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THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 12,492 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    :j yay it got rid of those awful newspaper adverts
  • Quite right Capella there would have been dried, salted and pickled foods but I suspect that by now even in a kinder year weather wise than we've had they will have been pretty short on the ground by now in most homes. Dried peas for pottage and perhaps the last of the bacon from the family pig might have been around still but maybe little else. I'm interested in how folks managed to survive from now until the first of this years crops was ready so looking at what nature provides as a stop gap (and I suspect most folks would know real hunger at this time of year) is quite an eye opener in 2018. Interesting to see too how they would have made use of those things available. I noticed the bramble bushes just starting to pop out new leaves yesterday and I know you can make a tea with them so what is the best use that 'spring foragings' can be put to? question of the day???
  • mardatha
    mardatha Posts: 15,612 Forumite
    Up here they'd be on porridge and broth with barley and turnip greens I think.
  • Cappella
    Cappella Posts: 748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    MrsLurcherwalker said:
    so what is the best use that 'spring foragings' can be put to? question of the day???
    Mardatha said:
    Up here they'd be on porridge and broth with barley and turnip greens I think.

    I think anything foraged must surely be added to the pottage to eke it out or make it go further. That way everyone in the family would benefit. As the year moves forward through April and May the number of wild foods would grow, but stored pulses and grains would inevitably drop.
    There is a good calendar here of available weeds and wild foods to add to the pottage pot
    http://www.thisweekinthegarden.co.uk/uncategorized/a-calendar-of-foraged-food-in-the-uk/
    Over the years we have eaten many of these chopped and added to salads or soups; some are much more pleasant than others but they are all nutritious and have high mineral and vitamin contents.
    The problem would be that they aren't filling and would only supplement existing foodstuffs. Handy to know about though from a prepping perspective:)
  • So, today when I walked Cookie I paid close attention to the hedgerows and ditches and road verges on the lanes and I found Dandelions which can be harvested for salads, the flowers can be eaten, the roots can be scrubbed and roasted then ground for a coffee substitute too, there was chick weed, goosegrass (cleavers/sweethearts), purple dead nettle, alexanders which are just coming up to flower (the flowers make lovely fritters), sorrel, sow thistle, claytonia (miners lettuce), and young daisies (you can eat the young leaves and the flower petals) and some young plantain leaves which are edible but I believe are incredibly bitter. All can as Mar says be added in to porridge, pottages, broths and many eaten as a salad. We'd maybe not starve if enough quantity could be gathered in the locality, it's not food we're familiar with but it would certainly keep the wolf from the door if it had to.
  • Cappella
    Cappella Posts: 748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    It just goes to show MrsLW how much potential food is actually around us.
    I do wonder though if any of us would ever be driven to do what my grandad and his brothers did in the depression in the 1930's which was to trap songbirds by spreading quicklime on low tree branches? They ate thrushes, blackbirds and even sparrows according to his stories. They also risked life and limb by climbing into rookeries for young rook nestlings. It sounds absolutely barbaric now but if we were starving we might well consider it.
    I do apologise if this offends or upsets anyone, but I'm very interested in how our forbears survived hardships we don't always appreciate, prepping does involve all sorts of skills after all - though his would be one I'd hope NEVER to have to use. I can pluck, draw and dress game though, so that might be useful if the SHTF!
  • I've heard of 'rooking' it was a country tradition in the springtime when the birds hadn't left the nest and a valuable source of protein. My MIL's father bred pigeon, racing pigeons I believe and she said her mum used to go and take the eggs in WW2 to use in cooking, they never told him that though! I'm not sure if you can get quicklime or how that would work but I know that birds are caught in a mist net to be ringed and registered by the RSPB. I should add it is completely illegal to do so without a licence though.
  • Cappella
    Cappella Posts: 748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    My sister says it is not quicklime but birdlime I'm thinking of. Apologies.I am idea not sure exactly what birdlime is made from, but it was very thick and sticky. It's a cruel practise though, you spread it on the branches and the birds stick to it, and it is illegal to use it now in this country. Grandad used a catapult to bring larger birds down.
    Rocking still went on when I was a girl in the 1960s and I did actually eat rook pie once when I was growing up. I remember that the meat was quite dark and strong. I think I must have been about 7 or 8. Dad was given the rooks by a friend I think, it wasn't a common thing by :Dthen though.
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    :) Some of the old folks used to keep bunnies for meat. New Zealand whites were the preferred breed, I believe. They were the ones my Grandad used to raise for the pot.

    kittie, I've been using Ghostery over Firefox for a few years now. Ads do not happen on Planet GQ. I'm a hard-sell anyway as I hate shopping. Besides, my ancient PC was being slowed to a crawl by this stuff and the algos were so great that ZH kept trying to offer me asian babes via dating agencies............:rotfl:

    I also avoid Gooooogle and use DuckDuckGo, which doesn't track you over the web.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • Bunnies and old boiler chooks that had stopped laying not to mention the odd cockerel that had been passed on as a hatchling and was meant to be a hen, all these went into the pot and must have made a welcome meal or 5 for hungry families.

    While I was looking for foraging material this afternoon I came across deer slots exiting one field via the bank and ditch and entering one across the road also via the bank and ditch. We have a thriving population of roe deer here so in the event of Armageddon, the zombie apocalypse or the breakdown of modern life as we know it, I know where I'll be setting my hide in the hope of a venison bonanza!
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