Food

Love it!

 

Perhaps some on here can give me some advice on trapping crayfish . I just don't seem to be able to catch many . I bought what was sold as crayfish traps but my results wasn't good . My guess is either I bought the wrong kind of traps , used the wrong bait or perhaps it was the wrong time of the year . Either way my catch was inadequate even after multiple tries . The traps I had were plastic and were much like a minnow trap . They deteriorated over the years and were finally thrown into my burn pile . So I am able to try again with new traps and perhaps better bait . ---- It was a good thing my previous crayfish trapping was only a trial run for the apocalypse , because if my catch was something my family was depending on , we would have been in a bind .

 

TMT your fishing exploits reminds me of the time , I scrounged up enough money to take my family salmon fishing /bear hunting in Alaska . We were on food stamps at the time so that was a huge thing for us . We packed up army duffle bags with canned food that we bought with food stamps and boarded the plane . We took a bush plane and landed on a remote lake where we stayed in a cabin . From there we hiked each day " more than a mile " to the salmon stream . Those salmon we couldn't get to bite our lures and it finally dawned on me those fish coming up the stream were dying and were not interested in eating . After spending all that money I had no intention of not catching fish so our tactics change to something more unorthodox . I won't put on here our new fishing tactic but will say we were soon catching and releasing because we had so many fish on the stringer it was not practical to try toting any more back to the cabin . --- Perhaps some of our members know something about catching salmon that I don't . If so , I think our members might benefit from gaining this knowledge .

 

Signal Crayfish is the only thing I've fished and there was no luck involved, the guy I was camping with new the local water and we ate well that weekend

This is a good thread and its got me thinking about food if it really hit the fan.

Wild fruit and veg in the UK is short season stuff, your going to have to really work on how you store and overwinter your supplies. Smoking is the simple option for preserving meat and fish thats if you can catch it in the first place. I've got mates with better hunting skills than me and they come home empty handed some days. Another guy I worked with is from Alaska and he said much the same, you can go out after Caribou and come home that weekend with nothing. You need a surplus of food to keep things running well.

I've got a very basic vaccum sealer, only cost about £25/$35 but it works. I've got about 1000 bags and the machine only pulls about 120W, easily doable off a battery/inverter and that little gadget would make a very very big difference in food storage. I'll buy another three or four and a few thousand bags, take up no room and would be a valuable tool for you post collapse. Same applies to a dehydrator, cheap to buy, easy to run off grid.

 

I go fishing every Friday year around. I have always fished and am generally successful at it. Fishing for food is a totally different thing than what most people these days do as "sport" fishing. We eat a lot of fish so I am more focused on catching than fishing for the big fish like you do in a tournament. There are a lot more of the small to medium sized fish and they are usually better eating too so that is what I target.

I fish enough that I never put them in the freezer. I like them fresh and since I fish a lot that is what we eat. I generally catch enough for me and my fishing partner to each have a good meal. If they are biting really good he sometimes puts some in his freezer. There is nothing nicer than sitting in my boat under a shade tree waiting for a catfish to hit my line. I bass fish in small lakes and ponds and don’t use my boat. In ponds I have a float tube that is great.

 

I got my little vac packer and drier for things like jerky, drying veg for meals, splitting packs of meat especially bacon for trips.

If you vac pack meat it will last a couple of weeks without refrigeration because you've removed the oxygen plus your keeping off flies/insects et al and of course your slowing down the vit loss in veg you pack. A root cellar would be fantastic but these two little gadgets could be a great help while you get established post collapse, remember that a root cellar ain't portable should you neeed to move.

 

You don’t like ‘sport fishing’, fair enough. To each his own. Right now here we have the Euro Football Tournament. I can’t stand football, but if that’s a man’s thing, then good for him!

As for ‘mauling’ and putting them back, we respectfully handle our quarry. I CAN catch fish ( most of the time) without struggling. It’s called Knowing What You Are Doing. I have that skill at my fingertips. Not theory, but practical skill.

 

I have never lived someplace that had cellers or basements. Where I grew up if you dug a hole 4 feet deep the next day it would have 2.5 to 3 feet of water in it. Where I live is a little better but not a place for basements.

