Food Preservation
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How about bottling fruit in Kilner jars? Seems to have fallen out of favour these days. Or making chutneys and jams 
My favourite method is jerkying. It won't last indefinitely, but if stored properly, it'll almost undoubtedly be able to stay preserved for longer than you can resist eating it 
You could always pickle stuff too, though not all things would turn out very pleasant.
Dehydrating, salting and pickling are probably the most easily-doable methods, but really, the food world is your oversalted oyster
PS: Just a note about salting... whenever I make beef jerky, I always salt it a lot before leaving it to dry, both for flavour and to help drying it, but obviously if you eat too much heavily-salted food, you'll get really sick, (which I've had more than a couple times. you'd think that I'd learn...) which isn't really the best for one's weekend camp! Stuck in the wilderness with a drippy tummy and only one roll of toilet paper... what to do?
So don't oversalt, and don't overeat the things that you oversalt!
You could always pickle stuff too, though not all things would turn out very pleasant.
Dehydrating, salting and pickling are probably the most easily-doable methods, but really, the food world is your oversalted oyster
PS: Just a note about salting... whenever I make beef jerky, I always salt it a lot before leaving it to dry, both for flavour and to help drying it, but obviously if you eat too much heavily-salted food, you'll get really sick, (which I've had more than a couple times. you'd think that I'd learn...) which isn't really the best for one's weekend camp! Stuck in the wilderness with a drippy tummy and only one roll of toilet paper... what to do?
So don't oversalt, and don't overeat the things that you oversalt!
Try clamping - now theres a lost art these days - great fro root veg though and costs little to try if you have an over abundance of spuds!
Red
Red
British Red said:
Can you explain please Red. I,ve never heard of clamping before. What does that involve?
Its an old way of preserving root vegetables which involves digging them up, covering them in straw and then building a thick mound of earth over them. Because they are kept dark and cool, they keep well into the spring of the following year. One of the dieing preservation techniques - like lactic fermentation!
Red
Red
Not heard of that one before. Nice one.
I've heard of caches that trappers use for burying meat in the cold North and Canada etc, but not for veggies. I'd have thought they'd have rotted
You really do learn new things nearly everyday on here.
Which reminds me of a book that I've read a couple of times called 'cold burial' (they cache meat in the book) which is about a chap called Jack Hornsby who takes his cousin and another friend they meet on the way to over winter in the barrenlands of Canada. They rely on the caribou migration to feed themselves and ultimately starve to death. It's a true story and a jolly good read.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cold-Burial...ef=sr_1_1/203-4064485-6393549?ie=UTF8&s=books
I've heard of caches that trappers use for burying meat in the cold North and Canada etc, but not for veggies. I'd have thought they'd have rotted
You really do learn new things nearly everyday on here.
Which reminds me of a book that I've read a couple of times called 'cold burial' (they cache meat in the book) which is about a chap called Jack Hornsby who takes his cousin and another friend they meet on the way to over winter in the barrenlands of Canada. They rely on the caribou migration to feed themselves and ultimately starve to death. It's a true story and a jolly good read.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cold-Burial...ef=sr_1_1/203-4064485-6393549?ie=UTF8&s=books
I suppose your "clamping" is known today as silage. It's an aquired taste.
Root vegetables (but also maize) are stored in anaerobic conditions where lactic bacteria lower the pH. It's like sauerkraut on a massive scale. Silage is used today for cattle fodder.
There are pretty good reasons why some techniques got lost over the years!
Root vegetables (but also maize) are stored in anaerobic conditions where lactic bacteria lower the pH. It's like sauerkraut on a massive scale. Silage is used today for cattle fodder.
There are pretty good reasons why some techniques got lost over the years!
Ketchup,
No mate, sorry, I shouldn't have thrown in the lactic fermentation comment - I meant that clamping is like that (not practiced much now),
To make a clamp, dig up your potatoes and leave them to dry off on the surface for a day or so.
Put a thick layer of straw on the ground. pile up a pyramid of potatoes on top and covver again in a thick layer of straw.
Using a spade, use the freshly dug soil to gently build a thick layer of soil up over your pyramid. Make it a good 18" thick and pat it firm to get rid of the air spaces.
The inside of the pyramid will be cool and dark, protected from frost and damp. Just like the conditions you are told to store your paper sack of spuds in (actually much cooler than the avearge house or outbuilding). The tubers go dormant and will be delicious right through till late spring
Red
No mate, sorry, I shouldn't have thrown in the lactic fermentation comment - I meant that clamping is like that (not practiced much now),
To make a clamp, dig up your potatoes and leave them to dry off on the surface for a day or so.
Put a thick layer of straw on the ground. pile up a pyramid of potatoes on top and covver again in a thick layer of straw.
Using a spade, use the freshly dug soil to gently build a thick layer of soil up over your pyramid. Make it a good 18" thick and pat it firm to get rid of the air spaces.
The inside of the pyramid will be cool and dark, protected from frost and damp. Just like the conditions you are told to store your paper sack of spuds in (actually much cooler than the avearge house or outbuilding). The tubers go dormant and will be delicious right through till late spring
Red
Drying was in pretty much the only way of storing food indefinately in earlier times. Most things can be dried and later consumed either dry or reconstituted.
With meat and fish you need a way to keep the flies away. That can be done either by salt or a gentle smoke. In winter, when there are no flies, at least as long as the temperature is below freezing, it can be freeze dried without smoke or seasonings. Just keep it out of reach from scavengers.
With meat and fish you need a way to keep the flies away. That can be done either by salt or a gentle smoke. In winter, when there are no flies, at least as long as the temperature is below freezing, it can be freeze dried without smoke or seasonings. Just keep it out of reach from scavengers.
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
sam_acw said:You can preserve fruit by turning it into alcohol
Lol....judging by some of the meets I've been too, it doesn't preserve it very long!
The fish is Greenland Shark. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somniosus_microcephalus
In Norway we have something called rakfisk, not my cup of tea, but something down that line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakfisk
In Norway we have something called rakfisk, not my cup of tea, but something down that line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakfisk
I believe the Japanese have technique for preserving fish which involves burying it with rice, which somehow invovles a degree of fermentation... Can't really remember the details. Sounds like an acquired taste. 
What about this - is there anything we've missed so far here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation
There is also preserving eggs by sealing them with rendered fat, and indeed sealing cooked meat under a layer of fat can preserve it for a short time - called a confit.
Then there is sauerkraut which is one of the prime ingredients of the Polish national dish Bigos . This is preserved a different way - it is basically a perpetual stew and can be cooked continuously for a long period of time and is said to get better the longer it is cooked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation
There is also preserving eggs by sealing them with rendered fat, and indeed sealing cooked meat under a layer of fat can preserve it for a short time - called a confit.
Then there is sauerkraut which is one of the prime ingredients of the Polish national dish Bigos . This is preserved a different way - it is basically a perpetual stew and can be cooked continuously for a long period of time and is said to get better the longer it is cooked.
