My Old Man and Emergency Food Preparation

Some fun memories brought to you by Hikingware.com. (Don't let your emergency food storage wind up like this story!)

You would not call my father a worry wart. The future did not exist for him, and present stress and anxiety had no hold on him.

Some might call this serenity and wisdom.

My mother called it lapping up the sauce.

Which was true. Dad was a bartender and never lacked for a companionable glass with his free-handed customers.

Still, he remained just this side of sobriety and managed to carry out his fatherly duties at home -- which consisted of napping on the couch, eating dinner, and watching Gun Smoke while cleaning his fingernails with a cheap pocketknife.

My mother was worry wart enough for the both of them.

"Oh, those Russians are going to get us with an H Bomb!" she'd wail after listening to Walter Cronkite intone the evening news. "Can you imagine what those Red Chinese hordes will do to us when they overrun the country?" she would speculate to no one in particular as dad belched contentedly and lit up another Salem.

Her efforts to have dad dig up a bomb shelter in the backyard proved futile. Dad and tools got along like Senator Joe McCarthy and Joseph Stalin.

She was not reassured by the ancient shotgun he kept in their bedroom closet; a rusty trinket from his days growing up on a South Dakota dry farm, it was more like a blunderbuss that would explode in your face if you were foolish enough to load it with live ammunition.

But she struck a chord with him when it came to emergency food storage.

When she pointed out that a sneak attack on the country might leave us without enough to eat, he swung into action. He brought home a case of pork and beans from the Railroad Salvage store -- where damaged canned goods were sold for mere pennies. As she looked over the dented cans, my mother shook her head and queried "How long do you think you'll be able to stand this stuff?"

I was surprised to see him actually take her words under advisement. His normal reaction would be to tell her she didn't know nothin' from nothin' and to shut up, which would then lead to a shouting match that would rattle the dried putty off the window panes.

"I'll talk to Pickle Joe" he told her thoughtfully.

Being a pourer of suds in a tawdry gin mill, dad was familiar with a host of colorful characters. One of them was a derelict who went by the moniker of Pickle Joe. He made a meager livelihood by swiping garden produce from backyards in the summer and bottling it at his shack near the rail yards on Central Avenue. The consensus was that Pickle Joe was not overly concerned with hygiene.

That summer dad brought home bottles of various vegetables. Carrots. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Even a bottle of rhubarb stalks that appeared to be molting. Mom stuck them in the basement, muttering dire predictions under her breath. But at least her husband was doing SOMETHING.

The bottles began exploding just after Halloween. First the rhubarb detonated; followed by the cukes and tomatoes. The carrots, apparently, contained a stable isotope and never erupted.

After mom got through cleaning up the vegetarian carnage she told dad in no uncertain terms NOT to bring home anything else from Pickle Joe. Ever.

He complied, and lapsed back into his Schlitz-fueled Zen philosophy of letting tomorrow take care of itself.

At least we had that case of pork and beans, should Khrushchev ever make good on his threats.

About the Author:

Tim Torkildson is a noted humor blogger. His work has appeared in the Huffington Post and the New York Times.

How to Make Jerky at Home

If you are an avid hunter or want to learn a new survival skill to help you prepare your emergency food storage, learning to make meat jerky is fun, thrifty and satisfying.

Hikingware.com reminds anyone making jerky that strict hygiene should be observed at all times to avoid the danger of infection from microorganisms that lurk in all meat, wild or store-bought.

Jerky is a lightweight, dried meat product that is a handy food for backpackers, campers and outdoor sports enthusiasts. It requires no refrigeration and can be made from almost any lean meat.

The best meat for jerky includes:

• beef
• pork
• venison
• smoked turkey breast

*Raw poultry is generally not recommended for use in making jerky because of the texture and flavor of the finished product.

When preparing wild game jerky, it is important to remember that the wound location and skill of the hunter can affect the safety of the meat. If the animal is wounded in such a way that the contents of the gut comes in contact with the meat or the hunter’s hands while dressing the meat, fecal bacteria can contaminate the meat. It is best to avoid making jerky from this meat and only use it in ways that it will be thoroughly cooked. Deer carcasses should be rapidly chilled to avoid bacterial growth.

You can decrease the risk of food borne illness from home-dried jerky by allowing the internal temperature of the meat to reach 160°F, but in such a way as to prevent case hardening.

Two methods can be used: heat the meat strips in marinade before drying or heat the dried jerky strips in an oven after the drying process is completed.

When the strips are heated in a marinade before drying, drying times will be reduced and the color and texture will differ from traditional jerky.