We always canned and froze a LOT of vegitables. We butchered a calf every year and shared it out into about three family's freezers. We also did a hog but to me the best was the little pigs. They were good eating.

It is strange in that while we did calves, pigs, and chickens we never had goats, sheep or ducks except for just pretty pond swimmers. Honestly there isn't much meat on a duck that intrests me. Maybe a goose but those are mean suckers and wouldn't live long. The peacocks didn't last long.

 

I love real football, Rugby football (played second row) but can't stand soccer.

This talk of fish led me to having kippers and poached eggs for breakfast and a slab of buttered toast, the kippers were caught straight from my freezer but were very nice.

 

Not cooking tonight, few things to sort out before I am away again and my lad fancies a curry or a kebab so that'll do for us we rarely have a take away. I do love a bit of Cod though........tempting...she what the lad says.

 

I have sealed screw on lid 5 gallon buckets full of beans, rice and canned hams. All that I care about us having enough food to get me through to the first harvest. I also have a lot of various noodles. With those and home made sauce it will offer a little variaty. There is something to be said for being country raised and liking simple foods.

I also plan on live trapping some rabbits and keeping them. We kept rabbits when I was a kid and they make good BBQ. Where I live there will probably be meat available on the hoof. There are cattle everywhere and we have a severe wild hog problem. I've made hog traps before so it won't be hard to make them again. Without anyone to buy them the ranchers will probably be pleased to share in exchange for fresh vegitables and fish.

 

You growing/drying herbs Dan, makes all the difference to a bland meal.

How many months could you feed your family from your stores? If the 'big kill' came along at the end of summer you'd need best part of a years provisions to see you through to a harvest.

What 'treats' do you store if any, a little something to put a smile on the family faces, maybe some chocolate (block or drinking) sort of thing, maple syrup, maybe a bottle of the good stuff.

00:30 here and the American hams are coming on air so I'm off to chat with one or two before bed, fancy some blue cheese and crackers washed down with a shot or two of Grey Goose vodka straight from the freezer ... Na Zdorovie

 

If it hits the fan end of summer you'll have very little fresh/wild food to supplement until the following year and thats if you have the seed/tuber stock to get you kick started and fit enough for the work.

Looking at my supplies I could feed me and the lad for 12-15 weeks which I'm not happy about and something I'll be looking at shortly.

 

In a few weeks , my plan is to plant a " winter " garden . This is an experiment for me . Already I have a 12 month out of the year food supply within walking distance of my survival retreat , but am always looking for ways to fortify our food resources . As most "if not all on here " , keep a stockpile of food . as Lonewolf said to supplement our food . There is just some days due to weather , gathering food is not an option . Or simply due to bad luck return home with no food for the day . That is where the products of our walk in smoke house excel , or the solar powered freezer . Actually on the entire survival retreat there is 3 solar powered freezers . We have canning supplies but consider it labor intensive , specially when the electricity and propane become a thing of the past . So I am not depending heavy on canning . Another item we keep on standby is a small refrigerator for short time preservation for items such as milk from our goat . That little refrigerator sits by our solar system for when the power company fails .

 

Another aspect of food is preparing that food for consumption . One of the first things I did after building my home was to buy a cast iron cooking stove /oven with 4 burners and the oven . That cost me about one thousand dollars and then had to haul it about 500 miles to it's final destination . Instead of putting it in my newly built home , I built it's own little house . The cook house floor is made of rocks that I picked up along my areas dirt roads . Then I constructed the walls of 8 inch thick railroad cresoted crossties and then roofed it with a double layer of shingles . That structure will likely last well over 100 years . Tourist will be coming by to gawk at the ancient prepper cook house . I have no intention of sitting in my home hungry on a rainy or snowy day because I have no way to cook .

 

15w off my shelves, I do have 8 cases of 24 hour ration packs (might actually be nine) so and 40 days for me and the lad. Mixed feelings about the new packs, come in bags not boxes and less snacks but more 'sport' drinks in them. Even the supplies I have are taking up a lot of space, a years worth would pretty much fill my garage. I'm asked if I can still get the 24 packs at the right money, if I can I'll get another 10 cases (of ten). I need to get them now, my supplier will be retiring in the next year or so

 

If your drained and dehydrated a 'sports' drink will work better and faster than plain water. A big gripe for me is the inclusion of a lot of off the shelf items like standard packs of biscuits which won't last anywhere near as long as biscuits brown or biscuits fruit sort of thing so where as the older packs you could leave on a shelf for five years or more you can't with the modern packs. The main meals will still last as long as canned meals and the variety is very very good these days though. Try and get a modern pack, you'll be pleasantly surprised overall LW.

