Proposal: Food Stuffs

[dragoon500ly]

Ive been doing some thinking (quite your whining!) about what sort of foodstuffs would be available in the post whoops world of 150 years. With the sort of die-off of the population and supporting infrastructure, what would be available for home use and for trade And what forms would some of this food take

First of all, why include 18th Century food storage The answer is simple, this is a very basic, easily understood and fairly simple means of preserving and serving food. It may not be the latest tech, but it does work surprisingly well!

Listed below are several items for consideration..sources include ~Feeding Nelsons Navy by Janet Macdonald and ~The Lost Super Foods by Art Rude, Lex Rooker, Claude Davis, and Fred Dwight. Enjoy!

[dragoon500ly]

Ship's Biscuit (Hardtack)

This is easy to make by hand if you dont mind spending the time to knead the flour sufficiently. It can even be done through the use of relatively simple hand-made equipment. You can use white flour for a better quality or use wholemeal for a common type.

Ingredients:

1lb (454 grams) (5 cups) plain (all-purpose) white or wholemeal flour.

1 teaspoon salt (not necessary for long term storage).

Approximately 3/4 pint (15ml) (1 1/2 cups) water.

Instructions: Place the flour and salt into a large bowl, add the water, a little at a time, and mix until you can pull the whole together into a ball of dough. Sprinkle a little flour on a level work surface, turn the dough out and allow it to rest for 10 minutes. Flour your hands and knead the dough for as long as it takes to make it smooth and silky (about 30 minutes).

Heat an oven to 160oC/325oF. Roll the dough out until it is approximately inch (6mm) thick. Cut it into 3-inch (7.5cm) squares or rounds, prick the surface with a fork. Lay the biscuits out on a lightly greased baking sheet, not quite touching, and bake for about 60 minutes. They should not be too dark. Place them on a wire tray to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

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Salt Beef

Beef can be preserved with no more than salt. To help prevent the meat from becoming tough, sugar is often added.

Ingredients:

2-3lbs (1-1.5kg) beef (rolled and tied silverside or brisket)

1lb (450 grams) sea salt plus another 2-3lbs (1-1.5kg) sea salt for the brine

4oz (100 grams) brown sugar

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Your choice of ground spices: ginger, coriander seeds, cloves, nutmeg

If using the sugar and/or spices, mix these into the first lot of salt. Rub some of the mixture (or plain salt) into one side of the beef, place it salt-side down in a large bowl or plastic bag, and rub more mixture into the top surface of the beef. Close the container and leave it for a day. Next day, rub more of the mixture into both sides of the beef and place it back into the container with the liquid that it has generated. Continue to do this for two more days. Now drain off and throw away the liquid, put the beef back into the container and shake more slat over both sides. Leave it for another day, then drain it again.

Prepare a strong brine of water and sea salt. You will need about 2 lbs. (1kg) salt to 1 gallon (4.5 liters) water, but the real test is that when the brine is strong enough, the meat will float, so mix the brine in the tub you intended to store it in, stirring until all of the salt has dissolved, then place the meat in and if it does not float, add more salt until it does.

However, the meat must stay below the surface of the brine, so once the brine is strong enough, put a weight (in a plastic bag so it does not contaminate the brine) on the meat. Seal the tub and leave it in a cool place for as long as you feel inclined. This can be left for up to 15 months and will remain perfectly tender and edible (if a little on the salty side). Check the tub every week; if it has thrown a white deposit on the surface of the brine, just skim this off and top up the brine mixture. Your nose will tell you if all is well.

When you are ready too eat the beef, remove it from the brine, rinse it off under a running tap and place it to steep in plain cold water. The longer it has been in the brine, the longer it should steep (approx. 1 hour steeping time for each month it has been kept). And the more times you should change the steeping water. Finally, place the beef and fresh water into a cooking pot (with a bay leaf, but no more salt!) bring it to a boil, skim if necessary, and simmer for 4-5 hours until tender. You can add some onions and carrots for the last half hour, or some dumplings (or both). Eat it hot with its gravy or cold.

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Salt Pork

Salt Pork is prepared exactly the same as for beef. It can also be prepared in the modern French way of curing petit sal (dry cure), although with keeping, the dry salt runs to brine anyway.

