Prepping for Brexit thread

DigForVictory

I can vouch for tissue paper flowers looking disconcertingly credible at a couple of yards. Circles of greens pinks & white stitched onto freezer bag ties & twined around a credible looking stick - up close it was a stage prop but across the room it looked amazing.

I’m a firm believer in artificial flowers at Christmas too. Not too much dusting, plenty of happy illusion.

Farway

dandy-candy wrote: »

Does anyone think food shortages might cause unrest and strikes? Do you think electricity shortages might happen or is that unlikely?

There is no reason I can think of for electricity problems, apart from some freak accidents like a power station failing.

We generate all we require, this is a strategic and security requirement anyway. with back up provided by inter connectors from France & Norway. We are also their back up BTW


Should you think the French may pull the plug for some reason, we supply, via the Scotland / Northern Ireland inter connector, back up Ireland's supply so in effect France would pull plug on fellow EU country, unlikely I suggest


Strikes & unrest, no more than normal, people are on strike now as in the past, so no change there.

There could be unrest in places like Calais with French farmers unable to sell their produce? And no doubt the rentamob parades outside parliament

[Deleted User]

I think small things to do now will give peace of mind as well as stores for the future so if you can do it make jam now while the fruit is most available and at its lowest price and sugar is widely available and easily obtained. Jam keeps for years so it's a worthwhile investment for the future.

If you have a dehydrator dry veg that you buy that is imported from the EU if you feel a lack of it later might be a deprivation, peppers dehydrate very well indeed.

Make chutneys and pickles too and through the autumn season as crops come ready for harvesting because some chutney or a pickled onion can really add zing to a bland meal if familiar and easily obtained foodstuffs now become less easy to find later on.

Home made wines for those who know how to make them will certainly help plug the hole if wine does go up in price to the point it becomes a luxury. Home made beer can be made from kits, cider from windfall apples and fruit juices from home grown fruit are as good as any from the supermarket. Fruit juices put into sterile bottles can be further processed in a water bath and sealed with wax round the lids for long term storage.

Apples and pears can be wrapped in newspaper and stored in a cool and dry shed/garage in boxes to use in the winter and although they need checking once a month to remove any that do rot to save the rest they should stay good to use through to the early spring.

If you have a garden/ greenhouse/ polytunnel now is the time to sow overwintering crops like winter lettuce, mizuna greens, mustard, lambs lettuce, land cress etc. so if fresh salad becomes expensive or elusive you'll still have the vitamins and freshness from those you grow at home.

Look for some old cookery books in the charity shops, those from the 1940s and 50s will have recipes in them from the era before we had access to all the worlds produce all the year round and try some of them to see if you could still enjoy your suppers if we do become restricted by price or supply.

Small things sometimes make a big difference.

joedenise

I have a large larder cupboard and I load all the new tins at the back and the old ones in front of them. I can keep a dozen of each on the shelf in one row. Definitely helps with using the older tins first.

I think it might force us back into eating seasonally with British produce. I still find it odd that most of the apples, for example, in supermarkets is imported when the UK grows so many varieties and are available for most of the year.

We really don't need to be eating strawberries in December or courgettes in February!

Denise

DigForVictory

Thanks to the copious strawberry crop the market had 2 big punnets a pound... I lugged a bag home - it would have risked food waste not to!

The supermarket hadn’t sold all their cherries so I mopped up 10 cartons at second markdown, but the chaps believe *none* will make it into jars. Trusting souls, but they do know my weaknesses.

Then (never have I yearned for an amazon delivery so much) I can make the hedge jam in the smaller vintage jars.

fuddle

MrsLW please could you remind me what to add to plain flour to make it self raising? I would like to just have plain flour in stores.

I'm also getting handy with how to make baguette as of tomorrow because I think plain flour is used in the recipe. I have Lammas bread to fall back on as well.

