Pep1: Food Processing and Preservation

Pep1: Food Processing and Preservation-




White Belt-
Make 10 pounds of sauerkraut
Make a ginger bug
Properly can 10 half gallon jars of vegetables
Dry out produce with a solar dehydrator
Ferment 5 different varieties of vegetables
Participate in curing bacon
Participate in cold smoking bacon
Participate in hot smoking bacon
Participate in brining ham
Participate in making forcemeat
Participate in making pepperoni
Know what foods need to be pressure canned, and what do not
Know when to use the following in food preservation- pectin, vinegar, sugar, lemon juice, salt
Store canned and preserved food in a proper location
Use a vacuum pack system to preserve food
Build a drying rack to preserve herbs
Make herb-flavored butter
Make herb-flavored vinegar
Make herb-flavored oil

Green Belt-
Make 5 different brine recipes that produce 5 different tastes to the same cut of meet
Make a meal 100% from preserved food
Build a root cellar
Ferment 10 different varieties of vegetables
Preserve 5 different varieties of fruits
Store apples for 4 months in your root cellar. Do not let one apple spoil!
Store root crops in sand in your root cellar for 6 months
Store crops in sawdust in your root cellar
Store garlic for 8 months. Do not let one clove spoil!
Harvest 30 gallons of tomatoes in early fall and preserve them through all of winter in a root cellar
Butcher an animal on the land and preserve it
Dry mushrooms
Cure bacon on your own
Cold smoke bacon on your own
Hot smoke bacon on your own
Brine ham on your own
Make 2 types of force meat on your own
Make pepperoni on your own

Brown Belt-
Preserve enough food from a garden to feed a family of four through the winter
Slaughter a cow and preserve the entire animal on your own
Slaughter a pig and preserve the entire animal on your own
Make at least 20 pounds of all 4 types of force mean on your own
Teach one person how to make forcemeat

Black Belt-
Preserve enough food from a garden to feed 8 people through for an entire calendar year

I'm thinking about adding dairying to this list.

PreservAtion is literally my favorite food topic!!! I mean if I had a restaurant, it would consist of a bunch of home preserved items on the shelf that I would serve. Prosciutto, canned veg, dried mushrooms or garlic and onions, canned sauces, fermented everything, confit duck in the cellar, etc.

One should know all 11+ forms of preservation and when and how to apply them, as well as the science of why they work. Preservation in salt, sugar, oil, vinegar and combinations thereof. Drying, smoking, fermentation, freezing, cellaring, etc. are a great beginning. So some Basic thoughts...

I want to delve deep into the kitchen garden connection. The same Lactobacillus that makes my compost great, makes My cheese great and makes my stomach function better. How interesting. Humankind preserved food to Both increase flavor and nutrition.
They truly ate better!!

I ferment my falafel dough. Think falafel withy the flavor depth of sourdough bread!! It is a traditional, before refrigerators method that is more delicious and more nutritious.

I mean look at Weston a. Price. Traditional societies were made healthy through their food preservation practices including preservation. We have lost that!

Raw milk never spoils.

My fermented falafel dough lasts months in the fridge and only gets better in taste and health.

Cheese is how we preserve milk and that milk must be raw, because raw milk never spoils!

When I lived in Brazil They salt preserved beef. It was the best, most flavorful, bee fest, tenderest beef I have ever tasted.

Those are my initial, 'off the wall' thoughts...

Recently I have been reading bill
Mollison's fermentation book, way ahead of its time. I E will all Catch up!

My mentor, Jessica prentice, taught me "the destiny of cabbage is to become sauerkraut, it is we that stop
It."

More To come,
Seth Peterson
Permie chef

I merged the stuff from 22 Aspects of PEP into this thread.

I don't see:
canning/dehydrating/smoking

It looks like there's a Food Prep and Preservation badge

There's currently only fermentation listed under it, but I think smoking, canning, and dehydrating would all fit in there.

So, there'd probably be a Sand-level Badge something like

* Make a half gallon-worth of lacto fermented pickles
* Dehydrate 3 pounds of food
* Can 2 quarts worth of jam
* Cook a stirfry from scratch
* Make a pot of soup from scratch

and the Straw Badge might have some things like:

* Smoke 2 pounds of food
* Make a gallon of kombucha
* Make 1/2 gallon of yogurt
* Bake a quick bread from scratch

and Wood Badge might have

* Make a bread that requires yeast, from scratch
* Make beer, ginger ale or cider
etc

maybe we need to get a food brainstorming thread going.

for sand badge, i kinda think we need to get a little more specific about what is being cooked.   I also like the idea that at least one thing includes harvesting food as part of the prep.  