 

Do you work out the energy content of your daily diet? Would you post collapse? A good thing about the rat packs are you know you've got your 4000cals in 24 hours, your have a pretty good amount of fibre/vits/carbs/sugars/salts etc. If I'm going on a one or two night camp I can just dump a pack or two in the car and thats my food and drinks sorted; I don't have to give food a second thought for the trip...jobs done.

The Arctic packs are very good, well over 5000cals and mostly dehydrated but are extremely difficult to get hold of in fact its been about five years since I last got hold of any. I think the army still have the ten man packs but again I've not had the chance of any for some years now.

The American MREs are not bad, different menu's to the brit stuff and back in the day a lot of trade used to go on with the boys swapping rations. A lot of American stuff is now in our packs, bread and cake products mainly.

I like to make up my menus too but don't be quick to write off rat packs, they have their place.

 

Wayfayrer food is more than likely part of the big Vestey group which make the rat pack meals, same food different picture on the pouch.

When you think about it a pouch of chicken curry is around £4 for 300gm, you can buy a 300gm tin of curry for £1.50 and a pouch of rice for 60p, big meal for half the price.

 

When I was a boy, there was the pantry and there was the basement (dirt floor, always cool even in summer). Food stuffs were rotated through the pantry and I would be told to go to the basement for the canned goods. The canned goods were jars of jellies and veggies my grandmother had canned back a year ago or so. All jars were labeled as to the date when they were made-up. New jars were put in the back; everything was cycled forward.

Today, what the wifer and I call a pantry or stores would shock other people. We have big shelving in our den that is solid food. One corner of our bedroom is dedicated to stacks of food. I have jars of the items I particularly like stacked under my nightstand (my brand of peanut butter, cans of navy beans, and glass jars of red cabbage). I cycle my tins of kippers through my work office. I have a pantry at work -- which my coworkers joke about. They can joke, but I've always got something to snack on. They stay away when I'm eating fish -- I can use this to keep people from walking into my office, don't'cha'know. I'm lucky to have a big wrap-around desk that has drawer space plus plenty of nice wooden cabinetry in my office. Where some people put chairs in their office, me I'll roll equipment in there, I have zero care about how things look, I'm all about functionality, period. I've got food in two drawers of those cabinets. I also keep extra sports drinks at work. I cycle through all of this food stuff at work. I almost never go to the cafeterias -- way too expensive. I get laughed-at for eating out of cans. I've also got my space in our kitchen refrigerator for our offices. Laugh-away! But, by golly, I've always got something to eat nearby.

At work, people will order out, then have leftovers. They know that I'm the office dog, so they ask if I want what they are going to waste. I always say, "Yes." Arf, arf, I'm a dog.

Most of these people have never known what it was to cherish food. They do not value food. They have never been hungry. They've never feared that they wouldn't have enough. The've never grown nor killed their own food. They've never stuck their hand in the dirt nor gutted an animal.

At home when the kitchen goes low, the wifer or I go for this or that in another room, or if she tells me she's low on this or that or I read it on our grocery list, I go to our bedroom or my office at home and fetch that which is needed. I then put the used item on my personal grocery list. Cycle, cycle.
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My garage is OK, not perfect but its brick built and shaded, the little wooden tool shed in the garden doesn't get warm, it gets hot, really hot easily 30+c when we get a warm day of maybe 23c outdoors so no hope of food storage in there. As LW its really only the old Victorian houses that have cellars and many of the smaller ones were used mainly for coal storage.

Had a good deal on Nescafe Azera (instant) coffee today in a local Asda store, clearance line on the 150gm cans at £1.10 / $1.50 each so picked up ten cans. Not a bad coffee for instant...drinkable.

 

With my workshop doors open and its window open, still it gets to be over 100 deg F, >38 deg C in the summertime.

