Ironraven,

I should have remembered this before: You can pickle beef (a.k.a corned beef) and pork (salt pork - the staple of sailors for centuries). And of course, a "real" ham keeps very well. Dry sausages properly prepared can keep well - I've kept some as long as 1 year in the cool room. AFAIK, these are too much work for a modern d.i.y. person and the grocery store stuff - or even deli stuff - is not in condition to keep when you buy it. There are plenty of instructions around for doing these things.

Then there's the old slaughter-a-hog-and-put-it-up-for-the-winter method of cooking the meat, putting a layer in a barrel, covering it with liquified lard, add a layer of cooked pork and cover with lard, etc. This is where the expression "scraping the bottom of the barrel" comes from - by the time you eat your way to the bottom of the pork barrel, it can be a little rancid. I guess scrapple is sort of a smaller scale version of this. Meat has to be sizzling and lard hot when each layer goes in the barrel.

And since I was on the subject of pickling... pickled cabbage (saurkraut) used to be considered anti-scurvy, meaning to me that it retained vitamin C content. Homemade is not hard to do - crockery pot, strong brine, sink a layer of chopped cabbage with a plate or clean bit of crockery/stone, repeat until full. Smells to high heaven and it's best to skim the scum off the top before fishing a layer of 'kraut out for consumption. OTOH, it tastes so different than store-bought (better, to my taste), it may as well be a different dish. I remember my great-grandpa and my dad making 'kraut. Now, I dunno about the Vitamin C - all I know is that some old accounts claimed that eating some 'kraut everyday prevented scurvy. Kimschee might be better if you like that (and eating enough of that will ward of the average American from your presence <grin>).

Tom