Preserving Food

If food is not plentiful or is likely to be limited by season, it is important to ensure that stores keep safely

Micro organisms, such as mould, that spoils food, thrive in warm moist atmospheres. Deterioration can be delayed by keeping food in cold places such as caves or by water, but that is only a short-term measure.

More positive action MUST be taken to ensure long-term preservation. The main methods to use are drying, smoking, pickling and salting. Follow that order

Sugar preservers will not keep for very long unless you can vacuum-seal them, but will keep longer than as soft fruit & alcohol is an excellent preservative if you set up facilities to do it.

STORING CAUTION

When you have taken time & trouble to preserve valuable foodstuffs, particularly in areas where food is scarce, take equal troubles in storing your food.

Do not store in direct sunlight, near excessive warmth or moisture, nor where scavenging animals may ruin it.

Wrap, where possible, in airtight & waterproof materials or store in containers such as birch-bark boxes with a good seal.

Label if you are storing several kinds of food and separate to AVOID cross-flavouring. Check occasionally to see that all is well.

DRYING FOOD

Both wind and sun can dry food but, in most climates, it is easier to force dry food over a fire. Losing moisture shrinks size and weight, and concentrating on the nutritional value.

Many moulds can grow when there is as little as 16% moisture content, but few can grow on foods with 5% or less and these will be less vulnerable to maggots.

Pork, geese, seabirds and other meat with a high fat content are the most difficult to preserve. It is best to cut off most of the fat and rub salt into the flesh. Salt is good drying agent. Hang the salted meat in cool airy place.

KEEPING MEAT FROM SPOILING

This applies to big game such as bear, moose, deer etc. Once the animal has been killed, skinned off, gutted out with all its blood well removed, no trace of blood in the interior part, use a dry cloth or dry hay to help you.

Now choose a tall tree, remove the lower branches for about 10 to 15 feet minimum from ground. Attach a rope at it peak, bent it down, attach the rope to the animal carcass that you want to preserve, then let the tree free to take back its natural position.

The meat will keep for a good period yet the predators will not be able to reach it, MAKE SURE it is far enough any cliff or close by tree as well.

How can this meat thus preserve? In the forest, a swarm of flies will jump on this piece of meat and through their action and that of the sun and wind.

It will form on this meat a crust up to 2" thick which will be a real protective blanket air-tight in a couple of hours only.

This meat is completely shut in and will keep up to 2 to 3 weeks in summer and winter many months.

When you want a piece of meat, take off with a good knife this casing blanket, and take the meat you need. After a while the flies will have reclosed the open part.

The next time you will choose another spot to take from until you have used it off. Of course there is a little lost but all in all it is better than loose the entire carcass.

FOOD PRESERVING CAGE

You need a stream or some running water ways. You built a cage using big branches and smaller ones to weave some kind of basket which you immerse at least at 1/2 in water, use stones to weigh it down if need be and tie it up so it will not go away.

You also need to weave some kind of lid. In this cage you install a food box with opening at the top for air flow. Then you put in what you want.

MOSS FOOD PRESERVING

This moss was repeated in Plant preserve at times some ways work for all others not, here we will keep only those pertaining to meat, those for plants/roots / fruits etc. go with their own as for fish.

Try to put the preserving which work for most into 1 block at or near top

The moss keeps humidity for a long time thus can be used to keep meat, fruits or vegetables. (NOT Fish! NO!)

Cover the food with this moss tightly pressed and put them in a damp box away from predators. Put a bed of that tightly press moss at the bottom of the box too.

WOOD CHARCOAL MEAT PRESERVING

From your camp fire, gather the wood charcoal, the big coals that you let cool off, then once cold use it to preserve your food. All you have to do is to surround the food of a thick layer of wood charcoal dust and keep it in a dry place.

When you need the food, wash it in running water and your meat is as fresh as if you had just killed it. DON'T USE mine charcoal but wood charcoal

CLAY PRESERVING MEAT

Same procedure as wood charcoal. Form balls of meat with a good over layer of clay that you dry in the fire, when you need it just break the clay or better, throw these balls in the hot embers.

When the clay balls start to break off, remove them from the fire, the meat is cooked, all you need is to add salt & pepper.

DON'T FORGET to remove the intestines before putting any wild meat in preserve, this is VERY IMPORTANT.

PRESERVING MEAT BY DRYING

One of the easiest primitive way to preserve meat is done by cutting it into long thin strips & hanging them apart in the sun. (Biltong)

Whereupon they will loose most of their water content & become dry & hard, black and surprisingly sustaining & delicious.

Cut off the fatty portions, slice the meat into strips no thicker than 1/2 inch no wider than 1 inch. You can thread these strips to a wire or cane but no pieces of meat touch another.

