Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (39 page)

Critters are the essential foundation of a perfect wild meal, especially the easy-to-find urban tree rat—or, more appropriately, “chicken of the tree.” Squirrel is an overlooked sustainable wild meat: Gamey in a good way but sweet, it’s like a cross between lamb and duck with a slight nuttiness. Nutritionally, squirrel meat is 21.4 percent protein and 3.2 percent fat, and each average-size squirrel is about 800 calories a pop. Here’s my recipe for Squirrel Stew with Wild Garlic Dumplings.

STEP 1
Break down the squirrel: Skin it, remove the insides, and cut off feet and head. Clean the meat inside and out, and soak 5–8 hours in lightly salted water.

STEP 2
Cover with water and boil the soaked squirrel for about 10 minutes, then discard the water. Boil again in fresh water with a little salt for about 2 more hours. Let cool, saving the broth.

STEP 3
Bone the squirrel, and cut the meat into bite-size pieces.

STEP 4
Add the following to the broth: a handful of wild greens like new-growth dandelion or chicory; wild garlic bulbs, onion, or ramps; wild carrot roots (first year’s growth) and wild carrot greens; wild roots like evening primrose or burdock; and bay leaves (optional).

STEP 5
Return the meat to the broth and cook until vegetables are almost done. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

STEP 6
Prepare the dumplings: Mix together 1 cup (140 g) all-purpose flour, 1 cup (100 g) acorn flour, 1/2 teaspoon (3 g) salt, 4 teaspoons (23 g) baking powder, and chopped sautéed wild garlic bulbs. Gradually add 3/4 cup (177 ml) milk until doughy. Roll dough out to 1/2-inch (1-cm) thickness and cut into small squares. Place on top of stew in pot, cover tightly, and cook an additional 15 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

When it comes to smokers, you can spend a lot of money buying one in a store. Restaurants will spend thousands on elaborate smokers. But you can make a backyard smoker out of just about any box, including cardboard.

First, you need a box no more than 4 feet (1.2 m) tall and 2 feet (0.6 m) wide. Cut a door in the bottom of one side to remove and reload wood chips during cooking.

Next, insert two parallel dowel rods through the box at 12 and 36 inches (30 and 90 cm). You’ll place your racks (one pan to catch drippings and a wire rack to hold food) on top of the dowels.

Insert your heat source and wood chips into the bottom door. You can use a hot plate and wood chips in a cast-iron skillet, or similar arrangement.

Set a similarly-sized box over the top once you have your fish or meat safely on the rack and your smoke source going. Then monitor the temperature as closely as possible. A probe thermometer inserted at food level works well.

Change your wood chips as needed, and follow the recipe for internal meat temperature and smoke time. It should go without saying that monitoring a smoke source inside a cardboard box is essential.

In times of crisis, most people will eat whatever is handy. But there’s always the chance a vegetarian in the bunker will turn up their nose at all the smoky meat products you’re bestowing on the community. Now, these folks can get their protein from the buckets of rice and beans you have stored up, but, if you want to toss them a bone (or, rather, something boneless), you can actually make smoked tofu using a variation of the method above.

To smoke tofu, rub a block of it with a dry spice rub, and let it sit for a few hours to drain and dry.

Smoke on an oiled grill for about 20 minutes, then flip carefully with a spatula and cook, another 20 minutes, until the exterior is brown and slightly tacky. What’s that? Cooking tofu in a smoker is always tacky? Hey, no argument here. But hopefully the vegans will think it’s delicious and you’ll be lauded for your generous, people-pleasing efforts. Now, pass the brisket.

If you’re fortunate enough to live near fishable waters, then you have the opportunity to smoke fish. A lot of people are afraid of handling fish for fear of spoilage, but it’s a lot easier than you think—and makes for a flavorful and long-lasting protein source.

STEP 1
Create a basic brine consisting of 4 cups (1 l) water, 1/4 cup (59 g) each salt and brown sugar, 1/2 cup (118 g) chopped onion, 1/2 cup (118 g) fennel, a couple bay leaves, a crushed clove or two of garlic, and some celery. Mix together in a sealable glass container and add your cuts of fish, then refrigerate overnight. At this stage, you’re dehydrating the fish to prep it for smoking while also pickling it. The longer you leave it in the brine, the saltier it will be. Don’t leave it for more than a couple of days.