Preparing the Meat
Partially freeze meat to make slicing easier. The thickness of the meat strips will make a difference in the safety of the methods recommended. Slice meat no thicker than ¼-inch. Trim and discard all fat from meat, since it becomes rancid quickly. If a chewy jerky is desired, slice with the grain. Slice across the grain if a more tender, brittle jerky is preferred. A tenderizer can be used according to package directions. The meat can be marinated for flavor and tenderness. Marinade recipes may include oil, salt, spices and acid ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, teriyaki, soy sauce or wine.

If using a marinade, first combine all ingredients. Place strips of meat in a shallow pan and cover with marinade. Cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or overnight. Meats marinated for several hours may be more salty than some people prefer. If you choose to heat the meat prior to drying to decrease the risk of food borne illness, do so at the end of the marinating time.

To heat, bring the strips and marinade to a boil and boil for 5 minutes before draining and drying. If strips are more than ¼ inch thick, the length of time may need to be increased. If possible, check the temperature of several strips with a metal stem-type thermometer to determine that 160°F has been reached.

Drying the Meat
Remove meat strips from the marinade and drain on clean, absorbent towels. Arrange the strips on dehydrator trays or cake racks placed on baking sheets for oven drying. Place the slices close together, but not touching or overlapping. Place the racks in a dehydrator or oven preheated to 140°F. Dry until a test piece cracks but does not break when bent (10 to 24 hours for samples not heated in marinade.) Samples heated in marinade will dry faster. Begin checking samples after 3 hours.

Once drying is completed, pat off any beads of oil with clean, absorbent towels and cool. Remove strips from the racks and package in glass jars or heavy plastic food storage bags.

If the strips were not heated in marinade prior to drying, they can be heated in an oven after drying as an added safety measure. Place strips on a baking sheet close together, but not touching or overlapping. For strips originally cut ¼ inch thick or less, heat 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 275°F. (Thicker strips may require longer heating times to reach 160°F.)

Jerky prepared this way can be stored at room temperature for several months and kept in the refrigerator for up to one year.

Gluten-Free Emergency Food Supply Kits

Perhaps you've been putting off getting your emergency food supply because you are on a gluten-free diet. You might think that you can’t find gluten-free foods readily available for emergency storage. The good news is that you can! Hikingware.com offers a complete line of gluten-free emergency food storage items.

Here is the reason most people are on a gluten-free diet:

A gluten-free diet is critical for people with celiac disease, in whom the ingestion of gluten triggers an autoimmune attack of the intestinal lining, causing gastrointestinal distress and the potential malabsorption of important nutrients. Additionally, countless others have gluten sensitivity, which can cause many of the same symptoms, without the intestinal damage. Advocates claim that a gluten-free diet can ease a number of ailments, including digestive problems, eczema, chronic fatigue, headaches, infertility, ADHD, autism, depression, chronic inflammation, thyroid disease, weight gain and diabetes.

Given the broad range of gluten-induced woes, believers say you might not know how good you can feel – or how bad you once felt – until you go gluten-free.

What is gluten?

Gluten, a protein found in wheat, grain, barley and their derivatives, is a relative newcomer to the human diet. As a result, some humans have not yet adapted to digesting the substance, which can cause substantial physical and emotional distress. And yet, most people are unaware of gluten’s effect on them.

According to Alessio Fasano, a pediatric gastroenterologist and founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, about 1 percent of the U.S. population has celiac disease. An even smaller group – between .01 and .03 percent of the population – has a wheat allergy. But an estimated 6 percent of the country, or 16 to 18 million people, are considered “gluten sensitive,” a new category defined by Fasano and others in a 2012 paper published in the journal, BMC Medicine.

Should you consider a gluten-free diet?

First, find out whether you have celiac disease, which can be determined by a blood test, although a biopsy of the small intestine is considered the most conclusive measure. People diagnosed with celiac disease are advised to rid their diets of gluten as its presence triggers an autoimmune response in the body that damages the lining of the small intestine and blocks the absorption of nutrients. Blood tests and a stool sample can also help determine gluten sensitivities. However, these can be tricky because detection hinges on having consumed gluten in the weeks prior to the test.

Meanwhile, given the wide range of symptoms associated with gluten sensitivities, misdiagnoses and under diagnoses abound, a simpler test is to avoid gluten and see if you feel better. People with gluten sensitivity may not need to avoid it entirely, but should feel better by reducing their overall daily intake.

The following are considered to be high-gluten foods:

• wheat starch
• wheat bran
• wheat germ
• couscous
• cracked wheat
• durum
• einkorn
• emmer
• farina
• faro
• fu (common in Asian foods)
• gliadin
• graham flour
• kamut
• matzo
• semolina
• spelt

Gluten-free foods include the following:

• fruits and vegetables
• beans
• seeds
• legumes
• nuts
• potatoes
• eggs
• dairy products
• corn
• rice
• fish
• lean beef
• chicken