For the classic petit sal, start by making flavored salt:

2 lbs. (1kg) sea salt

12 peppercorns

4 cloves

4 bay leaves

1 teaspoon juniper berries

1oz (25 grams) white sugar

The leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme

Crush the pepper, cloves, bay leaves and juniper berries and mix well with into the salt with the sugar and thyme leaves. This gives sufficient for up to 12lbs (6kg) of pork. The classic French pork meat is belly, but if you consider this to be too fatty for you, you can use chops.

Place several handfuls of the salt mix into the bottom of a large container. Rub more into the pork and layer it into the container with plenty of salt between the layers. Cover it and leave it in a cool place for at least a week, but for anything up to two months.

When you want to eat the pork, take out as much as you want, rinse it off and boil it in plenty of unsalted water for 40-60 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat. Taste the water after 10 minutes; if it is over-salty, throw it away and refill the pan with fresh. If the pork has been in the salt for more than two months, steep it for a couple of hours in fresh water before changing the water and cooking it. Serve it how with sauerkraut or cold with salad.

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Sauerkraut

This is, quite simply, cabbage which has been preserved in salt. Start with a tight cabbage (the white or pale green sort), cut it into quarters and remove the thick center core and any damaged outer leaves. Shred the cabbage thinly and pack it into a large container with plenty of sea salt between the layers, pressing each layer down well. Find a plate that fits inside of the container, sterilize it by pouring boiling water over it and place it over the cabbage, adding a weight on top to keep the cabbage compressed. Cover the container but check it daily, skimming off any scum from the brine, then re-sterilizing the plate and replacing it. The cabbage will ferment and the brine will bubble; when this stops (after about three weeks), the fermentation process has ended and you can eat the sauerkraut. Most aficionados think it tastes better after another three to four weeks. Expect it to smell while fermenting and when you open the container to remove some.

When you want to eat some, remove a sufficient quantity from the container and rinse it well before boiling it in unsalted water. You can add a chopped apple and/or some caraway seeds.

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Pease

Meaning the hard dried pease has always been one of the staples foods. The oldest, the Carlin pea (Pisum sativum ssp arvense), is a small, dark brown pea which is traditionally eaten during Lent in some north-eastern counties of England. Also known as grey peas, these are a sub-species of the green garden pea. Pease is the term for the dried form, while pea is the soft fresh form. Dried pease are either whole, green and wrinkled (still in their skins), or yellow, ~split (separated into their two halves), unwrinkled and skinless. The whole green variety takes longer to soften (usually an overnight soaking) and cook (requiring several hours). Yellow peas can be cooked in a pudding bag during which they will swell and form a mass which is soft enough to eat.

Pease can be cooked in plain water, but has a better flavor if the water was first used to cook a ham, as long as it is not too salty. The trick with cooking and of the dried pulses is not to add salt until they are tender, early salting may prevent their even becoming tender. Purchasing a bag of dried green peas, you will often find a soaking tablet, change the water after soaking and before cooking.

One pound of dried pease will serve four people. Start by soaking the pease overnight (7-8 hours) in about three times their volume of water. Use a very large pot, as the swelling peas can end up spilling over the top. Rinse, return them to the pot, add lots of water, bring to a boil and then cover them and simmer for a couple of hours or until tender. Then drain them, add salt and pepper, plus butter and eat.

Pease Pudding
1lb (450 gm) (2 good cups) dried split pease (preferably yellow)

2oz (50 gm) butter

1 large egg

Salt and pepper

Start as above, soaking and then cooking the pease until just tender. Mash them with the butter, egg and seasoning and place the result in a muslin bag. Tie one end of the bag to the handle of a saucepan, either containing ham or salt pork, or plain water. Bring to a boil and cook for at least one hour. Turn the pudding out onto a serving plate and serve in slices with the meat, alternatively, allow it to cool completely before slicing, then it makes a tasty snack.