I very much like the idea of successfully sealing some sort of canning.   And a successful food dehydration thing.

Maybe its just me, but it seems to me that, at least with the Food Prez series, we're focusing a bit too much on a breadth of knowledge at the risk of failing the participant.  Rather than having them cover fermentation, smoking, dehydrating, curing (MUST have bacon) smoking, etc ad infinitum in their sand badge, and simply increasing the volume produced, maybe we need to focus on at least marginally improving one skill at a time.  

For example:  

Level 1:  Select from one of the following preservation techniques.
-Fruit Preserves:  Make 96 jars of jelly utilizing no fewer than 4 types of fruit.  At least 24 jars can contain no added pectin.  
-Freezing:  Utilizing accepted techniques, prepare and freeze 20# of garden produce, including at least 4 types (tomatoes, corn, beans, etc.)
-Pickling:  Put up 12 gallons of vegetables utilizing at least two different pickling recipes, such as dill, bread & butter, or sweet pickles, dilly beans, etc.
-Drying:  Prepare at least four varieties (5# each) of dried food, including at least one variety each of fruit, herbs, and meat.  

Level 2:  Select any two from Level 1 plus
-Sauces:  Utilizing standard, cultural, or vintage culinary techniques, prepare and can 2 gallons of sauce, salsa, or similar condiment.  The preserved food must have a minimum of four distinct ingredients.  
-Smoking:  Cure 25# of meat from a minimum of two animal species, no less than 5# per cut.  
-Curing:  Utilizing natural preservative mixtures, prepare 20# of meat such as bacon, summer sausage, proscuitto, etc.  No fewer than two species of animal should be used.  
-Dairy:  Churn 20# of butter, including at least 2# from non-bovine milk (goat, yak, llama, water buffalo, cat, be creative.) Make 2# each of a cream cheese, soft cheese, and cured cheese variety of your choice utilizing ingredients of your choice.


Now, I'm not an avid food preservationist, but these PEPs are designed for people who want to learn.  Starting with simple tasks and working towards more complex techniques while still improving basic skills just makes sense to me.  
As the participant moves forward, the volume created increases based upon longevity, i.e. if Level 2 includes 2 from Level 1, and Level 3 includes 3 Level 1 and a pair of Level 2 skills, by the time they've achieved mastery, they've put up a huge volume of pickles, jellies, charcuterie, etc., simply by virtue of repetition.  Plus, I'll be honest.  Making rhubarb jelly or raspberry jam gets boring after a while, so if I'm going to stick to jams & jellies through four levels, I'm going to start looking at other things I can make within the same skill set.  And things like pumpkin butter or chokecherry jelly have MASSIVELY different processes than the others.  Just in the last year of dabbling around with my surplus produce, I've discovered, for example, that Armenian cucumbers don't lose their crisp when pickled, and that chokecherry jelly doesn't come out clear, and if you get the proportion of ripe to underipe fruit right, you end up with a jelly that comes out of the water bath set like concrete.  

Yes, I think a brainstorming thread on Food (preparing and preservation) will be very useful.
What Chris here above calls 'level 1' to me looks like level 3 at least.
I thought of starting with the easiest things for level 1, like making about a kilogram (4 jars) of jam (half fruit, half sugar) and the same amount of sweet&sour pickles (gherkins). And freezing green beans and ready-made soups. These are skills I aleady have, but for someone who isn't used to 'cook from scratch' I consider them a good starting level.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Yes, I think a brainstorming thread on Food (preparing and preservation) will be very useful.
What Chris here above calls 'level 1' to me looks like level 3 at least.
I thought of starting with the easiest things for level 1, like making about a kilogram (4 jars) of jam (half fruit, half sugar) and the same amount of sweet&sour pickles (gherkins). And freezing green beans and ready-made soups. These are skills I aleady have, but for someone who isn't used to 'cook from scratch' I consider them a good starting level.

