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Thread: preserving food in wet environment without clay?

  1. #1

    Default preserving food in wet environment without clay?

    I have been watching a show from History channel called "Alone". I've watched seasons 1,2,3 and 4. It is basically a reality about alone individuals in Vancouver Island or Patagonia, which seem to be quite damp environments.
    Some of the people in the show seem to be getting some days more fish than they can eat. Then i was wondering: in such a humid environment, how could you preserve food? One guy was drying fish file and keeping them just in an open bucket.
    Drying / smoking could be one option, but the dried/smoked fish would have to be kept in some kind of watertight container, so it wouldnt rehidrate with moisture in the air. And maybe setting up the infrastructure and big ammounts of firewood needed for high temperature pottery (clay becomes watertight from about 800 degrees Celsius, as i have read), would be a serious energy-consuming endeavour.
    I thought, maybe making pine pitch lined baskets could do the trick. It seems some of the participants in the show had plenty of free time that could have been used for making baskets and collecting pitch. BTW, how tight should a weave be for holding the pitch and not needing a lot of it?
    I guess coiled or twined grass would be first choices?
    Maybe packing the dried fish with something that would absorve moisture but not release it? Kind of like keeping some rice in the salt shaker.
    I have been thinking about this for many days and i can not come up with anything else. I would be really happy if anyone could enlighten me with any other posibility.


    Thanks for reading my post, I'm very sorry for my awful English.

    In case somebody was wondering, i do not intend to participate in any show


  2. #2
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    You might want to check out the threads, posts and Youtube vid's posted by Zachary Fowler.......
    He won the season before last....

    http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...87-DAYS-ep-1-)

    He is a member here and posts up a lot threads..

    May even answer your question.
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  3. #3
    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    This is a problem that people constantly misunderstand.

    These shows are about a contest, they are not about survival.

    Alone is a show based on discovering who can starve the longest before giving up.

    If the resources were available for anyone to really survive in the environment chosen, the producers of the show would either move the contest or change the rules.

    BTW, all that free time when they are doing nothing is called conservation of calories, not wasting time.

    If your effort does not furnish more calories than it uses up the effort is a waste of calories.

    When you are starving everything is a balance and has a cost.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

  4. #4

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    In old times folks used to travel long distances for flint and salt. After drying/ smoking meat it was packed in salt. In cooler areas you had nature’s refrigeration.
    Last edited by rebel; 10-12-2017 at 04:50 PM.

  5. #5
    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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    Smoking meat is not the same as freeze dried foods. It will not "re-hydrate". It may get moldy, but not in the time frames allotted for that show.
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