This past week I was working in there at that temperature. This past Wednesday, it was 92 deg outside, 33 C. I just screened the shop window, complete with frame so that I can keep that window open to let out the heat and not let in all of the mosquitoes.

If you live in the South, you gotta be able to take the heat. Gotta hydrate and remember to watch your electrolytes. I drink lots of orange juice plus use sports drinks instead of just soft drinks that have caffeine in them. Can't be drinking diuretics unless you balance them with water and electrolytes. If you don't watch out, you will pass out.

We took one of the grandkids to a Civil War I battlefield today and it was 85 or so outside, 30 deg C. That's in the shade, of course. In the sun, you'd better be wearing a hat -- white clothes help. There was a breeze going today and there was shade to be had, so we didn't melt. Earlier in the week, it had gotten hot. We walked around in that heat for a couple of hours.

If you add humidity, it's worse. Let's go look at today's heat index ... Ok, so the heat index bumped the 85 deg up to 90 deg.; 70% humidity. When it is 90F and the humidity is 90%, it begins to get where it is difficult to breathe -- especially if one is over 6 decades old.
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I am fortunate,in that my house here in UK,has a proper walk- in pantry. It is an older house.We also have a cellar,and it is dry.When we bought it many years ago,my friend suggested we keep the pantry ( many ripped theirs out ,locally).It was good advice.Those two storage areas mean we DO carry at least one year of food storage. At the moment we are concentrating on using up certain canned goods,and pasta too. That keeps everything moving through storage in the right order.

It was very comforting ,when the shelves were stripped at the start of The Pandemic,to know we had sufficient to fall back on. We even helped our children who got caught out.

 

Our gaff is at good bit older than that.We still have our coal house too,which we use as...a coal house,as we heat with solid fuel.

The way houses are built,year on year,do show the cultural shifts in society,don’t they? As you say,modern houses just have a few cupboards,and that’s it.

 

I am on my third wood stove, the first was a great heater stove you could load it up with wood and it would turn red hot. it could heat my cabin from -20 degrees f to so hot you had to open the windows, the next was an air tight but to small, the one i have now is perfect. I can cook
bacon and eggs, heat up soup ect. it has a window to see the fire, it can keep the cabin warm all by itself in -20 f , it is air tight so if i load it up there is still coals in the morning, In the winter i have three very large pots with water that i put on top of the wood stove so if at any time you want hot water i have 15 gallons of hot water waiting. If you are new to wood stoves i suggest that you look for one that can do several things , Heat the place, cook on it, heat water on it, and provide light and a fire to watch.

 

My grandparents house had a coal chute into the basement. They'd get tons at a time. As a boy, it was mine to shovel coal from the pile into the hopper. There was a huge death-screw between the hopper and the furnace that delivered coal into the fire. When clinkers built up in the furnace, I'd open the oven door and get them out with tongs that had a 5 ft shaft. The glowing red-hot clinkers I'd put in 5-gallon metal buckets. I'd take two buckets at a time (to balance my right ant left sides) out to the ally and use them to patch the chuckholes. I'd use a sledgehammer as a tamper (I didn't swing it, I used the top of the hammer) to crush the clinkers into the holes and level them to the ally's roadway height. The basement floor was dirt, so it didn't matter if anything spilled; everything was dirty anyway.

 

We have two stoves,and both heat water,and cook too.As well as heating of course. I would not be without them,as it gives such a level of personal independence .

 

If you are planning on putting back more food supplies, now is the time to do it. Higher prices are on their way.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-...asons-why-you-should-stockpile-food-right-now

"For decades, Americans have not needed to be concerned about food prices. Yes, prices would always go up by a little bit each year, but in general we have been extremely blessed for a very long time. Our supermarkets have always been packed with food, and we could always count on the fact that prices would be about the same a month or two down the road. Unfortunately, things are now changing, and not in a good way. A massive wave of inflation has hit agricultural commodities, and food producers have felt forced to pass those cost increases along to consumers. Unfortunately, many experts are anticipating that the price hikes that we are currently witnessing are just the beginning."
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I am fortunate in that my family ate simple and cheap a lot of the times so that is what I like. A hundred pounds of pinto beans and a hundred pounds of rice gives me a good protean base. Throw in meat that I get hunting and an assortment of native wild grown vegitables and we will be fine. That doesn't even count the closet full of canned things and more in another closet. I live near a river and even now fish every Friday. We are also surounded by ranches and without a market for those cattle I bet that I can work a trade for meat.

