History How is food storage different then from now?

If anyone wants to have a pretty good look about food storage techniques (btw, ice was available during the civil war and some people had ice boxes, and not only) might want to spend a night or two at an Amish farm. Very similar conditions. Eye opening experience if someone is a student of the era, I'd say.
 
I do quite a bit of dehydrating because I do a fair amount of backpacking in the mountains every summer. I don't care for most of the commercial freeze-dried meals sold to backpackers, so I prefer to dehydrate my own. My "bible" is this site: http://www.trailcooking.com/dehydrating-101/

While that site talks about modern dehydrators with thermostats, you can dehydrate a lot in your oven with the door open a crack--and that could easily have been done with a wood stove!

I've read about "desiccated" vegetables being used in CW rations (Union, anyway) in an effort to prevent scurvy. Unfortunately, it's now known that the dehydration process destroys vitamin C.

Re "refrigerated storage"--when I was a youngster (1940s immediately postwar) my family and I lived in an area with no electricity for two years. Families who had springs on their property would build a "spring house" which was kept cool by the cold water. We didn't have one, but my mother would use a box with cold wet towels draped over it, which would cool by evaporation. I of course had the job of rewetting the towels every few hours! Naturally, when ice was available, we bought and used it. My mother did a lot of canning!
 
This is a timely post for me since I was thinking about this just yesterday after I watched Cold Mountain.
I remember my mom jarring things like peas, okra, and butter beans. Ske also pickled things for storage. I think it is becoming a lost art these days. Our society is too accustomed to instant gratification and convenience.

America is screwed if the power grid ever goes down.
my wife and I can, we do our own garden. We pickel meat and fish it is good. power grid goes down we live like our ancestors did in long houses and cabins with animal fat oil lamps for lighting. lol. You are correct most folks have gotten away from living off the land. We have become soft.
 
my wife and I can, we do our own garden. We pickel meat and fish it is good. power grid goes down we live like our ancestors did in long houses and cabins with animal fat oil lamps for lighting. lol. You are correct most folks have gotten away from living off the land. We have become soft.
I know its off subject but I couldn't agree more. I have been working toward being way more self sufficient I live in town so its a little tough but hopefully one day we can move where there is a little more space to make it easier.
 
If you have that quote available, I'd love to see it.



Unwaxed aged cheese with a rind does not need to be eaten fairly soon, as far as I know, as long as it's uncut so the rind is still protecting it. The rind protected it as the wax did, and that was how it was aged (with a developing rind). Googling cheese rind brings up some information, and I've not seen anything on rined cheese needing eaten sooner. Do you have more information?
James, I should have included cheese with a rind as meant to be stored longer.....An over-sight on my part! :smile:
Thanks!
 
Some interesting tidbits. The English around Dover, and wherever chalk deposits were had the most efficient grain storage ever. Pits dug in chalk and sealed with clay. My good friend and neighbor, a WWII Veteran told of small mounds in the fields in Europe. Upon investigation they found these were straw lined holes containing mainly root vegetables. The covering was straw and manure. Also as a kid growing up in the 1920'same he had the job keeping a kerosene lantern filled and Lit in the cellar of the summer kitchen during the winter months to keep things from freezing.

One preserved food I've found interesting is something the eastern woodland Indians used. Dried meat, fat, grain, and fruit or berries mixed and crushed, put in long casings like sausage for travel food. Slung across the shoulder and eaten as needed.
 
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Some interesting tidbits. The English around Dover, and wherever chalk deposits were had the most efficient grain storage ever. Pits dug in chalk and sealed with clay. My good friend and neighbor, a WWII Veteran told of small mounds in the fields. Upon investigation they found these were straw lined oils containing mainly root vegetables. The covering was straw and manure. Also as a kid growing up in the 1920'same he had the job keeping a kerosene lantern filled and Lit in the cellar of the summer kitchen during the winter months to keep things from freezing.

One preserved food I've found interesting is something the eastern woodland Indians used. Dried meat, fat, grain, and fruit or berries mixed and crushed, put in long casings like sausage for travel food. Slung across the shoulder and eaten as needed.
Pemmican!
 
Reading through anecdotes about the early part of the war, I notice that Charles Stephen Olin Rice described the rations he was issued as loose flour and pickled beef. We've been discussing dried beef and jerked beef, but it appears that wasn't what they were getting. At least, that wasn't what the 9th TN infantry were getting in training camp during the winter of 1861.

Does anyone know anything about pickled beef? How was it made and how was it stored?

Edit: it was shipped in barrels after having been pickled in brine.
http://pattyinglishms.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Pickle-Meat
 
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Reading through anecdotes about the early part of the war, I notice that Charles Stephen Olin Rice described the rations he was issued as loose flour and pickled beef. We've been discussing dried beef and jerked beef, but it appears that wasn't what they were getting. At least, that wasn't what the 9th TN infantry were getting in training camp during the winter of 1861.

Does anyone know anything about pickled beef? How was it made and how was it stored?

Edit: it was shipped in barrels after having been pickled in brine.
http://pattyinglishms.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Pickle-Meat
One concept just about lost today is the idea of fermented pickles. The idea is that the object to be pickled is placed in brine. The salt prevents harmful bacteria from multiplying, while lactic acid increases and preserve the item further by creating an acidic environment. It was a basic food preservation technique that worked for everything from cucumbers to, as you noted, beef. Meat could be kept in the brine, or taken out and dried/smoked some, which produced ham, bacon, dried beef, etc. and freed up the cooperage, but shipping meat in brine in barrels was a cheap, quick and easy way of moving it around because as soon as it was put in the barrel with salt, it was ready to go.

The link says it was performed with saltpetre, which is very misleading. Saltpetre could be used to maintain a more attractive red color for beef in particular and to increase the preservative effect, but it was optional, especially for pork and certainly for vegetables.

The author's recipe is skipping directly to vinegar as the acid, which one sees in some period recipes, but for the army, salt or pickled pork or beef was traditionally made with meat and salt alone, maybe saltpetre for beef.
 
I have a question, I can't remember what it was call or made but my grandmother used to use it to keep eggs longer. It looked like a green slime and you dipped the eggs in it and put them in the root celler and the solution would dry and keep air out of seeping through the egg shell.

Also my grandmother would wax turnips to keep longer.
 
Reading through anecdotes about the early part of the war, I notice that Charles Stephen Olin Rice described the rations he was issued as loose flour and pickled beef. We've been discussing dried beef and jerked beef, but it appears that wasn't what they were getting. At least, that wasn't what the 9th TN infantry were getting in training camp during the winter of 1861.

Does anyone know anything about pickled beef? How was it made and how was it stored?

Edit: it was shipped in barrels after having been pickled in brine.
http://pattyinglishms.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Pickle-Meat

I can only assume it was similar to pickled eggs or pickled pig’s feet.

It appears the army subsisted on gas station food.
 
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