If we really had to process our own food for survival jar lids will become exstinct fast! I'm a history buff when it comes to how people acctually lived and what they did to survive. When you look at the history of food preservation before canning jars came to be it was five things they did to prolong the foods life. This is not counting root cellaring.

Salting- which gave you good outcomes but made the meat very very salty. However since people back then ate very little meat the extra salt was probably appreciated.

Drying- no comment necessary

Larding- things like mince pies or cooked meat was layered between melted fat and put in crocks in a very cold secure room. This was done in the late fall of course.

Sugaring- preserve fruits in very high (like unedible) concentrations of sugar. The foods has to be soaked in water before eating. But this was only used infrequently because truly poor people had very little money to use sugar this way.

Fermented pickleing- this was very common and used on meats, veggies and fruits.

We will all start using the old fashioned way of pickling if the SHTF. It doesn't require heat treating or self sealing lids. The days of the pickle crock will be here again. Fermenting vegitables, most notably pickles, was a very good preservation style because it was easy, used little salt, and was fast to put up.

I have made both fermented pickles and regular pickles. I like fermented pickles for dills and mixed veggie pickles. They are always crisp tangy and have a zing that is almost like carbonation that other pickles don't. Also there is alot of info out there pointing to lactos fermented pickles being very good for your health. I only do Bread and Butter cucumber pickles the standard way. The recipie I use for that is from the Joy of Pickling.

Fermenting is also easy, much easier than making standard pickles. All you do is mix the brine, throw in the spices and veggies, cover with brine, and bam! Your done. The fermenting takes place in a moderatly warm room or shelf. You check them ever so often to make sure the brine is covering the veggies and to make sure that the fermentation is doing it's thing. That's it! After two weeks you have really amazing food. Keep it in a cool place and they last up to a year. Mine are gone way before that though! You can use used canning jar lids and quart jars for this. Or you can get old fashioned pickle crocks. You could also use non reactive tubs.

Anyone here who has put up lots of food for home use will know that the summer is frenetic in its pace. You are constantly planting, harvesting, canning, and preserving all the food to get you through to the next year from dawn till dusk. So anything that cuts down on processing time is a blessing, especially if you are using a wood cook stove to process jars.

Just to give you a clue on how much food you'll need to be canning for fall/winter/spring use I tell you mine. I have a family of 6. To get us through from fall to late spring I have to can:

30 quarts applesauce
30 quarts cherries
30 quarts pears
30 quarts peaches
20 quarts assorted pickles
20 pints of assorted fruit pickles
15 pints each of strawberry, cherry, peach, and apricot jams at least
45 quarts marinara sauce
30 quarts tomatoes
30 pints of misc. condiments like apple chutney

I don't can green beans because it freaks me out with the low acid so I freeze tons and tons of them for dinners.

I also freeze a mix of summer squash/onion/eggplant for casserols, soups, stir fry, and oven roasting in the winter.

There is so much more I do or want to do but these are just the main things I shoot for. We also root cellar alot of winter squash, potatoes, apples, and onions. You can see how busy you'll be just doing preservation if you really had to grow all your own food. And I don't even reach that goal. I'm going to try doing saurkraut this year too. It's supposed to be much better than the store stuff and you can ferment it in quart jars.

Two great books on fermenting foods are:

The Joy of Pickling- has a huge section on fermented pickles. The other sections are great too, I tried making pickled grapes last year with a recipie from this book and even my very picky extended family loved them at Thanksgiving. They were more like a condiment you would serve with meat. Like cranberry sauce.

Making Saurkraut and picked vegetables at home- Klaus Kaufmann and Annelies Schoneck- This is where I first learned to make fermented pickles. It explains how Lactic acid fementation works to preserve the food safely and a step by step look at the process which The Joy of Pickling does not. The Joy of Pickling has many more recipies for flavors of fermented pickles. They sell this book in health food stores.

Good for you lasts with out refrigeration. What more need you ask for?

My Grandma used to pour a layer of hot wax at the top of her jars before putting on the lids.She did this with all her canning.This is what was done before the button lids came to be used.Matt

Very true but you have to have parafin wax to do that safely. So pretty much you would have to stock tons of that also. How many years of stuff is that. And then what happens when that runs out and no more can be gotten. Also I don't thing that works for low acid foods such as green beans, corn, tomatoes, etc. since you have to pressure can that.

When I was young, we only put parafin wax on top of jellies and jams, don't know why.

Probably because those are high acid foods wulfin. Same for me, my stepmom canned some when I was a kid and it was always just jam so I think that wax tops can only be used on fruit

Pickle making day is here!

These are the two different styles of pickle making. Note that the bread and butters are canned standard. These will keep for a year or slightly more if kept in a cool basement.

Note that the fermenting pickles are not covered with a jar lid or ring yet, but with plastic wrap and a rubber band to hold it on. This is due to the gases formed during the fermentation process. If you put a lid and ring on you risk explosion and a big mess. You can loosly lid it but then the escaping liquid rusts the rings beyond future use due to the acidity. Also note the metal cookie sheets under the jars to catch any liquid that escapes during fermentation. Some people use ziplock bags full of liquid to form a "plug" at the top. The old pickle crocks had lids and you would weight the veggies down with a plate with a clean stone on top. The veggies must be kept below the liquid level. By the way you can ferment almost any veggie this way.

pickled eggs are my favorite

I have been buying lids for canning when i see them on a good sale, figure if I don't use them, someone will be willing to trade for them, and right now they are cheap compared to what hey will be when there is no more at stores.

Thats for the wake up, I forgot to add lids to my preps. That really would have sucked.