Honestly, Inge, my last batch of Rhubarb Jelly made 10 jars.  8 flats of jelly, if the supplies are stockpiled and sufficient fruit is ripened, can be made in a day's time, although if you're dabbling like I tend to, it might take a while to find sufficient fruit.  In the past year (2018) I just kept trying things in an effort to find out "what works" both in terms of store versus natural pectin, as well as various fruits.  I do value-added goods at my local Farmers Market, and my goal is always to present product that isn't available in Aisle 12 of the local grocery store.  As a result, I found great success in Pie Cherry, Rhubarb, Mulberry, Chokecherry, and Sand Plum (wild variety indigenous to the Great Plains) jellies, but each has its own set of nuances.  

The purpose of these badges is not to replicate, but to educate, through trial and error.  Doing a single batch of jelly doesn't really teach you anything except how to follow a recipe.  Give me a new fruit, particularly one that is not raised commercially, and I'm likely to try to make jelly or jam from it purely on principle.  Requiring multiple batches to be made using a diverse collection of ingredients encourages that creativity, particularly if you've got this stubborn streak that says I'm not going to source frozen fruit from the local Piggly Wiggly/Safeway/Kroger.  By teaching culinary creativity, we teach a sustainable, replicable, TEACHABLE set of skills, which far exceed the parameters of a recipe card.  

So I've been putting a bit of work into a Food Prez Series.  I'm at sort of a crossroads, and I'm going to need some input from others, as I realized that I know nothing about Fermentation beyond a class project we did in 3rd Grade with the little Volga German Lady where we learned to make Sauerkraut... roughly 1981, and have no practical experience with drying/smoking or making charcuterie.  

My vision for this badge is that it be broken into general categories, such as canning, freezing, drying/curing, and fermentation.  The participant, based upon their skill set, their resources, and their specific knowledge desires, can then custom-fit the process to fit those parameters.  So, the person who is an avid hunter can focus on drying/curing and charcuterie, while the one with the epic food forest can learn THOSE skills.  The basic categories, however, are divided into subsets, which are in turn broken into somewhat generic taskings.  So, as an example, canning has jelly-making as a subset, which in turn has taskings of making a flat of jelly/jam/preserves from 1) stone fruits, 2) brambles, 3) other berries, 4) other fruits, 5) non-fruits, or 6) other.  So if I put up a flat of raspberry jam (bramble), a flat of pumpkin butter (non-fruit,) a flat of plum jelly (stone fruit) and a flat of cranberry jelly (other berries) I'd have completed 4 BB in canning.  That would complete my Straw Badge.  My Sand Badge would require four basic badge bits, from at least two categories, plus two intermediate badge bits.  Thus, I could make jelly again, but would also need to freeze 10# of sweet corn.  For the intermediate bits, it would include things like pickle making, blended fruit preserves, etc.  As each subsequent badge level requires an additional category of skills, it is theoretically possible to source everything for the entire process without leaving the garden for supplies, as advanced canning recipes can involve butternut or potato soup canning, drying can include making a spice blend with more than 3 ingredients, and fermentation can be making miso.  

The epic carnivore could focus on making jerky, butchering and wrapping for freezing cuts, smoking game, and only delve into canning when it comes time to deal with advanced levels, and make venison stew.  

At the Wood and Iron levels, the master level tasks generally revolve around being able to leverage all of the products made in their various skill sets to plate a specific number of meals for a group.  The epogee of the Iron Badge, for exmample, might be to serve a three-course meal utilizing ingredients prepared using the skills taught within this badge, which might be, for example:
1) Butternut Soup
2) Smoked Pork Chops with apple compote, roasted corn, and mashed parsnips
3) Bacon Zucchini Bread served with Mulled Apple Cider Jelly
*BONUS POINTS: if you have homemade beverage pairings for each course.  

So what I am looking at is feedback on fermentation and drying/curing tasks so that we can compile a list of tasks within the Basic/Intermediate/Advanced framework.  I had a fairly decent list going, until I realized I had no clue how complex or challenging any of the various processes were.  Please try to clump specific products into similar groups.  For example, sauerkraut, kimchi, and chow chow are all basically made using the same process, but different ingredients.  

Maybe I missed it. Has cheesemaking been addressed? I think that's at least two separate subheadings: soft cheeses and hard cheeses, each with different levels of difficulty based on level of bacterial activity and aging required.

-CK