SC - Fw: [Mid] Is camping without a cooler out of period?

[david friedman]

>: Why would someone want to camp without a cooler?

1. Because it is a strikingly out of period accessory, hence makes the
encampment seem less period, and

2. Because it is a nuisance--you have to keep fetching ice, and at some
inconvenient time it will dump melted water someplace you don't want it.

  I assume that it is in
>an
>: effort to recreate a more period style of food preparation.

A more period style of camping, actually. One part of that is forcing us to
deal with some of the constraints they faced in similar situations.

>: Canning, which has been touted as an alternative to coolers,

By whom? We don't use canning.

>so to maintain
>the
>: virtue of your experiment you must use only pickling, salting, smoking and
>: drying for preserving methods.  You can combine these foods with cheeses,
>: fresh eggs and vegetables, but given the heat you will probably have to
>take
>: the car to town at least every other day.

Why? Cheese keeps much longer than that outside a cooler, as do eggs.
Pickled meat keeps for weeks. Dried beans keep more or less for ever, as
does dried pasta.

 >: The real question, though, is what type of period cooking are you trying
>to
>: emulate?

Period cooking when camped somewhere not close to markets where you could
get fresh food, and without sufficient herds for slaughter.

> If you prepare a
>: meal relying on pickled and dried foods you are probably simulating what a
>: person would eat at the end of a long winter.

Lentils? fava beans? Cheese? Pasta? So far as meat is concerned, you seem
to be assuming a climate cold enough so that you can preserve meat by
keeping it cold for a period of months, which would seem to require a hard
freeze through most of the winter. We in fact have a period recipe for
pickled meat; do we have any evidence that such things were only used at
the end of the winter?


David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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