years before canning was possible.

One must also realize how much land one needs for the wheat one would consume or a year. Maize produces better in a small plot, and potatoes are about the best small plot producer available in temperate climates.