Pea Soup
Start as though making plain cooked pease, ideally in ham water, but using a larger saucepan. When the pease are tender, mash them and stir in a lot more water, bring them back to the boil and continue cooking until they have turned into a thick soup. Add morsels of cooked ham or pork or bacon crumbs before serving. Expect any uneaten soup to set solid when cold. Reheat it carefully, adding a little more water to prevent it sticking and burning.

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Duff

Duff, or suet pudding, in its simplest form consists of a mixture of flour and suet (the hard fat about the kidneys and loins in beef and mutton that yields tallow) and eaten with meat. By adding various things and treating it in a slightly different way, it can be transformed into a jam roly-poly, spotted dog, plum duff or sea pie.

Best results come from the simple ~half fat to flour proportion, but making this by volume rather tan weight. Use self-rising flour and prepared suet, which comes in little pieces, like grains of rice. To make a duff for four people:

2 cups of self-raising flour

1 cup suet

Pinch salt

Enough water to make a soft dough

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the salt and suet and mix together with a fork. Add the water, a little at a time, mixing with a fork until it comes together in a sticky dough. Flour your hands, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it very gently, sprinkling on a little more flour if necessary, until it can be formed into a ball or sausage shape. Pop this into a pudding cloth, tie the bag and boil the duff for about an hour. You can also pinch off little pieces of dough, form them into balls, and let them boil for fifteen minutes in with the beef.

To make a Plum Duff, add half a pound (200gm) of raisins/currants to the mixture and proceed as above.

To make Spotted Dog, add half a pound (200gms) of raisins and 2oz (50gm) of sugar to the mixture.

To make a Jam Roly-Poly, instead of forming the pudding into a ball or sausage, roll out to a rectangle, spread it thickly with jam and roll it up into a sausage before proceeding as above. Beware when eating! The Jam will be very hot!!

To make a Savoury Roly-Poly, substitute a mixture of chopped bacon, fried onions and mushrooms or onions and mussels, for the jam and proceed as above.

[knightofrubus]

Sounds like someone has been watching Jas Townsend. Also let's not forget the classics of the US. Corn, Beans Rice and of course potatoes. These staples likely would make a huge bulk of any diet. There's also plenty of Soybeans that might survive meaning weirdly some local variants of Tofu and Miso might pop up. Peppers would be very common as well, they add flavor and are easy to grow. Hot pepper flakes might be a common additive to dishes.

As far as porridge goes, grits, polenta and other cornmeal dishes likely would become common. They might not use known varieties of dent corn(milling corn) but it's certainly not off the table. Another thing to keep in mind is white bread wouldn't be common. Good white flour is hard to make and takes good wheat and very fine milling/fining.

[dragoon500ly]

Watch and enjoy Townsend's videos. Lots of excellent and tasty recipes! But his primary focus is on Continental America. The recipes that I'm posting are a bit more 'international' in flavor.

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Lobscouse

This is an ancient dish known under various similar names throughout the northern world. In Lapland it is called ~lapskuis and the recipe includes walrus, in Germany it includes both meat and herrings, in Sweden it is called ~lapskijs and is still made with salt meat, in the U.S. it appears as ~corned beef hash, using the type of slat meat which the call ~corned beef. Lobscouse is simply a dish made by mixing small pieces of meat or fish with broken-up ships biscuit, onions, or leeks and/or potatoes.

1lb (450gm) salt beef or pork or fish or walrus (or a mixture of all or any of these), cut into similar sized pieces, say about 1/2 inch (1cm) cubes, raw or pre-cooked. Or a large can of corned beef.

2 large potatoes, peeked and cut into pieces the same size as the meat

1 large onion or 2 large leeks, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons slush, or beef dripping, or lard, or even olive oil. 3-4 ships biscuits, crushed in a bag , salt and freshly ground pepper

Your choice of spices, cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger

If using raw ingredients, start by boiling the meat and fish and the potatoes until almost done, then strain them. Slice the onions and fry them until golden brown. Place everything except the onions into a large frying-pan, pout the onions and their fat over the top and stir well. If frying, do so for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly. If baking, add some hot water or some of the original cooking water, or beer, put a lid on the casserole and place in a hot oven for 30-45 minutes. In either case, a fried egg is a good addition when serving.

