Thread: Meat Storage Without Refrigeration

That is a great anecdote thanks Rupert. Because you didn’t mention salt or seasoning I’m guessing the leg was just dehydrated and smoked. Modern advice about preservation and charcuterie seems to mostly include the use of salt, but I imagine a lot of our early ancestors did more or less what you did. I’ve dried strips of meat for dog tucker without using salt and they seemed to be fine.

Great thread @Coote following with interest

Originally Posted by Coote

Those are encouraging stories thanks 30.06king.

Barry... I feel the same way about venison (and beef) being more likely to keep better than pork and poultry and maybe mutton. I am never likely to try it, but I have listened with interest to stories of game birds being hung by the neck until the body drops away... and hares being hung with their guts in until the belly flaps turn green.

Back around 1969 when I was at Nelson College we were studying animal anatomy and I offered to try and get some possums to bring in to the next class. I took my Gorosabel double shotgun on to a neighbours place along with a bulky spotlight. Didn't see any possums, but I shot maybe five hares. I think this was on a Saturday night, but our next biology class wasn't going to happen until the following Tuesday. I stuffed the hares in a sack and left them on the shed floor. The boys dissected the hares, and the teacher rescued some good bits to take home.... something that was a bit unusual to my way of thinking. I wouldn't be keen to eat shotgun-damaged, potentially rotting, meat that had been butchered by students on laboratory benches that might have been contaminated with all sorts of stuff that isn't common nowadays (mercury, phosphorus etc). When I saw the teacher after the event, I asked him what the meat was like. (I think he'd made a dish called 'jugged hare' which I think there may be more than one version of). He replied 'It was beautiful Coote'. That teacher was a heck of a good guy. If I remember correctly his name was Ian Watts. Top bloke.

jugged hare tradiionally hare pieces and herbs etc were placed in a stone jug with a sealed lid this was placed into a bigger vessel containing water was then slow cooked for hours hence jugged hare sounds good hare is a very underated game meat

Hares are a great game animal, and pretty good eating although I hardly ever find much fat on one (and I love fat). A hare I shot recently appeared to have quite a bit of what looked like fat, but it was quite an unattractive, dark colour. I get a few hares, but they are mainly kept for the family dog because our freezer is generally full of alternative meat and I worry that my fellow diners might not be as adventurous as me. A hare backsteak can be surprisingly tender. All game animals have a particular odour and, to me, some hares have an acidy sort of a smell that is rather unpleasant. I'd rather sniff a possum or a billy goat. But this doesn't put me off processing and cooking them.

Never tried jugged hare. Sounds like a good idea and may have been an early evolutionary step into what has become the much acclaimed sous vide method of cooking in a sealed bag in a water bath

Hares are a great size for a game animal... easy to skin and don't require much freezer space.

par boil your hare pieces in either milky water or salted water and that gamey smell will go also works for rabbit geese - alternatively marinate over night in salty water now have not tried this with hare but marinate overnight in garlic ginger and olive oil and salt that should be good could add some mixed herbs in as well

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

par boil your hare pieces in either milky water or salted water and that gamey smell will go also works for rabbit geese - alternatively marinate over night in salty water now have not tried this with hare but marinate overnight in garlic ginger and olive oil and salt that should be good could add some mixed herbs in as well

Thanks. I must try doing that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosciutto
I remember on some travelling chef programme they were looking at old school making of prosciutto. Salted and left in dry caves and over time more rocks placed on top to keep squeezing out any juices.

Originally Posted by Ned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosciutto
I remember on some travelling chef programme they were looking at old school making of prosciutto. Salted and left in dry caves and over time more rocks placed on top to keep squeezing out any juices.

I don't think I've seen that documentary, but I've seen similar things on YouTube. Some bury a leg in salt, some have buried them in ash. Others hang them up. But all the processes seem to take time. It is so good that there are a few people who remember and people who have recorded these things. Technology like this is likely to disappear if not used... and if not favoured by people today.

