Non Perishable Foods

[sailaway78]

Ross brought this up in the spart parts thread, and I am kind of curious. What do most of you carry for non perishable food supplies. And has anyone tried the little Hormel main dishes that do not require refrigeration. I had one for the first time last week on the Pennsacola jaunt, and while they are by no means what I would call gourmet, they are not bad. Certainly beat MRE's.

 

[Warren Milberg]

Since I mostly daysail...

I only carry minimum food spares. These mostly consist of a couple of cans of soup, tuna, and herring. They last a long time in storage and are easy to eat, when necessary. I also keep a box of angel hair pasta aboard together with a bottle of vinegar/oil dressing for when I'm feeling adventurous.... I also keep a coffee funnel and filter bags along with ground coffee beans in a sealed plastic bag as it's hard to start a day without a caffeine fix. When we do go for a weekend or longer cruise, we stock up a large Coleman with as much cooked, and uncooked, foods as we can manage.PS: almost forgot to mention the Capt Morgan Spiced Rum (for medicinal purposes). Never leave home (port) without it....

 

[jimq26]

I always have Freedomeals on board.

Great shelf life, great taste, easy to prepare, varied menu.

 

[tony litvak]

canned foods and nuts

At the start of the season I stock up on the following supplies1. 2 cases of water2. 2 case of coke or other soft drinks3. Dried soups in styro cups sealed - just add hot water4. small cans of beans - 5. raviolies6. Peanuts in the sealable plastic jug7. Breakfast bars - they can last a full season8. Hearty soups and stews - usually are good in spring and fall when it's still cool.9. Canned fruit salads

 

[Ross]

I home can turkey, roast beef, roast pork ,deviled

ham, and chicken liver pate`. Also split pea soup, turkey broth, and black beans. We keep all purpose flour, corn meal, rolled oats, powdered milk, baking powder. There are crackers on board along with spaghetti, other pastas and noodles. Those are always on board when the boat is in commission. We take the canned goods off in the winter because they will freeze and break. We supply for a couple of nights with fresh veggies and try to keep onions on board. There is always a jar of fat for cooking and I can make biscuits anytime.

 

[ellis]

fried eggs

eggs will last indefinitely if you varnish them or dip them in paraffin to seal out the air through in a little ccanned corn beef and minute rice and it aint bad*!

 

[tom]

Fresh Food Anyone??

After Ellis' suggestion road kill sounds good, maybe a few dead carp..seems I always see a few dead fish. Personally I like fresh steaks on the grill. It could happen but I don't forsee any situations right now that would require more than a few cans of soup and maybe some crackers. OK OK I do have to keep a bottle of Brandy for emergency use only. If you are daysailing you should be pretty close and if you are taking a longer trip you should have a reasonable amount of edible preferrablly palatable provisons. Steaks potatos onions super pasteurized milk etc etc.. We are talking boats here not backpacking. MRE's are nasty I ate all of them that I ever want to eat when I was in the military.

 

[Ross]

Tom When I left the Air Force they were still

dealing in "C" rations. That's why I learned to cook.

 

[Ross]

Tom, road kill isn't bad if it is fresh. I killed

a jack rabbit in eastern Oregon one night during a blizzard. He dressed out at five pounds and was very tasty.

 

[Dan Johnson]

Campbells...

makes soups in microwaveable containers that you'll find in supermarkets and gas and go places too. Dry roasted peanuts in a sealed plastic jar. Cereals, crackers, and cookies in neat plastic containers with four snap shut flaps with a rubber gasket seal. Jar of Jif peanut butter (doesn't need refrigeration after opening). Folgers coffees in their plastic containers placed in zip-lock bags. Gallons of spring water for the coffee maker. At least a case of water bottles. Just about everything else we bring down fresh each weekend in a 12v/120v Coleman.

 

[sailaway78]

Ross, you are the only one

Hey Ross,I must tell you that you are the very first person I have ever heard that would admit to eating a Jackrabbit. Being an old Texas boy, I'm sure that many of the critters have been eaten, but I have never before heard of anyone with the cajones to admit to it.

