[Sca-cooks] period food preservation

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

I'm working on my handout for "Preserving the Harvest," a class I'm 
teaching at Pennsic. So I'm looking for comments and feedback- and yes, 
Stefan, I did look at the appropriate files in the Florilegium! :)

What I want to cover:

   1. Spreading out the harvest
         1. diversity of cultivars
         2. early/late starting
         3. cool, dry storage 
   2. Preservation Methods
         1.  Two main methods of preserving: excluding air, excluding 
moisture
         2.  Fermentation/other bacterial/chemical methods; and why it 
is a special case
   3. Drying
         1. Grains
         2. Fruits/vegs
         3. Meat/Fish
   4. Air exclusion/carbon dioxide
         1.   burying
         2. sealed containers
         3. fat or aspic
         4. other media, such as honey
   5. Salting/Pickling, Fermentation
         1.   salt
         2. vinegar
         3. alcohol
         4. fermentation
         5. cheese
   6. Sugar preservation
         1. qualities of sugar
         2. suckets, comfits & preserves
   7. Smoking: an add-on


Samples:
dried fruit
dried beef (not jerky)
dried peaches with sugar (de Nola)
pears in honey
keg sourkraut
pickles?
pear compote
candied lemon peel or candied ginger


-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"I thought you might need rescuing . . . We have a bunch of professors 
wandering around who need students." -- Dan Guernsey