How much food do you store

[diamond lil]

If you burn wood then you can cure meat in the chimney. What kind of things did they use fat and sugar for RD (or anybody) ?

[Red Doe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/food.shtml

http://ymlp.com/zKfEYv


http://www.scottishrecipes.co.uk/pottedhough.htm

Few ideas there Lil, hope they are helpful. When I lived in Orkney for twenty years, we ate a lot of the local food, such as salt cod and other fish. This keeps for yonks, and you really need to soak it in multiple 'washes' of water to desalt it but when it's ready to use in cooking it's fabulous.
Part of my viking age reenactment was learning how they ate and cooked. Staples we take for granted today, like tatties, simply didn't exist, but you'd be surprised what a variety they did have to eat, and nobody can doubt the norse folks were healthy enough.

[diamond lil]

Potted hough YEUUCH

[Red Doe]

More...


http://historymedren.about.com/od/fooda ... vation.htm

http://www.ydalir.co.uk/crafts/cook.htm

I think if shops and bulk food suppliers went belly up, we'd have no choice but to turn back to Iron or Viking age food production. And even then it might be different as the Vikings were traders overseas, importing certain foods they found appealling or exotic.
For an easy intro into such things, folks could do worse than look at reeanctment groups...good ones, such as those who place the biggest emphasis on accuracy and research, like Regia Anglorum (the group I belong to) because they use archaeologists and historians to research and employ us reenactors to do what's called LHE, Living History Experiments, to show in a working way how tools, cooking utensils, and food cooking methods would work in the real world as opposed to only on paper.
I think what we lack nowadays, most of us, is a working knowledge of the free food that is gatherable in the surrounding countryside which people of the past made greatest use of, and working knowledge of basic animal husbandry.
I consider myself lucky in having both the reenactment experience and having kept livestock ...though it's down to hens nowadays, I still retain the working know-how of breeding, rearing, slaughtering, butchering and cooking meat. No problem at all either eating uncommon meat. I've eaten horse, wild birds, seal meat (horrid and fatty but would provide nourishment), whale and even fox. We just need to re educate ourselves to what's classed as 'food' and learn older ways of storing it because the day might come when the electricity goes along with our freezers, food dehydrators and fridges.

*laughing at Lil's comment* but missus, if yer hungry ye'd eat it, as me granny would say.

[Red Doe]

Oh forgot, sorry!
I tan animal hides, and am a taxidermist. Sorry to be so "icky" but.....
it means I deal with dead animals, some of them meat beasts, like venison and rabbit.
I can tell you from long experience that if you cut meat into thin strips and salt it, for a number of days, simply cover the meat both sides in salt, leave on a rack to allow the fluid to drain, repeat for a number of days depending upon the thickness of the meat, and it WILL be perfectly dry because the salt both draws out the moisture and at the same time inhibits bacteria by dint of being a natural preservative.
This is handy for those of us who live in damp moderate climates where sun or air drying simply isn't feasible.


eta, to use, soak the meat in fresh water overnight, repeat in fresh clean water for another 24 hours, then use in cooking as normal.

[diamond lil]

Very true. But some things ye'd have to be nearly starving to even THINK about eating ..
like kale

[Brambles]

Very true. But some things ye'd have to be nearly starving to even THINK about eating ..
like kale

Chickens like it

[diamond lil]

Yea, shows how much sense they've got eh I grew some last year for them and will do a bit more next time.

[metatron]

Using a mix of food, vitamin and mineral supplement, I have enough food for two people for a little over four months. I don't really have the room to store for then six months.

[Technik]

...
I can tell you from long experience that if you cut meat into thin strips and salt it, for a number of days, simply cover the meat both sides in salt, leave on a rack to allow the fluid to drain, repeat for a number of days depending upon the thickness of the meat, and it WILL be perfectly dry because the salt both draws out the moisture and at the same time inhibits bacteria by dint of being a natural preservative.
This is handy for those of us who live in damp moderate climates where sun or air drying simply isn't feasible.


eta, to use, soak the meat in fresh water overnight, repeat in fresh clean water for another 24 hours, then use in cooking as normal.

I'm not sure but I think that's how the Indians used to cure meat.