How did they preserve meat in the past?

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  • sobi1998

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    Call me ignorant but how did they preserve meat in the olden days? I.E. pre-modern-refrigeration. I know you can salt meat as a preservation technique. Or you can let a hard outer layer dry on the meat.
    So if SHTF and powers out, how do you make a deer/hog last a week or more?


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    sobi1998

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    Forgot about canning
    If I was alone in the woods surviving I’d probably end up more wasteful
    If I was with my family in the same situation, we could probably finish an average hog in 1-2 days
    69b82d81d68f14673b38f6c45c42e544.jpg

    Got this 125 pound sow a couple weeks ago
    Smoked a ham and it lasted me about 4-5 days conservatively
    To be less wasteful, i guess shoot the smaller ones...


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    baboon

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    Confit
    Confit as a cooking term describes when food is cooked in grease, oil or sugar water (syrup), at a lower temperature, as opposed to deep frying. While deep frying typically takes place at temperatures of 160–230 °C (325–450 °F), confit preparations are done at a much lower temperature, such as an oil temperature of around 90 °C (200 °F), sometimes even cooler. The term is usually used in modern cuisine to mean long slow cooking in oil or fat at low temperatures, many having no element of preservation such as dishes like confit potatoes.

    In meat cooking, this requires the meat to be salted as part of the preservation process. After salting and cooking in the fat, sealed and stored in a cool, dark place, confit can last for several months or years. Confit is a specialty of southwestern france.

    My dad told stories of grandma putting up pork chops that came out of a crock covered in lard. Duck & goose meat Confit is common too mostly down are leg quarters.
     

    thescoutranch

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    I have canned venison before and it worked great. My mother would can beef all the time. Easy to do, just follow the rules.
     

    sobi1998

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    I have canned venison before and it worked great. My mother would can beef all the time. Easy to do, just follow the rules.

    Did you add a liquid stock or how was it done? I’ve only canned pickles and veggies


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    thescoutranch

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    It has been a couple years but if I remember right I just added water halfway up the jar after the meat was already in packed down. When you use the pressure canner, the meat will fill the rest of the jar with juices. You end up with a jar of meat that is so tender; it is perfect for uses in sandwiches and stews
     

    busykngt

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    Prague Powder (Pink Curing Salt #1). Contains 6.25% nitrates; the rest, salt. Too much nitrates can be dangerous. I happen to be making jerky tonight and I use about 1/4 teaspoon per pound to pound & half of sliced beef - so it doesn’t take much. Also, it will increase “shelf life” of the jerky to a few weeks but it’s not that necessary since the jerky doesn’t typically last that long around here anyway.

    Curing country hams and shoulders, growing up in Kentucky: a thick layer of fat was left on the meat - maybe as much as a half inch. Salt curing (verses sugar curing like they do over in Virginia), I helped rub/massage {endlessly} a mixture of red pepper and Borax into the fat layer. This helped keep the maggots out of the meat. We’d put the hams or shoulders into pillowcases and usually into a burlap bag and hang them in the smokehouse for a year (sometimes, as much as two years). Take them down, cut the fat layer off and cook the shoulder or ham. A good, age-cured ham had what we called ‘frog eyes’ in the meat - little faint white semi-circles. Great eating; redeye gravy & biscuits too!
     

    toddnjoyce

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    When we lived in Europe, it was about a half-hour drive to San Daniele, one of two towns that makes prosciutto, which is a salt cured whole ham. That dry ages for up to 2 years. The whole place has a heavenly smell in the air year round.

    The hams are salt cured for about three weeks, to suck a lot of the moisture out, then washed and hung to finish. Each year, we would go to the prosciutto festival described below.

    https://www.nina-travels.com/festiv...ed-tour-to-a-prosciutto-factory-italy-travel/
     
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