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Preservation

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 9:14 am
by drmoss_ca
Very likely all of us can freeze a foodstuff, and there are several vegetables I slice, blanche and freeze each year. But there are other ways—dehydrating, salting, pickling etc. This might make a good place for you to offer your tips on the way you preserve your produce and game.

As an example, I routinely do this:

1. Make bruschetta from tomatoes and basil grown in the garden. Bottles of it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
2. Make pesto from the excess basil. Again, it can be frozen provided you leave enough headspace for expansion.
3. A dehydrator lets me save the parsley as something that can be crumbled and used for cooking for two to three years hence. The same dehydrator lets me make fish and meat jerkies, but I can't take credit for either growing or catching them.
4. I've not looked into the etymology of the US 'canning' versus the UK 'bottling'. All the same, I know and understand why botulism is a great evil to be avoided. It was a simple, and unfortunate, coincidence that I ordered an enormous pressure cooker for canning, and several pounds of Pyrodex on the same day as the Boston marathon bombing occurred. (Perhaps wisely, I have not attempted to enter the Trumpian States of America since.) Nonetheless, I have used the pressure canner to preserve beetroot, tomatoes cooked into a sauce for pizzas and pasta dishes, and zucchini since then with success. Canning meats and fish is a little more risky from the Clostridial point of view, and I haven't tried it myself, although I have been given canned deer, seal and moose. I'd love to know more about what works. (And by the way, if you die without ever tasting stewed moose, you lose. Moose meat is dark and something like a combination of beef, English jugged hare, seal and woodpidgeon breast. Simply gorgeous.)

Along with your root cellar, dried beans and ground cornmeal, how would you get through the winter if the supermarket was off limits?

Chris

Re: Preservation

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:30 pm
by ShadowsDad
If you bought some pyrodex definitely stay out of the USA!

Re: Preservation

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:55 pm
by drmoss_ca
ShadowsDad wrote:If you bought some pyrodex definitely stay out of the USA!
What - only real black powder burners are allowed in? I have a 50 cal Hawken and a Navy Arms side by side 12G shotgun that both need percussion caps, black powder (or Pyrodex) and lead to keep on being useful. Doesn't seem un-American to me.

C.

Re: Preservation

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 11:52 pm
by ShadowsDad
Oh geez yes, they've been pulling folks over at the border and slapping them in jail based on talcum powder purchases if you can believe that!

I was pulling your leg based on your political comment and I won't mix food and politics. It upsets my digestion to do so. That's as close as I'll come to politics in a post. Don't believe the fake news is the other advice I have; or folks who tell you that pyrodex is a problem. Shades of Orwells 1984 in all media today. One needs to be able to test the fruit. Probably a reference that makes no sense and I won't explain it. Question everything... EVERYTHING!

Re: Preservation

Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:24 am
by fallingwickets
if the supermarket became off limits i would be in a bit of a pickle. I'm a self diagnosed pickle addict and yet no matter how many times I have tried to do my own pickling, I always come to the same conclusion: taste, time, money, consistency....I'm better off buying it from someone that knows what they are doing.

Re: Preservation

Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:57 am
by brothers
Somewhere around 1940 - 55 or so, my parents' lifelong concept (as farming folk basically living off the land) began to change from farming to consuming, just as every other culture of the human race for as long as we have existed until just recently. I recall cool dark cellars packed with row upon row of canned goods, all home grown and put away for the large families (8 kids in one and 13 in the other) to eat when the time came. As far as protein, eggs, dairy, and chicken were always fresh, and maybe some well-smoked meat of other types was occasionally available. No refrigeration, no home freezing, of course. So nowadays all of us would be royally screwed if the grocery stores became unavailable. I also had a thought of some brilliant political remarks to yours, but am very glad political remarks are strictly forbidden within SMF.

Re: Preservation

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 1:33 am
by fallingwickets
just adding. The world we live in now goes like this....supermarket out of favourite pickels? No worries....amazon will cure your shortage! In the field of possibilities - quite shortly I think - amazon et al are going to be able to deliver your pickles to the top of the tree you're grabbing onto while the flood waters below caused by hurricane "________" pass by

Besides health and knowledge of product, it seems that subsistence farming (or 'when the time came' as Gary talks about) is a dying pastime

clive

Re: Preservation

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:34 pm
by brothers
Clive, instant gratification seems to be getting faster and faster.

Re: Preservation

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 7:12 am
by fallingwickets
Agree, gary