Preparedness for when

maryb

Meat and dairy will feature less, that's true, but the claim that raising animals is wasteful compared with growing crops really comes from the US where they grow corn to fatten livestock. A lot of the UK is not suitable for arable farming but makes good grazing land whether it is hill sheep farming or water meadows for cattle. And if there are fewer external sources of fertliser, which is basically another way of burning fossil fuels, then mixed farming will become more common again in order to use the manure. Stinking slurry from pig farms and feeding lots will become an historical oddity.

During WWII beef and milk were in short supply because the herds were culled to turn over as much land as possible to grain production. But there was still enough to issue a ration to people. Foods which were genuinely scarce were dealt with by the points system because they didn't ration it if they couldn't ensure minimum supply. So I don't think we would see the complete disappearance of meat and dairy from our diets

And people kept hens and joined pig clubs to use their domestic scraps efficiently and that would make a comeback

Frugalsod

ivyleaf wrote: »

Why do you think that, Frugalsod?

I do not think that we are ready to accept such drastic changes, not without some revolts.

There are changes that can be adopted reasonably easily. With solar and wind generation and battery storage we could easily be self sufficient in energy within a few years if there was a push for it. There was an experiment where they used electric cars as mobile batteries to balance power loads and I think it was a success. This would mean warm homes at a low cost to the environment.

So with that and LED combined with aeroponics it could be possible to have urban farms proving plenty of cheap affordable pesticide free food locally with zero food miles. Meat might be a luxury that we have to cut down on but as someone who already has a low intake of meat it is achievable and not too drastic.

With better recycling technology we will not need so much energy expended to find mine and process raw materials. So I do not see us needing to head backwards. Simpler diets might be good for us especially if we rid them of additives. There are far better alternatives to a medieval lifestyle.

nuatha

Mrs LW I know what you mean but the list of skills you mention were all specialisms that may well have regarded those skills as trade secrets. Few if any smiths smelted iron, they worked from ingots and bars or reworked existing objects. Tanners, potters, weavers and dyers were all specialist trades their products being traded for other essentials.
Milking was a fairly commonplace skill, and thankfully its one that most people can pick up fairly easily. Churning butter is not skilled at all (I used to do it aged 6 and 7 as it kept me out of the way of the adults, and was my main chore) cheese making is relatively straight forward, hard cheeses are a bit more work (and time) but there's a world of difference between cheese and good cheese.

Given both literacy and access to books we can learn most skills through trial and error - unfortunately libraries have been on the wane for years and I can easily see literacy becoming a specialist area.

[Deleted User]

True my friend but we as modern humans don't even have the tricks of the trade in the main that peasants had in the everyday field. Who would know how to glean a field these days? who would know you could make cordage from nettles to use instead of string, who would know you can use nettles or ladys bedstraw to act as a rennet substitute for cheesemaking , who would know how to identify a rush and make a rushlight from tallow after they'd purified the fat enough to do so presumably having first slaughtered and butchered the animal it came from? It's not just the 'specialist' skills we lack it's the everyday ones at basic level too, how many folks could use a scythe to cut wheat even? let alone set it into stooks, thresh out the seed and grind it into flour, we're pretty helpless by comparison these days aren't we?

DawnW

Frugalsod wrote: »

I do need to get a good manual mincer.

I had an electric mincer which burnt out after only a short time :mad: so I then bought a heavy quality stainless steel manual one. It was not cheap, but super quality and looks set to last a lifetime. I bought it from a company called Weschenfelder which sells butchery equipment to both the trade and to private buyers. Mine is an Italian make, and really solid, and easy to clean. My only criticism of this model is that the clamp (for holding the appliance onto a table or other surface) is quite narrow, too narrow for our (thick oak) worktops or work table. We get around this by bringing OH's portable folding work bench thingy up from his workshop and using that, which isn't a big deal - he brings it in anyway for small DIY jobs.

I have no connection with this company (apart from being a satisfied customer), and realise that these products might be more expensive than some people want to pay, but their customer service is brilliant, and they are quick to answer any enquiries, so you might find it useful to take a look at their website.