After the first year we will have about and acre or two under cultivation to provide us with vegitables and corn. For that first year I suspect that food won't be a problem. The problem will be weeding out all of the idiots that have nothing and expect you to share your stuff and the produce from your gardens with them. If they get insistant...they will be fertalizer for the garden. I am not far from the beast that most people have within. The survivors will be the ones that can adapt fastest.

You can have every thing that a survivalest might want and it will do you no good if you are not prepared to defend it immediatly. If they get pissy with you and you run them off at gun point you are a DEAD man. They will come back and kill you and take what they want. If they get pissy with me they will die THAT day. I will dispose of the body and swear that I had never seen them.

 

Something I found interesting this past spring , I and some more of my group went up close to the Canadian boarder to look at mountain property for another survival site for a fallback position . There in a store I saw a jar of nasty looking stuff in a jar . When I asked the store keeper as to what that was , found out it was pickled turkey gizzards . I have eaten pickled pig feet but had up to then never heard of pickled turkey gizzards .

 

Today is a blood and guts day . Given to my clan from two different ranchers , a cow with a broken leg and a cow with a broken neck . Actually I haven't made it to the butchering yet so really am not sure if they are bulls , cows or steers . Hundreds of pounds to process .

 

The Orville Dam in California water level has now dropped below the generator outlets . No more electricity from that source for likely many months . Other dams in western U.S. may soon be seeing a similar fate . Agriculture crops dried up and died from lack of water in the western portion of U.S. . Thus one of several reasons barren grocery shelves of produce becoming more common. Soon canned goods from the warehouses can be expected to follow suite . China is having the opposite problem too much rain has destroyed much of its agriculture crops . Transportation system failing in getting goods transported . Things are not seen as improving but only to further deteriorate . --- I have been busy dehydrating tomatoes , pickling eggs , and plan to start making powdered eggs tomorrow . Lean and desperate times for the unprepared may be soon here .

 

The L.A. basin is a desert. So maybe it was suited for a military outpost or whatever. No sane person would put a city there.

Same with New Orleans. Back in the 1700s a French surveyor was sent there to the mouth of the Mississippi to evaluate it for habitation (the French did have a military post there). The surveyor reported that the area was situated between a river and a lake and insufficiently high enough to ever be secure from flooding. The only "high ground" was taken up by the military outpost, the rest of the area swampy and thus carried the danger of malaria.

Humans are lemmings.
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I had to look-up all of the following. I knew some, but little. If L.A., San Francisco, Oakland, Malibu (especially Malibu) were to be swallowed by the Pacific Ocean tomorrow afternoon, I would say, "Oh heavens, that went bad." I know some people who live away from the metro areas out that way, those would be the only folk I'd be worried about. The city-folk know that they are living in a desert and know that they are living on earthquake faults = "Too bad, so sad."

"How does Los Angeles get its water?"

https://www.popsci.com/how-la-gets-its-water/

"More people live in the sun-baked cities of Los Angeles County than the local water supply can support. Millions more. What’s a parched metropolis that’s long ago outgrown its groundwater canteens to do? Steal what it needs from other regions. Using elaborate systems of concrete-lined straws and pumps, LA slurps melt-water from the Sierras and flowing H2O from rivers hundreds of miles away. OK, it’s not technically theft—the city secured water rights decades ago. But that doesn’t stop people at the sources from grumbling. ...

"Water enters this network of channels via two of California’s largest rivers: the San Joaquin and the Sacramento. Some of that fresh water then flows into the 444-mile-long concrete-coated California Aqueduct."

[444 miles of aqueduct (715 klicks), holy crap!!!]

"Some 18 million Californians get water from this river on Arizona’s border. California gets to siphon off 1.4 trillion gallons every year, but the state’s been blowing that budget by some 200 billion gallons. The federal government has kindly asked them to quit it.

"With so much ocean nearby, why does L.A. import water at all? Because desalination guzzles a lot more energy and money than relatively passive aqueducts. A fancy desalination plant opened in Carlsbad in 2015, but it supplies Southern California a relatively low volume."
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