Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

Welcome Dee

pineapple

My world has been bereft since I encountered the great cannellini bean shortage. None of the local supermarkets have any dried cannellini in stock. In desperation I grabbed a couple of tins of mixed bean salad (oh the shame..) to discover later it included sweetcorn and green beans - in salted water with added sugar and vinegar. Absolutely vile - I hate tinned sweetcorn anyway and since when was sweetcorn a bean? :huh:. But apparently beans and sweetcorn are a known combo.
Anyway the second tin has been relegated to emergency food stocks. Or maybe I'll donate it to charity!
A search on the net revealed that many suppliers are running low and some are sold out. But I've found a source.
If you have any locally, grab it.

Butterfly_Brain

On the herb front I have rosemary, thyme, fennel, chives, apple mint, spearmint, pineapple mint, bogstandard mint, parsley and tarragon in my herb garden.

Lyn I have been looking at old cookery books as well, it is surprising how many exotic ingredients were used in medieval times

War time cook books have a lot of recipes that use foods grown here plus interesting uses for hedgerow stuff such as blackberry leaf tea etc.

I have been watching Tales of the green valley, Victorian and Wartime farm again

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tales+of+the+green+valley

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=victorian+farm

Manor House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3REDVjOmns&list=PLUOxCrDh0oVc0IK2J3G1tXaboor_Ilwe_

Edwardian Farm

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edwardian+farm

Tudor Monastery farm
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tudor+monastery+farm

The coal house
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93RHoIkWAdM

The coal house at war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aICzcTUd-go

Turn back time wartime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqli0YdL9Cg

Turn back time interwar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXh8Bpbxw0E

The British High Street WW2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXh8Bpbxw0E

Wartime kitchen and garden
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wartime+kitchen+and+garden

Victorian kitchen and garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOF49wIxDrA

I love all of these programmes

GreyQueen

Dee1956 wrote: »

Hi, I have been lurking on this thread for months. I though it was time to join you all I hope you dont mind.
I live 10 miles outside Belfast in a nice village.
I really enjoy reading all the ideas and tips.



Dee:)

Lovely to have you with us, Dee. Pull up a chair and natter along with the rest of us loons.


Fuddle, sewing threads are demonstrably not what they were, but Gutermann is the best that is generally available. But even they aren't the quality that they once were; about 20 years ago a costume-designer pal wrote to complain to them about their loss of quality. He got no joy of it.

I use Gutermann and a variety of pre-owned threads of other brands. The Sylkos on wooden spools are lovely. If ever offered any, smile widely, give copious thanks and grab with both hands.

About 3 years ago I really lucked-out at a bootsale in my hometown and got a lot of Gutermanns, brand new, at 10p a spool. The looked like brankrupt stock from a shop as were still in the aged packaging they must have been delivered in, 12 to a box, identical shades. I divvied them up between me and Mum and am good for some colours for the foreseeable future.

One thing to be aware of is that if you are buying threads secondhand, is that you may well see very large conical spools of thread, several inches tall. These are often overlocking thread spools, ex-factory stock, and they're thinner than regular sewing threads and aren't good for general sewing, mainly only suitable for a bit of tacking. Even so, if you can drop your hands on them at 50p-£1 they are worth having.

Re your lady with dementia, I don't know how old she is but if she is only in her seventies, she would have been an infant, or very young child in WW2 and may have had little awareness of the troubles, particularly if her family was materially comfortable. Someone would really need to be 80+ to be old enough to have personal memories, rather than family anecdotes.

My Nan was 21 on VE Day and is 91 next week, f'rinstance. Mum went through WW2 in the East End of London as was a wartime baby, but she can remember the aftermath, but was far too young to have memories of the Blitz etc, although she and her family were there.

maryb

I had a chat with the chap who runs our local independent sewing machine shop about thread. He really rates Gutermann, doesn't rate Drima, Coats Duet is OK but some sewing machines don't get on with it - the more electronics a machine has the more fussy it seems to be. Mettler is another brand you don't often find but it's similar in quality to Gutermann and they have a lovely range of colours. Cheap thread from market stalls is often industrial thread which is really designed for overlockers, it's actually quite a bit thinner than all purpose thread

HTH

Edit: note to self - refresh screen before posting so you don't look like you can't read what other people have already said!!

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

I had a chat with the chap who runs our local independent sewing machine shop about thread. He really rates Gutermann, doesn't rate Drima, Coats Duet is OK but some sewing machines don't get on with it - the more electronics a machine has the more fussy it seems to be. Mettler is another brand you don't often find but it's similar in quality to Gutermann and they have a lovely range of colours. Cheap thread from market stalls is often industrial thread which is really designed for overlockers, it's actually quite a bit thinner than all purpose thread

HTH

Edit: note to self - refresh screen before posting so you don't look like you can't read what other people have already said!!

Lol, maryb, just proves that we both of us know our stuff!

I've had good use from threads many decades old. Keep it dry, keep it out of the light, and it will see you out. Depending on the weather, I may be at a bootsale Sunday morning, and will be keeping eyes peeled for threads as well as a number of other things but you have to be FAST for threads, because there are plenty of wimmin out there who know the good stuff by sight.

[Deleted User]

Hi BB I've got a whole shelf full of wartime cookery books including 19 original wartime Ambrose Heath books and several other originals too and have the Tales from the Green Valley DVD and most of the others you list on home recorded DVDs. What I'm really interested in is to know not what the affluent ate in thier manor houses or at court or festival foods, I'd like to find what the average woman in a hovel had available to feed thier families on and how it was prepared and cooked. How it was stored and how they coped through winter and hungry gap times. I think it's one thing to plan for a limited SHTF event where the expectation is that sooner or later it will all be sorted out and the world made safe again perhaps with not everything as it had been before but somewhere close to it. What I can imagine is a SHTF event that takes a long time to end leaving a very changed world and using up all the carefully made stores and supplies whilst it is happening. The situation you'd emerge into would be akin to peasant life in the dark ages. We've lost a lot of skills and methods of living daily life, I wonder what would be our lot if that happened. The life in Saxon/medieval times was hard but enough folks survived it or we wouldn't be here now would we? I'd like to know how they managed to raise families to adulthood and just keep going from day to day, Lyn xxx.

jk0

They're trying to get rid of our cash stashes:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c47c87ae-e284-11e3-a829-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33D4Cn1rd

maryb

looks like it's behind a paywall jk0, could you do a quick summary?

ginnyknit

I also have a feeling that the S is about to hit the fan too. My prepping has taken a back set somewhat due to other things being brought to the fore front ie hubbys health and basically getting throught the day. I need to re build my stores now as I have been using them up to save money. The prices in the shops are frightening now despite trying to collect ys food and the weather is slowing down growing myself.

So its time to get a grip and sort the pantry out, maybe order a good lot of stuff from AF. Even the toilet paper mountin has depleted.