Whats Really On The Menu

[Matt In Oklahoma]

As I sat all day yesterday while deer hunting and began to think back in my younger days when we used to have discussions about what we would do if it went bad and in my infinite wisdom of 13yrs I stated that I "would hunt deer and live off the land" much as many a person has stated before. An older and wiser buddy stepped forward and said thats stupid, you will starve, he stated "I will start by hunting cows and horses, that will be much easier".
hmm interesting and my thinking begin to change......
Thinking along the lines of my ancestors who did in fact go out on hunting parties and having done alot of research on folks such a Lewis and Clark and during my years and travels with the green machine I have realized that food is food and likes and tastes have nothing to do with a full belly.
If you do not know how to get normal game or farm critters from the "field to the table" you may very well have a serious issue on what yesterdays meal, that I would have harvested, which would have been: a rabbit, a squirrel, a racoon, an armadillo and 6 woodpeckers.
I have no idea what woodpecker taste like but I hear it's like spotted owl:) no seriously each of these critters comes with risks and/or quirks.

The second thing in this discussion is that I would have had to eat myself so 2 of the woodpeckers would have been a logical course so the remainder could stay intact. I would have made it in to the residence an hour after dark and in PAW there is no refridgeration so into the pot they will need to go because the temps were to warm to hang the meat safely. Mixed with some rice or beans stored in our all to familiar buckets dinner will be served BUT not at dinner hours. I'm afraid that the days of dinner at 5:30 sharp will be gone forever and eating will become an event that will happen when it presents itself timewise or when it becomes availible much as eating in combat.
So as you look around at your resourses, and especially those in neighborhoods, ask yourselves
Whats really on the menu?

[EX121]

Well put Matt. I wonder how many folks who say they'll live of the land actually spend enough time in their area to learn the animals habits. Also how many know how to place snares for small & large game.
One of the advantages of snares is that they work 24/7 and are quite. I have used snares to catch squirrels, rabbits, mice & one deer.
The doe deer was caught in a simple loop placed on a trail down to a creek. It wasn't dead and very P.Oed, we then had to kill it with out getting kicked. I finally hit it with a big rock in the side and knocked it off it's feet my friend jumped on it, and then I cut it's throat. I wished I had had a spear.
As far as meal time do like a lot of 'primative' folks do and keep a pot of stew going and eat when hungry.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

I wished I had had a spear.
Got a cure for that!

[ATTACH]717[/ATTACH]

https://www.survivalandpreparednessforum.com/showthread.php?2171-Bear-Grylis-Knife&highlight=grylis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY6M9eEiZu8&feature=player_embedded

As far as meal time do like a lot of 'primative' folks do and keep a pot of stew going and eat when hungry.

If one had a woodburner or a fireplace and it was cold I could see that bit otherwise isnt that gonna be a waste of resources?dunno, heard that growing up but i wonder

[Cimarron]

If one had a woodburner or a fireplace and it was cold I could see that bit otherwise isnt that gonna be a waste of resources?dunno, heard that growing up but i wonder

Just made me remember a story.
Before my Grandma passed I would ask her what it was like 90+ years ago. In Oklahoma back then there wasn't very many trees and they would get 'fuel' in the most odd places.

Some time's as a little girl (she was the youngest) she would go out with her older siblings and gather herd droppings for fuel. I guess the look on my face was priceless cause she burst out laughing when she said this. I asked her, "you mean you pick up, and bring home 'cow patties' to burn in the stove?"

Yeah they did. They would try and find dry one's or mostly dry that they could burn in the cook stove. Then, she told me that the dust would get everywhere when you broke up the 'chip'..small cloud in the kitchen, get all over your hands..then you would have to handle the food when it was done..I told her I hoped they at least washed their hands good. To which she replied "well they didn't have that squirty soap like we do now a-days and the bucket of water might have been fresh or they might have had to wash with it a time or two before, depending on the season and how available it was..." :(

They did what they had to and found ways to do it.

The PAW will be so un-civilized lol

[Klayton]

I am not old enough to remember, and my grandparents are all in heaven, but didn't the deer population reach critical status during the last depression from the outrageous amount of poaching? With the our current population, I am thinking SHTF we may completely wipe out the white tail and mule deer population in the good old USA...

What do you guys think?

[crossbow]

I am not old enough to remember, and my grandparents are all in heaven, but didn't the deer population reach critical status during the last depression from the outrageous amount of poaching? With the our current population, I am thinking SHTF we may completely wipe out the white tail and mule deer population in the good old USA...

What do you guys think?

I know deer got scarce where I live and so did game wardens who were hated by everyone.I can still remenber one warden who had one arm and people said that he had the other shot off. For a good many yrs til way after WW2 we could not hunt does and then it almost took an act of Congress to get a doe permit. Now deer are all over the place, but that would change in 2 months if the food trucks stopped rolling.

[tarheelsman71]

People better not rely on hunting to live off of. Deer are everywhere here in NC, but shooting them is another story. I figure 2 or 3 months after the lights go out, there wont be a squirrel left alive, and a possum will be considered gourmet. In 1927 the world population was 2 bil. Today it is approaching 8 billion. In the US, in 1927, the population was under 100 million. Now we are approaching 375 Mil numbers of people (including illegals.) So our population has more than tripled, our wildlife numbers are probably the same (since we almost killed every deer during the depression) as before the depression. People better start stocking up fast. This economy aint gonna bend too much more.

[Cimarron]

It is amazing just how many people have that idea. I will talk with folks about having a ememrgency situation where food isn't in supply at the store or looking like it will not be and most times their reply is "I'll just go hunting for a while, I know how and where to get em."

