For many reasons, bugging in is much more likely for me. I could use MREs and freeze drieds, but that gets pricy fast. Does anyone here know how to put up cheese and meat? (Other than jerky- I know how to make that.)

I'm hoping to have meat and cheese along with canned vegitables and fruits, but I can't find them around here.

Has anyone waxed hard cheeses, or know anything about long term unrefridgerated storage of waxed cheese?

Home canning of meat is easy - jars & lids, a pressure cooker, and follow instructions carefully.

No idea about cheese; sorry. I suspect that hard cheeses will store pretty good in a dark cool place. A matter of taste, but some cheeses improve with age - cheddar comes to mind. Shouldn't be too hard to find some info.

Oh - you didn't ask, but eggs are easy. We have kept eggs for many, many months without a simgle problem. Buy fresh eggs, coat each one with shortening, put back in the carton, and store in a cool dry place. I guess folks used to use lard and layer them instraw in a barrel, but I would think that lard has some chance of going rancid easier than vegetable shortening. Obviously, inspect each egg as you coat it and set any cracked ones aside for either immediate consumption or discard.

Tom

Know of any way to safely can meat without a pressure cooker?

I've heard of that trick with eggs, but instead of shortening, using parafin -- which won't go rancid. I would imagine beeswax would work just as well to if you already had an apiary. And then otherwise its standard pantry storage (cool, dry, dark, etc.. ) and they'll last at least a year or so. Probably also good to develop that habit of cracking them individually in a small bowl first and then adding to what you're preparing just incase you hit a bad one, so you don't ruin the whole batch.

Lily, welcome to the forum!

for canning.... the only way is with a pressure cooker.... a water bath canner does not get hot enough to kill the bacteria.

Hi Lily. Welcome onboard!

Anyone have any thoughts or heard about about how the increase in the number of internally Salmonella-infected eggs has affected their long-term egg storing routines? (If this is news to you, here's one link on the subject).

It's still not that common, but increasingly, just making sure that eggs are clean and intact isn't enough to avoid the infected eggs. By storing them for months at a relatively warm temperature, I imagine that the concentration of Salmonella inside these eggs will grow quite large by the time it is consumed. I wonder if you could tell the egg is crawling with billions of Salmonella bacteria when you finally crack it (nice tip about using a bowl--I always do that). Probably not, in which case, better cook them well, I would say.

Ahhhh, the miracles of our industrial food industry... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

OK, so "water bath + beef = botulism" is a pretty global thing.

What if I was to do it in something with a high acid content, like tomato sauce? Maybe do chicken in a nice marinera... add a vaccume bag with a nice pasta, and a small waxed cheese...

Just becuase it's an emergency doesn't mean you can't eat right during a bug in. :P

C'mon - pressure cookers are not all that expensive and they have other uses.

FWIW... I truly believe all the pubs about using a pressure cooker to reach a sterilizing temperature, but...

I suspect that if one was scrupulous about sanitation and hygene, it PROBABLY could be done at boiling-water temps. Meat is pretty much cooked at 165 deg F and WATERBORNE disease organisms are toast at or below boiling (nominal 212 DegF for the C crowd). I would not care to be the test subject for that, but it's something to wonder about.

Get a used pressure cooker at a yard sale and go buy a new gasket for it. Probably cost about what the scrap metal value is. The most versitile ones are stainless steel, and new, they cost more than the aluminum ones. Aluminum ones cook better if you're not using it as a pressure cooker - just keep the highg-acid stuff out of it (usual precaution).

HTH

Tom

Hi Tom,

The problem with non-pressurized canning of meats it fails to actually sterilize the meat. Heating/cooking the meat work is okay for non-canning mechanisms of food preservation, but if you are canning the contents, it must be sterile. While most bacterial/fungal organisms are readily killed at cooking temperatures, organisms such as many Bacillus species and Clostridium species (spore-forming organisms) are not, unless you use both high temperatures and pressure, these bacteria will not be killed. As a number of them are either facilitative-anaerobes (can grow with or without O2) or obligate anaerobes (no O2) and a sealed can is lacking O2, these organisms can thrive. Clostridium botulium the cause of botulism is just once such organism. Other Bacillus sp. can also cause food poisoning.

Pete