Salt Is Important In Camping

When going on a hunting or camping trip to the woods, one element that you should bring along is salt. Aside from seasoning the food, it is an important ingredient in preserving food. My father-in-law said that when they would have a catch (wild boar or deer), they would divide the carcass among them. What comes after is the salting process so the meat will be somehow preserved. With fish, they also do the salting so the fish will last longer. And when there is lack of food, they can gather any plant that is edible and cook it with salt for a little taste.

 

I think that this is an excellent thought, @Corzhens , and just about any food tastes better with a little salt on it. If you were going to try and salt a whole deer with enough salt to preserve it, you would need to bring along quite a bit of salt.
I think how you preserved the meat would depend on the circumstances. If it was just a short hunting trip, then you should be able to get the meat home and refrigerated before it spoiled; and (over here at least) hunting is usually done in the late fall when the weather is cooler. However, if you were living out in the woods, or even camping for more than a few days, and needed to preserve the meat, smoking it would seem to be a good option.
You would still need some salt; but not as much as if you were only salting the meat and not smoking it. It would require cutting the meat into smaller pieces if you are smoking it over a campfire than when you have an actual smokehouse where you can cure and smoke the meat for as long as necessary.
Our Native Americans used to smoke a lot of game, especially fish, over the campfires, and they probably had a minimum of salt. They also made jerky out of strips of deer (or other game) that was cut into long thin strips and then smoked until it was dry and hard, and this would keep for a long time. It was cooked enough that it could be eaten just like it was, or used to season and add nourishment to a pot of soup.
Fruits and vegetables have also been traditionally dried; but usually just using the heat of the sun, and not with a campfire like fish or game would be smoked.

 

My grandfather had a big barrel in his house. By the time I was a kid and lived with him they had been using the refrigerator for a while but when I asked him what it was about, he told me of how the elders used salt to preserve pork meat. While one can argue that salty is not healthy, the preservatives and chemicals in nowadays food are much worse I assure you.

 

I think some of the packets in the mall usually sell mix of herbs and the salt. You can keep that while going on camping. For 2 or 3 people that sort of amount is more than enough. And in some cases if you may require more then you can have another small bag of those mixed herbs in pack. I usually carry ready to cook food packets. And not try to cook from the scratch so I can skip some salt in that case.

 

Yup, it makes your meat last longer and you don't have to carry ice boxes around since they are both heavy and they don't last as long as say, salt. When we went to communities in the mountains for outreach programs, we always had to carry just enough for a 3 day camping trip, and you can only carry so much on your back that it becomes more of a burden when you are hiking. We couldn't even bring a gallon sized water container since it's just too rocky and unstable to hold anything heavy, so most of our items had to be lightweight.

 

Salt = Life. Can be used in soo many ways.

 

The fact remains that salt is ubiquitous, its found in almost any food thats why the prevalence of goitre is low. But it still has other user like crushing teeth, disinfecting wounds and the like. Salty water can also be used to relieve from stomachaches which would dampen the spirits during camping.