Another variation on lobscouse is ~crackerhash, made by layering salt beef, cooked pease and crushed biscuit in a casserole, dotting the top with plenty of beef dripping or slush and baking it in the oven.

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Burgoo

This is nothing more than oatmeal porridge. As with suet pastry, the mixture is two to one: two cupfuls of water to one cupful of porridge oats. This will serve four people. Start with cold water in a saucepan and stir the oats into this gradually. Bring the mixture slowly to the boil, then simmer for about fifteen minutes., stirring all the time. When the oats have changed into a smooth mass, serve it with sugar and cream or butter and salt.

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Portable Soup

This is a form of dehydrated soup that is a precursor of meat extract and bouillon cubes. It is also known as pocket soup or veal glew. Long a staple of seamen and explorers, it would keep for many months or even years. Within this context, it was a filling and nutritious dish.

This recipe will produce sufficient to reconstitute into four generous bowls of soup. Please note that salt is not added during the preparation state, as this will make it difficult to dry the concentrate properly and invite deterioration. Salt is not added until the soup has been reconstituted for immediate eating. Do not be tempted to use a different cut of beef, as shin has generous quantities of the connective tissue which breaks down into jelly.

Ingredients:

3lbs (1.5kg) of beef shin meat, cut into chunks about 1 inch (2-3cm) square

1lb (500 gm) stewing lamb, say neck, chopped into chunks

8-10 sprigs of fresh thyme (or 1 tablespoon of dried)

8 garlic cloves, crushed (or a generous squirt of garlic paste)

16-20 peppercorns, crushed (or several good grindings from a peppermill)

1 teaspoon celery seed (or 6-9 sticks of fresh celery, chopped)

At the beginning, you will need two separate saucepans, as cooking the lamb separately will allow easier removal of the fat and also give you the two meats separately to do something else with after straining. The beef will produce virtually no fat.

Place the meat into the saucepans, add cold water until the meat is well covered and bring it to a boil, skimming off the scum as it rises. Then turn the heat done, cover the pans and simmer the meat for twelve hours. Check it at intervals to make sure the meat is still covered with liquid, adding more if necessary. When the meat is done, strain it, keeping the two types of broth separate. You can use this meat to make pies or whatever. Leave the liquid to cool completely, when you can remove the fat, which will now have set.

Put the two liquids together in a large saucepan and bring back to the boil. Add the seasonings and simmer for an hour, take the soup off the heat and lit it cool before putting it through a fine sieve or a jelly bag. Press well to get all the juice out and discard the solids. Now put the soup back into the cooking pot, having first wiped out any solid residue, and bring it back to simmering temperature, stirring to prevent it sticking, then leave it to simmer, uncovered, for as long as it takes to reduce by three-quarters, checking it at intervals to make sure it has not gone too far. Take it off the heat, let it cool for about half an hour before pouring it into a square or rectangular cake pan lined with baking parchment (fold this at the corners rather than cut it, so there are no holed). Leave it to cool completely, cut into squares, and put these in a very cool oven for several hours to finish drying out. Once dry, wrap each square in parchment and store in a tin until needed. Alternatively, freeze it.

When you need soup, place one or more squares into half a pint of hot water, melt over gentle heat and add more boiling water to adjust the thickness. Now you can add salt.

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Doomsday Ration Crackers

During the Cold War, The U.S. government spent a massive amount of time and money attempting to develop a high-calorie survival cracker. A multitude of both thought and trail and error went into the creation of the hardtack crackers designed to feed the masses after a nuclear attack.

The resulting cracker was made and sealed in airtight tins. These tins were then shipped to all of the government fallout shelters. These crackers contained 125 calories each, were about of an inch thick and two inches square in shape. The shelter occupants were expected to consume six crackers along with carbohydrate supplements (a hard candy type item) and a small amount of water, each day.

This diet would provide around 700 calories per person each day on the projected 14 day stay inside the shelter. This starvation diet would not prevent weight loss or hunger pangs, but would keep the survivors alive.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups of Bulgur wheat flour
1 cup of water

Directions: Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the salt and Bulgar flour together. Pour the water in gradually, stirring to combine as you poor. Knead the dough with your hands. The dough will be sticky initially, but as you knead it, the stickiness will dissipate. If the dough does not lose the sticky texture slowly sprinkle in just enough Bulgur floor to take the tacky feel out of the dough as you need it into shape once again.

