I was just asked by a farmer to help cull some of the food stealing deer on his land. That’ll be 2 more into the freezer. And I have 2 freezers already full of various sorts, but one is all venison. So trying to figure out how to best handle food and how it fits into my lifestyle.
I pressure can, so I have a LOT of food stored like that. Those are great for camping if one has a base camp and/or a vehicle. For canoe camping, it’s more of a PITA as you have to carry the lids and jars with you–and the weight.
I have a food dryer, but found it’s not very attractive to me for food. Plus, for the amount of energy it takes, I don’t think it’s economically worth it.
So I buy food that has already been dried like apples, etc.
Granola and nuts are also good for snacks and for taking canoe camping.
Canned, storebought metal types, I’ve found are very good for canoe camping as you can eat it out of the container, then use the container as a cup, when through, stomp the container flat and put it in the trash bag.
So three parts to Food Life:
Food at home.
Food camping in a vehicle/rv
Food for camping from a boat/kayak/canoe.
What do you do?
Canning fresh green beans should be mandatory as they are the most scrumdelicious things one can eat…and get locally, or grow them yourself if you’re so inclined.
My “go-to” for 60 years has been dehydrations for most long term storage of food. Jerky and/or smoking for meat. If veggies are dried and stored in air tight containers they last a long time.
Salting is also useful in some cases but leaching out the salt before eating or cooking takes time and I never thought it was the best for the taste of the food. Far better then hunger however.
For traveling by horse, mule, back pack or even vehicles I never like to use glass unless I have no other choice. Looing a container of food is not all that bad, but worry about the sharp tiny pieces of broken glass is the issue. Dried food in sealed bags works very well and nothing gets broken
I take it you ate c-rats? My fav was ham slices because it had juice and was very salty, so replaced what was sweated out.
Do you make your own jerky? What meat? How?
I’ve just never cared for dried meat. come to think of it, anything dried/dehydrated.
Ever make gravlox? It’s how the scandis used to preserve their salmon catch. It’s literally ‘grave fish’.
Cut the fillet in half. Get a salt and sugar mix and sprinkle on both meats.
Put on some fresh dill sprigs and wrap up in saran wrap.
Put it in fridge for 1-2 days.
Take out, clean it up and it’s good to go, cured. I don’t know if one could put it in a food dryeror freeze it as I’ve never not eaten all I made if not immediately, w/in the day.
If there are salmon in the sinks, it’d work for the, but I don’t think they’d like their fish pilfered.
Going to try this
We’d just freeze a steak, wrap it in foil, then stick it in our saddle bags. I also used to use quart size freezer ziplocks, freeze some food in it, like chili for example, then bring that. Sometimes a small, soft sixpack cooler works well.
Cans are favored and some progresso seems to be somewhat passable. Not something I eat otherwise, but as stated in the OP, use the can as a cup and/or when finished, clean and smash the can. I always have a john wayne handy.
Here is an example of how I roll.
On the left, a complete meal. I know where everything came from as I picked/bought/shot everything. It’s healthier and better tasting than storebought stuff.
On the right is a lighter weight version of that, sans veggie. It’s canned chicken and dehydrated garlic potatoes. When it comes time to leave for an overnighter/etc. just take the powdered taters out of the jar and stick it in a wp bag with others.
You won’t have to worry about the small mason jar breaking as I’ve dropped them down a flight of stairs, on concrete, etc. and not broken them. if one gets broken, you have to sustain a very very hard impact.
And they’re small enough and resealable, you can put some good/purified water in them when empty for later use. Or just use them to hold waste and not have to worry about it soiling/smelling things up.
Here are 2 pints of great northern bean soup. Scratch made of course. Smoked ham shanks in it. I also do chili like this and will soon be doing cuban black bean soup.
If it’s for one adult that only, 1 pint will be a meal.
If it’s for 2 and you’re mixing it with something, like over rice, then 1 pint will feed 2 as you’ll have rice too.
The nuts are my own combination of bulk nuts and dark chocolate expresso beans. Vacuum sealed with O2 absorbers. I’ve gone for a day just eating these. Can do granola too, but that more readily absorbs moisture from air, so quart sized containers would be better. This size is larger than quart, so 1.5 quarts I guess.
I figure most here are daytrippers, doing local stuff or people who travel, do the motel thing, so these things may not apply. But eating like this at home is less expensive, better for you, and better tasting.
If I am only going out for 2 days or less I simply pack cans. That way I need to rehydrate anything or worry about containers breaking. Dried food is best for longer trips because it packs down to a smaller space.
And yeah…C Rats were the order of the day in my time. They were not as bad as legend says, but when you eat them for extended periods of time you always found ways to secure something else. (anything else) C-Rats are a bit bulky for extended missions too. In my past, going out for longer times periods and over very long distances was the core of the mission statement, probably 8 times in 10.
So learning what you can eat, finding sources of food and getting creative was just “Tuesday at the office”. It’s the job, and it’s what you volunteered to do.
You simply can’t carry enough food for that long a period of time and when water and ammo are both far more important then food, the space and weight you had to deal with were #1 on your mind before you went out.
Today I go my long distances, and they are far shorter then they were in my 20s. And I am now carrying my food in a kayak, not an ALICE or Jungle Pack. No stacks of rifle mags, 7.62 belts, mortar rounds C4, claymores, grenades, radio batteries and com-wire to carry. No need to stay invisible 24 / 7.
On thing the mil learned after Vn was to not leave recon teams out over extended periods as you can’t make up the sleep there and your performance goes down. 3 days is about it, then performance degrades and you don’t realize it.
I’ve long lost touch w/the mil but I’m sure that lesson was forgotten a few decades ago along with the rest. I think it was orwell that said, each generation thinks they are smarter than the previous gen and wiser than the gen in front of them. Yeah, pretty true. We all think we’re special, the cat’s meow.