Jams and pickles are good ideas also pesto - ready to go pasta flavouring.

gfplux

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I do so wish that news items on Brexit would be a little less based on negatives like how much food and 'flowers' (for heavens sake when did flowers become an imperative?) we import and how difficult it will be for the suppliers to keep on as normal and start looking at what we DO produce here and what will STILL be available if we do leave under No Deal conditions.

It is interesting you mention flowers. They “could” be more important if they were not so easily dismissed.

British Flowers is a subject which was often mentioned in other threads probably in 2017 by me.
A great opportunity but needs a bit of pull if the industry pushes. So Now is the time to take up the burden and do something.
Only 12% of flowers sold in Britain are British. British Flowers week was 10th - 16th June 2019 (who knew?) Farming Today on the BBC had a weeks programming in 2018 about British Flowers and they mentioned positve moves by the Co-op and Aldi to help British growers. They ended the week at the Blenheim Palace Flower Show (who had heard of it?)
It does not matter if you are a Remainer or a Brexiter, if you live in the UK when you are buying cut flowers seek out the British product which you may find better represented in Aldi and the Co-op, definitely not at the petrol station or so they said.
You can make a difference and give British flower growers a small Brexit dividend, but only if you and yours buy British which will also encourage investment in a product area that has been starved of it.
That is what an opportunity looks like. There are not many in the U.K. at the moment.

https://www.britishflowersweek.com/

gfplux

cuddlymarm wrote: »

Maybe now Boris and his cronies are making it clear that we are in for a No Deal we might start getting a bit more information. For now I’m stocking up on long life stuff. Surely the supermarkets will start talking to uk producers now they know that there may be complications in the overseas supply chain.
Cuddles

A very good point.
Too many people do not check sell by dates (SBD)
Even long life products have a SBD.

Packaged food often has a surprisingly long sell by date. I noticed sliced cheddar bought last week 31st July had a SBD of 25th September. About two months.
So I recognise that I need to buy my sliced cheddar to stockpile on October 1st (if there is any left at the Supermarket) which will be good for at least four weeks, and a bit more, after Brexit.

So check your sell by dates like you never did before.

DryTheRain

Farway wrote: »

There is no reason I can think of for electricity problems.. we generate all we require, this is a strategic and security requirement anyway. with back up provided by inter connectors from France & Norway. We are also their back up BTW

I'm really glad you posted that, thank you, as a diabetic it's good to have one less thing to worry about :T

On the other hand it looks like we're much less self sufficient in terms of gas supply - only producing about a third domestically. The rest comes mostly from Norway (EEA/EFTA) followed by the Netherlands and Qatar. I have a 0.5kw oil radiator for heating back up, but might add an electric hotplate to the list, they're about £15 and a real godsend in an emergency.

[Deleted User]

Fuddle you add baking powder to plain flour to make it self raising, old style cookery books often have plain flour plus 'however many' teaspoons of baking powder to make cakes, I'll look in my older ones to find a general rule for a weight of flour and let you know.

Please don't think I disregard cut flowers or the jobs and livelihoods of florists in the UK, flowers are beautiful and are certainly a lovely way of marking birthdays, anniversaries etc. they don't feature in my life though as I've never been able to justify the spending of money on something that is not actually a necessity but a luxury so for me they are not crucial to our wellbeing. I love flowers in the garden that I've grown myself and we always have a row of Sweet Williams on the allotment for cutting for the house so the only time I have flowers indoors other than that is on those odd occasions when they're given to me.

This morning on the news there is an interesting item on climate change suggesting we NEED urgently to move from animal based diets to a plant based diet which on the surface sounds very sensible to combat climate change by using the soil more sensibly to grow veg and fruit and not graze animals on. I will be reading the thinking behind it to see if I can find the actual facts as the concept makes a great deal of good sense to me. It will be hard for many who are only used to a meat and dairy based diet but if that's what it takes to slow the climate related weather events that are happening with alarming regularity and perhaps reverse the reasons they happen then for the future of all of humanity we may have to make a commitment to actually do so.