 

[tom]

Ross Don't tell that story in Texas

Even Coyotes don't eat jackrabbits unless they are starving. If you tell that story in Texas they will really think that you are strange.... I had a friend there that hated jackrabbits almost as much as he hated coyotes. He shot both on sight. But then again he shot most anything on his 1100 acre ranch. Southwest of Castroville that is a pretty small ranch. He swore that three jackrabbits ate as much as a cow. Road kill armadillo is much preferred over jackrabbits in that part of the country. My favorite was fresh shot quail. I did eat a rattlesnake once. TOO Boney. Now back to fresh steaks and maybe a pot full of royal red shrimp??? If you are lucky a fresh snapper or flounder. Yep they called them C rations when I was in the service too. My son calls them MRE's and I've got into the habit. People are strange about what they will eat. Once on a canoe trip my son caught three nice trout and a smallmouth bass. He was young and lost his appetite as he watched me clean the fish. While I was stuffing myself on fresh fish cooked over and open fire he ate a couple of hotdogs from the ice chest????? Strange. Now what kind of person will eat MRE's if they aren't starving???

 

[Ross]

Nice and Easy, I have been known to eat bits and

pieces of dead cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, squirrels, fish, crabs, crawfish, and lobster. As long as I haven't been introduced to my dinner before it came to the table I am good to go. I lived for 18 months in the Philipine Islands and ate what ever was offered to me without question. Have never had armadillo mostly because it wasn't on the menu. Never been hungry enough to try buzzard, skunk or fox. If you come to my place I will tell you what is on the menu before I sit you at the table.

 

[Terry Cox]

Growing up in Willapa, WA we ate mostly from...

the land; all wild. Rabbit, snipe, pigeon, bear, venison, duck, geese, pheasant, etc. All very tasty. Raised on raw milk and all the other stuff you find on the farm. When I got hungry during the day apples, raw potatoes and calf food helped fill the void. MREs, delicious! On the boat mostly canned goods...fruits, vegetables, chicken broth, frozen hamburger for making casseroles, spaghetti and soups. A coffee press for making moca, assorted crackers, cookies, eggs and milk. I prefer to prepare our meals for the admiral and I. We like my egg fry for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and a casserole or soup for dinner. Turkey, chicken or tuna salad makes a good lunch alternative. Home made apple sauce (very easy to make; from our early transparent tree) with chocolate fudge cake...mmmmm mmmmm.During our cruises we gather fresh sea snails, oysters, clams, fish, etc. Also we pick huckle berries, black berries, wild onions and apples from the local trees.Oops, almost forgot...ample beer and wine all around. Night cap it with a nice brandy or congniac. Sorry no cigars.Terry

 

[CalebD]

People here eat Frogs Legs and Rattlers

but people in the 'old' country used to cook hares which they called something like 'Hosen Pfeffer' not that I know anything about this. I think it was considered somewhat of a delicacy - rabbit stew - think chicken with no feathers. In Mark Twain's day people ate raccoon, ground hog or whatever they could kill. Are people really getting upset about folks eating roadkill now? I ran it over and it is mine! Better to put it to use. From an early age I learned to clean fish that I caught with my Dad. I never learned to clean and skin a mammal or snake (eel is the same as a snake taxonomically) although I once saw a Copper Head being skinned in NC when it was the 1960s. I think I might have even tasted the snake back then and it was pretty good. One of my favorite Simpson's episodes involves Fat Tony and the Mob offering rat's milk to to kids of the Springfield Elementary. C'mon, there is everything from 'goats milk cheese' to 'hogs hoofs' in our decent local supermarkets.I remember the rabbit stew being quite tasty. There are a lot of wild fowl (eg, hen and rooster chickens) in the Hawaiian Islands. Do you think the locals don't eat them even if they are protected by law? You bet they do. And the chickens eat the worms, grass and anything that moves and probably taste great. I will not pick up a dead fish out of the water to cook it though. Those are for the Sea Gulls and other vertebrates to consume. You want to know that you are eating healthy fish rather than fish that was possibly poisoned by some local pollution event. Oh yeah, the point was food 'spares'. Ditto Warren and all with a few canned goods like Tuna, soups, and Sardines and pasta. A good nourishing meal goes a long way towards restoring yourself and your spirits. I challenge you to eat a 'Sea Robin'!