THERE MUST BE FREE AIR CIRCULATION AROUND EACH PIECE

The strips can be soaked first if one wants in brine or sea water. One method is to boil down ocean water until it becomes EXTREMELY salty & while it is still simmering to dip the strips in this.

If no place handy to hang the meat, it can be laid on sun-heated rocks & turned every hour or so.

DRYING NOTES

Big meat chunks can be suspended high up in the trees, above the flies level zone, meaning the zone that has air flow circulation where the flies don't go, since they fly low.

With this method the meat will dry by forming an air tight crust which will protect the interior meat.

But be sure that the meat thus suspended don't touch the other chunk of meat, otherwise it will spoil on contact points. The sun and wind will dry it. When doing this drying MAKE SURE you start on a hot dry day.

Meat and fish can be dried when sliced in "filet" is spread over birch flat pieces or even upon flat stones to dry with sun and wind.

It is done only when weather is clear and sunny, the meat is sliced 5" long, 2" wide and 1/4 inch thick or thinner. But do not cut in the sense of the fibres or it will be tough.

WOOD DRYING SMOKING METHODS

3 WARNINGS!

NEVER USE EVERGREEN WOOD, they will be total lost because, Evergreen gives oily smoke which makes it unfit to eat even poisonous.

NEVER USE GREEN LEAVES EITHER NEVER USE EVERGREEN AS STICK, SLABS OR FOR SMOKING:

Green-wood use is evidently BEST for the wet green hardwood that grows besides streams is in general a particularly functional choice being even less prone to burn.

Birch does burn readily when green but if care is taken it gives a very highly rewarding and delicate sweet aroma.

A slab or a flat rock as well can also be heated & used as a hot plate. NEVER use flat rock from in or near water, they could explode.

SMOKING METHOD # 1 VERY FAST!:

In the ground dig a hole 1m deep on 1/2m wide, at the bottom of which you make a small fire which you cover over with green wood branches, but Not Evergreen.

About 75cm above the fire, used an improvised grill. After 1 night of smoking the meat will keep for 5 to 7 days.

After 2 nights the meat will keep for more than 1 month. When properly smoked the meat takes the form of a stick twisted and dark colour.

SMOKE DRYING #2:

Smoking both dehydrates meat & coats it with a protection layer, like vanishing its surface.

The inside is dry so no condensation takes place and the outside is sealed against bacteria. Smoking can be best done in a smoke house or a smoke tepee.

SMOKING METHOD #3:

Get a fire going to produce a pile of hot embers. Have a pile of Green leaves ready. Leaves from hardwood trees are excellent, especially oak.

SMOKE TEPEE:

Drive 3 sticks into the ground to form a triangle and tie the tops together. Build a platform between them and get a fire going beneath.

SMOKE HOUSE:

As an alternative to the tepee make a square frame of uprights (a) and crosspiece supporting a smoking platform with the fire beneath & used in exactly the same was as the tepee.

In both cases meats should be cut into lean-fat-free strips and fish gutted and filleted.

The strips can be any length but should only be about 2.5cm (1in) wide & 6mm (1/4in) thick.

But AVOID holly and other toxic leaves and conifers (Evergreen) which tend to be resinous & may burst into flame.

Do not use grass. Some leaves will give meat an individual flavour; pimento leaves are particularly distinctive.

MAKE SURE that there are no flames left in the fire and pile the leaves over the embers.

Cover the whole structure with a cloth to keep in the smoke. If you do not have a suitable material have boughs and turfs ready to pile rapidly on the frame and seal it. Leave the structure sealed for 18 hours ensuring that little or no smoke escapes.

If the embers in a smoke tepee burst into flame, there is a risk that the whole structure may catch alight.

This can be avoided by building a fire in a chamber in a bank with the tepee erected over the chimney.

This also makes it possible to tend the fire and to ensure a more extensive supply of smoke, which will be cooler than from a fire directly underneath. The food will dry slowly & become coated with smoke without being cooked

SMOKED MEAT OR FISH:

1) Lay the thin fat-less slice about 1/4" thick on a lattice-work of green wood, NEVER Evergreen, installed 3 to 4 feet above a slow fire.

2) Best smoking woods are: Birch, #Aulne, Verne# or Alder, Willow, Poplar.
[edit required - ED]

3) Dry-hut shape as A wigwam is best to give much smoke.

4) AVOID to make too much heat or smoke, the heat MUST NOT cook the meat, or melt the juices. A well dug in river bank or slope permits to install the fire at good distance & to have a cooler smoke.

5) Smoke till meats dry. Meat or fish can then be eaten by cooking when ready or Raw smoked state. AVOID to eat Raw fresh water fish, because of germs.