Blue_Doggy

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

how to milk a cow, make butter, make cheese, how to make candles, how to breed sheep for wool, shear them for their fleeces,

Very perceptive post, Mrs LW. I'd like to add, we would need cows which know how to be milked by hand, as most are used to semi-automated parlours, and having all four teats suction-milked simultaneously, and few have experience of being suckled by their calves.

Plus sheep which will stay still long enough to be sheared by hand-shears.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

maryb wrote: »

And people kept hens and joined pig clubs to use their domestic scraps efficiently and that would make a comeback

Now this is where I could have the upper hand, with our pigs:D

[Deleted User]

I think we've lost skills that even our grandparents had to have to make a good living, how many people do you know who could wring a chickens neck for food? then you would need to pluck the chicken and singe off the stubborn feathers, gut the chicken and dress it for the oven or pot, if you were using solid fuel for cooking you'd have to have wood chopped and the fire lit, in the old days the feathers would be put into a hot oven to clean them and used for stuffing pillows/eiderdowns/matresses, I don't know how long that takes, needs to be done to eliminate insects and their eggs, then with the chicken cooked if there was anything left you'd have to find a way of keeping it safe to eat if there was no fridge that would be a challenge, you could pound up the cooked leftovers with some seasoning and mace and make potted meat which you'd have to cover with melted fat to seal it from the air and that would keep a couple of days in a larder and you'd have boiled up the bones to make another meal when the flesh was used up. All this for something as simple as a chicken dinner? Life was so much harder before we had labour saving devices but because we DO have them all the skills to live without them have been forgotten!

Frugalsod

DawnW wrote: »

I had an electric mincer which burnt out after only a short time :mad: so I then bought a heavy quality stainless steel manual one. It was not cheap, but super quality and looks set to last a lifetime. I bought it from a company called Weschenfelder which sells butchery equipment to both the trade and to private buyers. Mine is an Italian make, and really solid, and easy to clean. My only criticism of this model is that the clamp (for holding the appliance onto a table or other surface) is quite narrow, too narrow for our (thick oak) worktops or work table. We get around this by bringing OH's portable folding work bench thingy up from his workshop and using that, which isn't a big deal - he brings it in anyway for small DIY jobs.

I have no connection with this company (apart from being a satisfied customer), and realise that these products might be more expensive than some people want to pay, but their customer service is brilliant, and they are quick to answer any enquiries, so you might find it useful to take a look at their website.

Actually the stainless steel version looks good. I will make a note of that for once I am debt free. At the moment I do use my Kenwood mincer and that will probably last me many years.

When manual mincers was mentioned earlier I did have a look on Amazon and so many had big variations in reviews, to make me think again.

moneyistooshorttomention

thriftwizard wrote: »

Not at all sure that adopting a medieval lifestyle & a Norman-imposed feudal, political & legal system necessarily follows from looking at how they ate! And I too hope we'd never go back to that kind of desperate inequality - but you only have to look at the rise of warlords in troubled parts of the world to realise that that can actually happen rather fast. People seem to want to believe potential leaders who promise them an easier life, and find someone else to blame & scapegoat... they probably make the trains run on time too.

It's certainly something that's been striking me pretty forcibly in recent months just how many people honestly want to believe (and therefore convince themselves) that others Must Know Best (ie rather better than they do). I'm starting to lose count of the number of incidents I've noticed recently of people either trying to make out they are entitled to have other peoples "share" of decision-making (ie as well as their own) on the one hand. On the other hand - I've actually heard several people I would have thought would know better earnestly telling me "They must know whats what - so I'll do what they say". Heck - THREE of the people recently who have said "They must know whats what and so I'll take their advice" are people in my agegroup that have been university-educated:eek:. Obviously - the basic tenet of University education (as I've always understood it to be) of "Question everything. Make up your own mind" went straight over their heads...

Personally I subscribe to the "If its MY body/MY money/MY home/etc then its MY decision and MY decision only - and I will just talk to others about it in order to garner information to help me make up MY mind about what to do".

I don't know whether men also have a similar mindset - as all the people I've seen acting like that recently have been married/formerly married women and I wonder if that's a relevant factor in having that mindset??? - ie maybe they would think differently if they were a man or a never married woman???

I do tend to think that one of the first necessities for being able to survive whatever life throws at you is an independent questioning mindset. Errrm...maybe that's why I've been described (more than once) as a "survivor"???