[goatlady]

Something to consider though, back in that last Depression, seems to me ALL the rural folks were already regular hunters and most likely many of their city "cousins" also, and they were well-versed on sustainable harvesting. Now days, even though there are 1000s more rifles to use and 1000s more people using them, it's NOT on a regular basis plus most city hunters now travel 100s of miles at hunting season to maybe get a deer or elk. In rough times, most probably, gas will not be available for those hunting trips and those "city" guys will NOT be welcomed in the rural area as previously. Neither will the processors be available nor ice/freezers for keeping the meat from spoiling, and I'll betcha most hunters, wives, families don't have pressure canners, jars, lids AND the know-how to process anything they get, nor do the "seasonal" hunters really know where to go to hunt on their own locally! Just my outlook on the "deer will be wiped out soon" theory.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Just made me remember a story. Before my Grandma passed I would ask her what it was like 90+ years ago. In Oklahoma back then there wasn't very many trees and they would get 'fuel' in the most odd places. Some time's as a little girl (she was the youngest) she would go out with her older siblings and gather herd droppings for fuel. I guess the look on my face was priceless cause she burst out laughing when she said this. I asked her, "you mean you pick up, and bring home 'cow patties' to burn in the stove?" Yeah they did. They would try and find dry one's or mostly dry that they could burn in the cook stove. Then, she told me that the dust would get everywhere when you broke up the 'chip'..small cloud in the kitchen, get all over your hands..then you would have to handle the food when it was done..I told her I hoped they at least washed their hands good. To which she replied "well they didn't have that squirty soap like we do now a-days and the bucket of water might have been fresh or they might have had to wash with it a time or two before, depending on the season and how available it was..." :( They did what they had to and found ways to do it. The PAW will be so un-civilized lol

I have used cow patties and have trained the kids as well in the plains campfires, we just dont cook our marshmellows on them :) ya know ya gotta have survival marshmellows right LOL

[MustangGal]

My uncles used to tell about working for a man during the depression and on the way home (on horseback) they saw and shot a ground hog. The remembered it as one of the best meals they had ever eaten.

[barfife]

My dad use to take me camping in a flat bottom boat during the 50s in the Okefenokee Swamp. Sleeping on sandbars under lean-tos or the boat or in a tree when it flash flooded.

He only took meal, lard and coffee. You ate what you caught or you did without. I remember blackbird stew, grilled eel, frog legs, turtle soup, rabbit and everthing else on a stick, deer on a spit, pig cooked in the ground overnight, etc. My dad always said, "If it moves under its on power, the good Lord meant it to eat."

He grew up in south Georgia during in the Depression, barefooted on a share croping farm with a "waste not, want not" mentality. And, if his son (me) hadn't been so hardheaded, he would have learned much more while he had the chance.

In his later years, I would go home to visit and you never knew what you might be seved to eat. Country fried robins (they ate his grapes he made wine from, so he ate them), using an old frig as a smoke house to smoke hams over turkeys (so the ham fat would baste the turkeys) to gator steaks.

I miss him and wished that I had learned more while I had the chance.

Matt, I hope your son appreciates what his "crazy old man" is teaching, cause the rest of us do. Now if I can only impart this to my own grasshoppers.

[WiseOwl]

My dad use to take me camping in a flat bottom boat during the 50s in the Okefenokee Swamp. Sleeping on sandbars under lean-tos or the boat or in a tree when it flash flooded.

He only took meal, lard and coffee. You ate what you caught or you did without. I remember blackbird stew, grilled eel, frog legs, turtle soup, rabbit and everthing else on a stick, deer on a spit, pig cooked in the ground overnight, etc. My dad always said, "If it moves under its on power, the good Lord meant it to eat."

He grew up in south Georgia during in the Depression, barefooted on a share croping farm with a "waste not, want not" mentality. And, if his son (me) hadn't been so hardheaded, he would have learned much more while he had the chance.

In his later years, I would go home to visit and you never knew what you might be seved to eat. Country fried robins (they ate his grapes he made wine from, so he ate them), using an old frig as a smoke house to smoke hams over turkeys (so the ham fat would baste the turkeys) to gator steaks.

I miss him and wished that I had learned more while I had the chance.

Matt, I hope your son appreciates what his "crazy old man" is teaching, cause the rest of us do. Now if I can only impart this to my own grasshoppers.

Great story barfife. I wish my dad was like that. You were a lucky man to be taught that knowledge, even if you didnt know at the time he was teaching.

[claymore]

Thanks for the description of your Dad. For a few minutes I was there with the two of you. Woods wise and then some.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

My dad use to take me camping in a flat bottom boat during the 50s in the Okefenokee Swamp. Sleeping on sandbars under lean-tos or the boat or in a tree when it flash flooded. He only took meal, lard and coffee. You ate what you caught or you did without. I remember blackbird stew, grilled eel, frog legs, turtle soup, rabbit and everthing else on a stick, deer on a spit, pig cooked in the ground overnight, etc. My dad always said, "If it moves under its on power, the good Lord meant it to eat." He grew up in south Georgia during in the Depression, barefooted on a share croping farm with a "waste not, want not" mentality. And, if his son (me) hadn't been so hardheaded, he would have learned much more while he had the chance. In his later years, I would go home to visit and you never knew what you might be seved to eat. Country fried robins (they ate his grapes he made wine from, so he ate them), using an old frig as a smoke house to smoke hams over turkeys (so the ham fat would baste the turkeys) to gator steaks. I miss him and wished that I had learned more while I had the chance. Matt, I hope your son appreciates what his "crazy old man" is teaching, cause the rest of us do. Now if I can only impart this to my own grasshoppers.

This is exactly what I am talking about right here.