Roll out the dough on a sheet of wax paper after sprinkling the surface with a bit of Bulgar flour to ensure it does not stick to the surface.

The dough must not be any thicker than a 1/2 of an inch or it will not bake evenly and thoroughly all the way through. Use a sharp knife to cut the flattened dough into nine equal rectangles or squares.

Place the crackers onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake the crackers for 30 minutes. Remove the crackers from the oven and carefully flip them over and bake at 375 degrees for another 30 minutes.

Remove the crackers from the oven and allow them to cool completely. They should be slightly browned on each side.

These crackers have been known to last for many years without the use of any special protective storage bags. For best results, pack the crackers into either a Mylar pouch or a Ziploc baggie.

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Homemade Spam

Spam was originally marketed to busy housewifes as ~the miracle meat that didnt need to be refrigerated. Spams big selling points included being enjoyed hot or cold, straight from the can.

Ingredients:
5lbs pork shoulder
1lb ham
2 tbs + 1 tsp Tender Quick
3tbs sugar
3tbs corn-starch or potato starch
1tbs Kosher salt
1 cup, ice cold water

Method:
Heat the oven 250 degrees.
If there is a bone-in piece of pork shoulder, remove the bone and set aside.
Dice the pork should meat into stew-size pieces, keeping any fat attached to the meat.

Again, without trimming off any fat, dice the ham into the same size pieces as the pork shoulder.

Spread the cubed meats in an even layer on a tray and freeze for 45 minutes to firm up.

Meanwhile, make a curing slurry. Mix the Tender Quick, sugar, corn-starch and salt in a bowl with the ice-cold water until the dry ingredients are dissolved.

Set the bowl to one side while you grind the meats, either pushing them through a grinder or using a heavy-duty food processor.

Combine the ground meats in a large bowl and pour over the slurry, mixing everything together really well, preferably with your hands.

Once everything is thoroughly mixed, press the mixture into a bread pan(s) and securely double-wrap the pan with aluminum foil.

Place the bread pan into a larger pan and pour in cold water to come to three quarters of the way up the side before putting into the oven for 3 to 3 1/2 hours.

After the cooking time is complete, remove from the oven and check that the center of the loaf has reached an internal temperature of 155 degrees.
Take the pan out of the water bath and place a heavy weight on top of the foil and leave until completely cool.

Once cooled, place into the refrigerator, with the weight in place, overnight.
The next morning, remove the weight and foil, and loosen around the edges of your Spam with a butter knife. Slide out onto a plate and slice.
There will be a nice, delicious savory jelly that surrounds the meat. Store the jelly and the meat in a refrigerator for up to 5 days or freeze in parchment paper-wrapped slices.

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Bannock Bread

Prized for its long-lasting qualities, this bread is easy to make It can be cooked in a pan or wrapped around a stick over a fire and cooked in an oven.

Ingredients
3 cups of flour
1/2 cup of lard
2 trsps of baking soda
2 pinches of salt
2 cups of water

Process
Start by mixing the flour and lard together. You can use two forks to mash the flour and lard together. You basically want to spread the lard throughout the flour before adding water. Otherwise, you will have a big lump of flour, baking soda, salt and water on one side and a lump of lard on the other. So take your time and mix the flour and lard thoroughly.

Next you add the baking soda, salt and you can even add dried fruits such as raisins or currants.

At this point you add water. It will start as a stodgy mess but as you keep mixing the dough will start to come together.

Before wrapping the mix around a stick, make sure its has been cleaned and it is best to pass the stick several times through the fire. Divide your dough into portions that you will be wrapping around your stick(s).

Tightly wrap the dough around the end of the stick, making sure that the dough is secure so that it stays on the end of the stick during cooking.
You can hold the stick over the fire or you can brace the stick on a Y-shaped stick, make sure that you rotate the dough a couple of times until it is brown on all sides.

Bannock can be eaten right away or it can be stored long term. This bread will last at least a couple of months.