BILTONG:

This is a sun-dried meat. Biltong is the Afrikaans name, it is also known as jerky from the N. American Indian Charqui.

It does not keep as efficiently as smoked meat and should be used only when smoking is not practicable.

Cut strips, as for smoking, & hang them up in the sun. MAKE SURE that they are out of the reach of animals and about 2-3m (6-10ft) from the ground.

It may take 2 weeks for meat to dry & all this time it MUST be kept dry, so protection from rain MUST be provided.

The strips MUST be turned, to MAKE SURE that all surfaces are thoroughly dried, and, initially at least flies MUST be kept off so that they do not lay eggs on the meat.

JERKY MEAT

It is meat cut in strips and dried over a fire or in the sun. Cut the lean fresh red meat in long wide strips about 1/2 inch thick, hang these on a wood framework about 4 to 6 feet of the ground.

Under the rack build a small slow smoky fire of any NON-RESINOUS wood. Let the meat dry in the sun and wind. Cover it at night or in rain. It should dry in several days, a day or an hour depending how much meat is to be dried.

REMEMBER ONCE AGAIN: Not to try and build a smoky fire by piling on green leaves or wet rubbish other it will be total loss.

Many an inexperienced meat drier has ruined his meat by making a fire of green leaves which became saturated with oil leaves.

SMOKE ALONE IS SUFFICIENT: The fire should not be enough to cook the meat at all. Its chief use being to keep flies away from it. When jerked the meat will be hard and more or less black outside and:

It will keep almost indefinitely IF it is kept away from dampness & flies.

It is best eaten as it is. Just bite off a chunk & chew. Eaten thus is quite tasty. It can also be cooked in stews.

It is very concentrated and nourishing and goes a long way as emergency ration, but alone it still needs fat if for a long journey.

The fat which will turn rancid should be trimmed off before the drying operation starts.

A conservative method is to melt the fat, either for later use as a food supplement or for immediate use in the manufacture of Pemmican.

Dried meat as opposed to Pemmican MUST be packed in an open weave bag.

DON'T wrap or pack it in cellophane or plastic, otherwise the meat will sweat and mildew.

GOOD SAFE KEEPING

Sun-dried or smoked meat will keep indefinitely and retains its original nutritive food value.

You can cook it in stew, as broth or eat it Raw. If Well Smoked it is Very Good Raw. When using in a stew, it's advisable to soak it for an hour or 2.

PEMMICAN #1

To make it, you start with jerky and shred it by pounding, then take a lot of Raw animal fat, cut it into small pieces about the size of walnuts and try these out in a pan over a slow fire not letting the grease boil up.

When the grease is all out of lumps, discard these and pour the hot fat over the shredded jerky mixing the two together until you have about the consistency of sausage. Then pack the Pemmican in waterproof bags, the Indians used skin bags.

The ideal proportion of lean and fat in pemmican is by weight approximately 1/2 well dry lean meat to 1/2 melted fat.

It takes about 5 pounds of fresh lean meat to make 1 pound of dry meat suitable for Pemmican.

It contains all ESSENTIAL minerals and vitamins except vitamin C.

You just supplement this Pemmican with fresh food to supply your need for Vitamin C. If in good health, you can go about 2 months without Vitamin C.

PEMMICAN #2

This is a nutritious concentrated food made from BILTONG excellent for provisions to carry with You if you decide it is time to trek to safety.

You need an equal quantity, by weight, of BILTONG and of rendered fat. Shred and pound the meat.

Melt the animal fat over a slow fire, without allowing it to boil. Pour the fat over the shredded BILTONG and mix them well together.

When cold pack the mixture in waterproof bag. It will keep for a long time, especially in colder climates.

PEMMICAN #3

MAKE SURE that the meat is cut into thin slices and Without grease, then hangs into the sun and air, it will dry nicely.

MAKE SURE that the flies are kept off it as much as possible. Once it is dried it keeps a long time and breaks off like biscuit.

PICKLING MEAT

The meat is cut into small joints or pieces of about 1/2 pound each and put into a strong solution of salt water (brine) .

Pickled meat will keep it indefinitely in the brine. When ready to eat it don't forget it to part boil it before eating it, throw away the first water then finish the boiling with another fresh water.

PICKLING NOTE: (Marinade)

Whatever is the game, you MUST NOT let it marinade more than 48 hours. Most often a few hours are sufficient. NEVER use vinegar.

The best marinade is not the one you buy under some fancy name, they are not worth zip, best to do your own: 1 1/2 glass of wine & 1/2 glass of oil.

Please use a good wine, for you can't give what you don't have, and a bad or cheap wine gives bad marinade. Add to it the usual spices or your own mixture.

