How did they preserve meats in the olden days?

Question

How did they preserve meats in the olden days?

Answer 1

In the olden days - meats were preserved with either salt/salt-brine, with sugar/sugar-brine or they would store it in barrels after cooking - placing all three in the root cellar where it remained cool.  If they stored the cooked meat in barrels - like old pickle barrels, they would place a layer of hot fat in the bottom of the barrel, add a layer of cooked meat - not touching each other, pour more hot fat over it and repeat until the pickle barrel was filled.  Then, when they were ready to eat the meat, they would dig out a piece, remelt the fat and pour the fat back in to seal it back up.

You have probably heard of curing ham in the attic - they were hung from the rafters after being soaked in salt brine.  That's why when you buy a ham that has been cured that way, you are to soak the ham in a pot of water to help remove the saltiness or it will be much too salty to eat.

And, as the others said, smoking your meat was another way.  Lots of fish was smoked and beef was turned into jerky by drying it.

Answer 2

They used an ice box

or

They dried it out (especially in  the winter)

Answer 3

either smoke or salt/sugar cured

Answer 4

They salted it and dried it.

Answer 5

Meh... this may help .. what they do for survival in the marines.

http://www.scribd.com/reader/related/251...

*Firecraft

* Bury it.

* Make Jerky by different methods.

* Smoke the h**l out of it.

* Sun dry it.

* Snow

ETC...

Answer 6

a lot of salt and put it to the cold place (something like deep hole ...)

Answer 7

Drying, smoking, Salting. pickling

all this was before the icebox

Answer 8

with lots of salt.

Answer 9

A Salt Brine.

Answer 10

Salting, smoking and drying.......

Answer 11

Salt.

Answer 12

Smokehouse and salt!

Answer 13

They ate a lot of bad meat in the old days. That't how the spice trade began. They found out from other countries that you could preserve food with spice and cover up bad flavors

Salt and spices were preservatives. Early in this country, and still today, people will hang a deer carcass outside in a shed all winter and just cut off what they need. Prime meat is held in a locker for weeks until it ages and marbles and when it's ready they cut the mold off, package it and sell it.. Of course, they dried a lot of meat too.

Answer 14

They used salt.

Answer 15

Meats were often heavily salted or were smoked.