THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

bugslet

mumf wrote: »

It appears that government are preparing for a bottleneck of trucks at Dover.

https://news.sky.com/story/new-plan-to-avoid-cross-channel-congestion-revealed-11380915

To be fair, that's not specific to Brexit, though it may be used if there are customs delays. The last time there were major delays at the tunnel due to a mix of striking French and migrant incursions into the tunnel, Operation Stack was an inadequate response. The government were looking at Manston Airfield to park trucks up but IIRC the deal fell through, so this is the latest suggestion.

For context, I run an international haulage company.

[Deleted User]

I'm not suggesting that rationing will be something that happens if we don't keep trading with the rest of the world in the same way as we do now after Brexit but the nation was well fed and extremely healthy during World War 2 because of the rationing ensuring that everyone had a fair share of what was available and the common sense approach to making the very best use of what WAS available both home grown and foraged foods and the lease lend foods from America that were available too. Life might be different now but the same spirit of 'We'll get through it whatever we find' will swiftly rise to the surface if there are shortages and good use will be made of what IS available as it was by housewives in wartime. We're used to having such choice and being bombarded by celebrity chefs and TV programmes and glossy magazines about currently fashionable foods that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that food isn't about sundried tomatoes, enoki mushrooms and fancy cakes but is about filling tums with good sound provisions to keep you from being hungry and give you the fuel to do a full days work and I'm pretty sure that's achievable on what we produce here in the UK.

The internet is such a useful tool in prepping for really any eventuality that you think might happen, I've been collecting recipes for a while now using pulses of all kinds to make filling and tasty meals that will keep us satisfied and active and have a nice handwritten book with many things we like very well. We grow French beans, broad beans and runner beans, have also grown borlotti beans very successfully on the allotment in the past and the French beans that grow too big in their pods to use fresh will, if left on the vines to dry (as will both the runners and broad beans) and become papery, give a fine crop of haricot beans. Broad beans are a middle eastern staple and runner beans are very nice if soaked and used in stews, casseroles and chillis. All are easy to grow and will keep for a season in a sealed jar once dried and would help stretch whatever meat we could afford in our diet, many pulse recipes though are good in their own right without any meat in them at all.

Witless

We all like 'choice': my choice is to buy local as much as possible.

Occasionally I have to buy non local - Cathedral City cheese for example.

My potatoes are either home grown by the family or bought from a mate's BiL.

There's a reasonable amount of (seasonal) fruit available.

There's a pig processing plant about 8 miles away - rarely buy any bacon or pork other than the local offering.

The meat processing plant is even closer but the butcher of choice only sells beef from the family farm run by his brothers, likewise the organic chickens.

As for 'supermarket' shopping - L!dl stocks locally sourced products: their butter is not only local, it's cheaper and nicer.

I can't really see my eating habits changing greatly.

AnimalTribe

I remember years ago Holland was the chief importer of tomatoes and also one of the main exporters of tomatoes. If I remember rightly - tomatoes that were on the edge of viability were turned away from British ports, sent to Holland where they were irradiated, and then re-sent to Britain. Not a great agricultural model. Times may have changed though.

DigForVictory

Karmacat wrote: »

We're preppers to a woman

I think Bob might have an opinion on that, but I agree with the sentiment.

Ahem, reminder that if cooking rice to watch for escaping steam. Am undergoing practical first aid for scalds. Which I of course manged minutes after the local drop-in centre (with their rather blissful goo & other painkillers) closed.

As always, keep an ear out for the puttering noise of mopeds. The current tool of choice for high velocity bag & phone snatchers, this week with bonus hammers...

[Deleted User]

culpepper wrote: »

Im thinking things like potatoes which I can remember reading were both exported to and imported from Germany.

Ditto milk.

The CAP has a lot to answer for. :mad:

culpepper wrote: »

LOL sorry to sound like the Spanish inquisition.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

you could live in what is now Northumberland and enjoy white olives in boiled wine from Gaul

I have memories of a scene from Carry On Cleo.

DigForVictory

Me, I'm getting flashbacks to Asterix & Obelisk - but also to Arbeia, which given it's position over the road from a primary school in an area of South Shields just south is a Roman Fort which on a sunny day looks like you accidentally mislocated yourself into Italy.

Go on a day when the reenactors and living historians are there and sop up a lot of ways to live & be comfortable in ways we've forgotten. These folks have period authentic flatpack - benches that peg together, stools that intersect & all is padded with (usually) sheepskins, or wool, or sometimes heather & bracken. They've also got one pot cooking down pat as well. The slow cooker is a recent (ish) idea but a longstanding technique, largely as roasting things on spits involves hot oil & that is very hard to justify on a risk assessment.

The other "out of time" experience I enjoyed was sitting on the slope of the Caerlon amphitheatre, looking down into the oval area, while over the road a rugby match was being played. Close your eyes and the thud of feet on earth, of flesh on flesh, the cries of exultation and frustration - you could hear gladiatorial combat. Noone yelling odds, noone selling dubious refreshments, but a not entirely sanitised view of how it might have been!

I love history - it reassures me that Einstein's gloomy view that WW4 will be fought with sticks & stones ignores a lot of adequately comfortable living using ideas older than the discovery of the atom.

Mind, not many theoretical physicists get out enough - look at what happened to Newton, and the apple. Does he promptly fill his bookbag with goodies? No, he rushes off to write down maths. (Well, so he claimed. Years later. A story that definitely 'improved' over time.) Someone must have thought - great, so what are we going to eat then? (Or nipped out to where the young master had been thinking & rounded up the windfalls.) I'm all for abstract thinking & theoretical research but *after* the fields have been tilled & the crops gotten in. Or while ironing (if you must), but a certain amount of living in the now means you are still fed, watered & breathing in the later...

ivyleaf

I love your reflections on Newton, DfV

Rationing, if it came to the crunch, would have to be organised rather differently this time round, because the way most people shop is so different now. Instead of registering with a particular local grocer, perhaps we'd have to register with a particular branch of whichever supermarket the Govt decided should be awarded the contract? :eek:

One dreads to think how long it would take to organise, and what a mess the politicians would make of it. And it would probably need to be electronic, like a sort of credit card, and the technology hasn't yet been devised that could load certain amounts of certain foods onto such a card (so I've read on a different forum.) Not to mention the fact that it wouldn't work if there were power cuts.

Cheery today, aren't I Sorry!

meanmarie

You lot are convincing me that I need to do more to provide food for my family than I do now........Brexit will almost cut Ireland from the rest of Europe......look at a map, we will be forced to pass over UK to get to the "mainland" from most parts of the country, plus the easy border withl Northern Ireland will be gone and with it lots of industries which currently straddle the border.

On a happier note we can all, with more effort, provide much more of our food requirements, even some of the 'exotic' fruit that we all currently import.

I'm really just a c o c k -eyed optimist!

Marie