PICKLING & SALTING:

Citric acid obtained from wild limes and lemons can be used to pickle fish and meat. Dilute 2 parts of fruit juice with one of water, mix well and soak flesh in this for at least 12 hours.

Now transfer it to a covered, and preferably an airtight container and with sufficient solution to cover all the meat.

Vegetables with a high water content are difficult to preserve. (Note that when buried in clean sand, in a dry place, they tend to keep well for a long time).

Pickling is best for them if no sand available. Alternatively, if salt is more easily available than citrus fruits, they can be boiled and then kept in brine (salt water). Boiling kills off bacteria & the brine keeps fresh bacteria away from the food.

The usual way of MAKING SURE that a brine solution is sufficiently strong is to add salt until a potato will float in it.

Instead of a potato try a small fruit or root vegetable which fail to float in salt-free water (not apples they float too easily).

ANOTHER METHOD:

Another method of using salt is to pack tightly layers of salt and vegetables such as beans and peas, thoroughly washing off the salt when you need to use them.

DESERT MEAT DRYING

Many starving desert travellers have waited for game at a water hole, killed it and often swallowed the meat Raw. One party lived for 6 days on Raw gazelle meat.

You might think that the meat of any dead animal might go bad at once. But the desert great dryness stops the process of decomposition.

The Bedouins exploit this fact by cutting game up into strips then wiping the meat dry, then burying it 6" to 8" in the sand.

There it shrinks in a kind of cured meat which keeps up to 3 years, to make it EDIBLE you simply soak it in water.

BACKWOODS FOOD KEEPER

Some hunters have a remarkable success to keep their food by simply digging a hole about 3 feet deep in the earth into which they put their food but when you do this beware of the scavengers who smelling the food will try to steal it of you.

ARCTIC FOOD KEEPING RECIPE

Make a thick lard soup using beans & rice, once cooked lay it on a board outside where it will freeze instantly.

Now using a hammer break it into pieces and put it in a bag and let it sit outside till ready to go. Once you have gone on a trip & have made your igloo just warm up one of those chunks, meal served!

FROZEN MEAT

In winter meat is kept easily frozen and out of reach of animals. Yet REMEMBER that meat will spoil if frozen after thawed especially if you do it more than once.

To AVOID this, before freezing the meat, cut the meat for one serving or 2 at the time thus you will AVOID spoiling or lost.

Eskimos when they want to thaw their meat, they put the frozen chunks in their water hole, since this water is running and the hole kept free from icing the meat thaws fast enough for them to start their cooking.

CAMP LARDER

It is simply a platform roofed over with thatch and with the sides thatched so that it is dark and cool inside. Darkness will help to keep flies away, coolness to keep food from spoiling.

An excellent improvement to a camp larder is a water tin suspended above the thatch with a few pieces of cotton rags to siphon water on to a thatched roof. This is almost a camp refrigerator.

The temperature inside such a larder if built in a shady position and with good breeze will be safely 20 to 40 degrees below the shade temperature outside.

OTHER METHOD OF STORING FOOD

It includes placing it in a hollow log wedged in the crotch of a tree or suspending it from a bough or making a platform and suspending this from a branch in a shady position.

KEEPING ANTS OFF

If ants are a pest, suspending the platform is one of the best way to keep them away. If they find the cord you can prevent them from travelling along to your food by tying a kerosene-soaked rag around the cord.

HIDING FOOD FROM ANIMALS

The best way is to suspend the meat from a rope between 2 trees. About 10 to 15' above ground, and far from cliff, slope or near by trees which an animal would use to jump from.

To protect it from birds you can cover it but the envelope MUST be loose to let the air circulate, so attach the envelope to the rope itself forming a sort of parachute, or teepee, around the meat.

TO KEEP FOOD FRESH IN SUMMER

The small quantities that you want to keep for a day or 2 MUST remain as fresh as possible. If you have a waterproof container just sink it under water in a shady place.

If it is too light just add a few stones to weigh it down. Or dig a hole and after placing your container of food, cover it over with damp soil in a shadow place.

METHOD #2

To dig a hole on the water shore or ridge and then to block the entrance with a big ball of earth.

You can also replace this mud ball by a very thick cloth which you imbibe (soak) with water each morning. During the day the evaporation will freshen the cavity behind the cloth curtain.

REMEMBER that your container of wood, metal or plastic in those cases MUST have a few holes, for air ventilation, otherwise if too damp the meat will spoil, the container is used to protect it from animals.

Don't throw meat being mouldy or musty, just scrape of the mouldy part or cut it off and cook the rest of food as usual. Yet I would be very careful in tropics to do that, and NEVER with fish.

MAGGOTS ON MEAT = SAFE!

Meat which has maggots is also safe to eat, just remove them and cook it as usual. Maggot is NO danger signal. In fact you can even eat them safely!