 

[Fred]

We keep flour and baking powder on the

boat, along with most of the canned goods already mentioned by others, also the little cans of smoked clams and mussels. They make a good snack or a quick sauce for pasta with a little olive oil and a drop or two of vinegar added. We always have extra virgin olive oil on board and balsamic vinegar. It's hard to keep wine aboard. Seems to evaporate. I like sardines, so I keep a few cans on board. My family prefers canned tuna.We try to keep a bag of corn chips aboard for snacks, but they evaporate like the wine. Need constant replacement. Japanese rice crackers the same.Of course, there's a bottle of rum or brandy, and cans of tonic and ginger ale. Lemon juice is a good thing to have aboard, but the bottled stuff doesn't keep well after it's opened. Fresh lemons are best. A hot toddy (water, sugar, lemon, and rum, brandy or whisky)is pretty nice during or after a sail if the weather is cool, which it almost always is here.

 

[tom]

For City Folks

Rabbit is a very good meat. Very lean and tasty. I like it fried like chicken. There are several types of rabbit. Most rabbits are the eastern cottontail which is very tasty. They have marsh rabbits which are bigger and taste the same. A jackrabbit is technically a hare and it is very tough and almost all skin and bones. Very few people will eat jackrabbits. As a child and teenager rabbit hunting was a real adventure for me. My Great uncle had beagles and it was great fun chasing around rabbits. He knew every dog by name and knew who was calling by the sound of their bark. It was sad when he gave up rabbit hunting in his late seventys.  I too like eating stuff like fish and oysters. We even ate a few conchs. In the keys we met some cruisers who were illegally catching undersized lobster to eat but we didn't.  Ross have you eaten sea urchin eggs??? I had them in the RPI and also raw giant clams. Squid adobo yummy. They sold barbequed dog on the street but I didn't knowingly eat dog. I did eat some of the street barbeque and it was tasty. Since dog meat was more expensive I doubt that they would sell it without asking a higher price. A chinese friend said that his Mom always made him rat stew when he was sick. I guess the chinese version of chicken soup. Humans will eat virtually anything. Another chinese friend likes to eat chicken feet. He brought a box of rice and chicken feet to work for lunch several times. Americans only eat chicken feet when they are ground up and put in hotdogs.

 

[Ross]

Tom, early winter in Oregon the jack rabbits

are still fat from the wheat fields. I didn't eat sea urchin but the locals called them sea eggs and cooked them in fires on the beach.

 

[sailaway78]

Things I have and have not eater

Many years ago I had a friend who worked on a small ranch in west Texas. They would welcome anyone who wanted to hunt jackrabbits. They were very plentiful, and were considered a destructive pest. We used a pickup, which was a lot of fun, long as you didn' fall out, and sometimes out of an old piper cub. But I never ate one. I have eaten rattlesnake, alligator, etc. etc. One of the best tasting wild meats I have ever put in my mouth is feral hog. Those are very very good. Not the fatty meat like you think of as pork being, but very lean and tastes a little more like beef. I think an old one would more than likely be pretty tough though. But basically I do not eat anything raw. May give it a try though, next time I catch myself a tuna. Lots of the fisherman cut themselves chunks of fresh tuna and eat it with a little lime or lemon juice. And oh yeah, I love ceviche.

 

[Dan Johnson]

Rabbit hunting...

when I was in RVN was done in the bush by hanging onto the 50 cal mount in the back of a bouncing M1A1 using a 45 to give the animal a sporting chance. Never ate what was left of one that was shot, but the locals loved it!