STEP 2
Add a varnish-like seal, called a pellicle, by allowing the fish to air-dry a minimum of 2 hours in a cool (lower than 65°F, or 18°C), well-ventilated area. You can even use a small fan set on low. Most smokers forget this step, which is unfortunate. The sticky film gives the smoke something to adhere to, making a more flavorful and longer-lasting product.

STEP 3
Use a box smoker to cure your fillets. How long this process takes depends on the thickness of the cuts, but figure a minimum of 2 hours for thin fillets. Aim for an internal temperature of 140°F (60°C). The type of wood you use to smoke the fish is entirely up to you, but most fruit or nut woods are popular. Once you’re finished smoking the fish, it will be good for 7–10 days in the fridge, or up to six months in the freezer.

Before refrigeration and canning, humans figured out how to dry meats as jerky. Most of us only know about beef jerky, but any lean meat can and should be used. Turkey, for instance, is naturally lean and mildly flavored, making it perfect for seasoned jerky. Nearly any hunted game and fish can be turned into jerky following a few easy steps.

STEP 1
Select a lean cut of meat. The less fat, the better, so go for a lean sirloin or similar cut.

STEP 2
Remove all visible fat (fat makes the jerky spoil faster), then cut the meat into thin strips no thicker than 1/2 inch (13 mm). If you’re buying meat from a market, ask the butcher to cut the strips for you. Otherwise, freeze the meat for 5 minutes to make it easier to cut on your own.

STEP 3
Marinate the strips of meat with olive oil and sea salt or a recipe of your choice, then let them refrigerate overnight.

STEP 4
Rub dry spices over the marinated cuts before baking. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and don’t shy away from salt—it will aid in the drying process.

STEP 5
If you’re lucky, you have a dehydrator for this step. But if you don’t, your oven will suffice: Preheat it to 165°F (74°C). Remember the goal is to dry, not cook. Set the strips atop a wire rack in the oven, and catch any drippings. Then bake 1–3 hours, or until the jerky is dry to the touch.

STEP 6
You should eat your jerky within two weeks of making it. Store it in an airtight container (a vacuum sealer is ideal) and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Home brewing is much easier than you think, and once you stock up on the right yeast, the rest of the supplies are probably close at hand. The resulting brew could be worth a lot in tough times—homespun alcohol can disinfect, anesthetize, and lubricate bartering deals, to name just a few of its many uses.

To put it briefly, you’re going to add yeast to a sugar-water solution, which is kept at room temperature. The yeast is going to eat the sugar, producing carbon dioxide and alcohol. This is the process of fermentation, which will last about a month. During this time, a special cap will let the CO2 bubble out but keep oxygen from entering the brewing jug. Sounds simple, right? It is.

COLLECT YOUR SUPPLIES
You’ll need a 1-gallon (4-l) glass jug, yeast, a sugar source (honey, malt, table sugar, molasses), clean water, and a wine lock cap for the jug. One other item of note is a sanitizer; a quick fix is cheap vodka. The wine lock is the only part that may need to be improvised (if you don’t pick one up when you buy your yeast). It can be a vinyl hose that fits into or over the mouth of the jug. Another popular option is a balloon that has been pierced by a needle. When the balloon fills with CO2 , the needle hole opens and relieves the pressure like a valve.

BE SWEET
If you intend to brew beer that tastes like beer, you’ll need malt. This can be found in a can with hops already added or as a powdered extract. For old-school brewing, you could sprout some grains like wheat or barley, then toast and grind them. Simmer the ground grain in water for an hour, and filter out the malt-rich water, which then boils with the hops for another hour. If you’re making wine, you can use a mix of fruit and table sugar. For mead, all you need is honey and water (plus wine yeast). Almost any sugar will ferment.

GET CARBONATED
To make your beer bubble or your Champagne fizz, you will need to carbonate it after fermentation. This can be done by adding more sugar to the brew and sealing it in a pressure-safe vessel. The dormant yeast will wake up to produce a little more CO
₂
, carbonating the beverage. Add an ounce of table sugar or corn sugar to each gallon of brew, and seal it in bottles. Clean soda bottles and self-capping ones will work fine. Let it sit for one week, then chill and enjoy.