Pork is commonly turned into hams. I wonder about the trichinosis problem. While I understand that the parasite which causes the problem has been rare in NZ, I am still very careful to cook wild pork thoroughly and I am nervous about eating any raw pork product. I guess that over a long curing time the parasites are likely to die with the dehydration and high salt levels (if used). I've heard warnings that if you want to eat raw prosciutto you should wait until it is comparatively dry and has lost maybe 35% of its initial weight. But I'm not yet convinced. However with all my 'net browsing I've never heard a mention of problems arising from eating cured pork.

While I haven't attempted curing a pork ham yet, I have played around at making bacon. I don't like to use nitrates or nitrites in chemical form, so I just use salt, sugar and maybe some crushed thyme or bay leaves. Some of my product has been just OK, some has been too salty but my latest stuff is awesome...even though it turns grey when cooked because I will not use dyes or nitrites. I like fat, especially on bacon and fat wild pigs have been a rare thing in my experience, although in recent years I've had maybe four pigs which were carrying a lot of fat. The most recent one was bagged just a few weeks ago on a friend's lifestyle property where it had been rooting up the grass under his clothesline. The photos below feature this particular sow which weighed 48 kg with its guts out and head off. After making my slab of bacon, I rinse it, then pat it dry and cut it into the thinnest slices I can manage. I then free freeze the slices on plates and when frozen I stuff them into ziplock bags.

Years back,in another life I spent weeks deboning red cod,leaving flesh on the skin( when I do this to trout I call it road kill) the splayed open cod would go into box on-top of rock salt,well course grain salt anyway.and another layer of salt on-top.more fish more salt etc etc etc. was going to Mexico I seem to remember. The salt would pull all moisture from flesh and preserve it. Would need good rehydration or would he really salty jerky. Funny I had not thought about this for years.

Was the fish shipped in refrigerated transport Micky? Where was the processing plant? Interesting.

Salt fish has been a staple for a lot of people. Never tried it myself. A while back I saw that a local store had imported salt cod in stock, but I think it may have been frozen so I wonder if it was the real thing.

Pretty sure it wasn't refrigerator shipped.processed at deep cove fisheries in Timaru....shikes must be thirty years ago now,I was but a young 18 year old lol

I haven't been super convinced by brining in the past, but have used this method and it certainly doesn't do any harm. Used it on wild pig and goat roasts.

https://www.themeateater.com/cook/re...rine-wild-game

Originally Posted by MB

I haven't been super convinced by brining in the past, but have used this method and it certainly doesn't do any harm. Used it on wild pig and goat roasts.

https://www.themeateater.com/cook/re...rine-wild-game

Thanks for that MB. A lot of game meat can be unpleasantly dry so I reckon that is worth trying. Never done it before. I wish there was some way of infusing lean meat with fat (apart from frying)... but maybe brining will help improve the mouth feel. Corned beef is often too salty for me, but the texture is pretty good.... perhaps things can be tweaked a bit. Cheers.

Originally Posted by Coote

Thanks for that MB. A lot of game meat can be unpleasantly dry so I reckon that is worth trying. Never done it before. I wish there was some way of infusing lean meat with fat (apart from frying)... but maybe brining will help improve the mouth feel. Corned beef is often too salty for me, but the texture is pretty good.... perhaps things can be tweaked a bit. Cheers.

I love fat! I'd eat fatty meat, if not pure fat over lean meat any time.

Originally Posted by Coote

Thanks for that MB. A lot of game meat can be unpleasantly dry so I reckon that is worth trying. Never done it before. I wish there was some way of infusing lean meat with fat (apart from frying)... but maybe brining will help improve the mouth feel. Corned beef is often too salty for me, but the texture is pretty good.... perhaps things can be tweaked a bit. Cheers.

There is....it's called larding.... Basically you cut long bits of lard like the plastic counting blocks we had in school as kids, and poke holes through meat and thread the lard through them,fatty bacon works too. If corned beef is too salty. Soak it in milk first.or cook in milk. That's old trick for waterfowl shot by ocean. Our latest trick with corned beef is chuck in crockpot with small bottle of ginger ale...very very nice.