When I was in Saudi checking out the local library, I came across a "survival guide" for homesteaders in the 18th century. It was a really tough read because of the old English language... Thankfully they also had an old dictionary. But the book was really intriguing. And had ton of information, that I truly believe has been lost in our modern era. When I got back to the states and discovered the internet I started digging for old school solutions to modern problems. It was crazy fun. My initial focus was gardening as I could not grow a thing in Northern VA.
Next up was food preservation.. If I could actually grow something, how do I keep it over winter. Of course, being the geek that I am, as I learned these things I had a biologist/food scientist that could tell me why these things worked.
Just an interesting historical tid bit... Why were all the french sauces developed? They were developed to cover the taste and smell of rancid meat that had been cooked at a high enough temp to kill the bugs.
Why not salt or smoke the meat to preserve it in the first place?
