Perishables How long?, How to Store?

[Pelagic]

Zaida, my partner is in charge of food provisioning for 4 months in the tropics for our crew of 3 to 4.

She is ok with the specialty dry and canned goods but struggling with how best to store and preserve perishables, like Eggs, fruits and Vegetables in the tropics.

They become scarce in remote islands.

1....Any tips and tricks on how to prep and store perishables that can survive without refrigeraton?

2....Anticipated time frame for each?

3...What MUST be refrigerated?

Thanks

[psk125]

Eggs can supposedly last for a month or more unrefrigerated if coated with wax. Not sure of the process. Have heard that eggs going to market in US are treated one way (including washing), and need refrigeration after that. Believe eggs in Europe are treated somewhat differently, and aren't refrigerated. Don't know if waxing would need to happen before the "treatment", but you might want to look into it.
We carried cabbages in a crate on deck going transatlantic. They held up pretty well on a 3-week trip. Easy enough to eat raw when the stove broke, too. Carrots would be similar.

[stainless guy]

Unwashed eggs can be left unrefridgerated for a month.
Washed or unwashed 90 days in the fridge
Washed and treated with waterglass (sodium silicate) 8-9months unrefridgerated

First hand info, we have raised alot of poultry over the years

Root veg just need to be kept unwashed dry and cool and pull any rotting ones out right away or they will spoil the rest

Fresh fruit and veg no answer there for ya except to can when cheap and plentiful

[Jdege]

With respect to eggs, Townsend&Sons tried a number of techniques:

https://youtu.be/yUYgguMz1qI

[rbk]

Also a good idea to keep powdered eggs around for any baking and scrambled or omelette in a pinch. Save the fresh ones for sunny side breakfast eggs. Same goes for powdered milk and baking or in cereal, tastes more like almond milk than milk imo.

[Cthoops]

We have been cruising full time without a fridge for almost six months now. We have used store-bought previously refrigerated eggs several weeks after purchasing without doing anything special to them. Root vegetables have kept for well over a month by keeping them in a drawer, but lettuce will only keep for a few days at most. Oranges and apples have lasted for weeks (even when previously refrigerated).

I have read countless times that jam and mayonnaise doesn't need to be refrigerated as long as you use a clean spoon each time, but I don't have the nerve to do it (nor do I use them that often). I solved that issue by buying single use packets on Amazon. However, we don't refrigerate our ketchup, mustard, or hot sauce and it's been fine.

Carolyn Shearlock from the Boat Galley website has an e-book on cruising without refrigeration. My internet connection leaves a lot to be desired at the moment so I can't look up the price, but I know it was under $10. We have a copy and it has been helpful, addressing all of the questions you have.

[JPA Cate]

Hi, Pelagic and Zaida,

Get a copy of The Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew, by Lyn Pardey.

I'll take a stab at this, although we only cruised for one year without refrigeration.

1....Any tips and tricks on how to prep and store perishables that can survive without refrigeration?

Everything that is not canned or dried or pickled is perishable.
1) eggs If unwashed, but turned weekly in their 2-1/2 doz. crates, used the last at the end of 3 months. (That is not a typo, I meant three.) By that time, we were using them only in baking, but lost only one to spoilage. You can hard boil then pickle eggs, we've used them as spicy snacks on passage, a very digestible, high protein snack. Pickled and spiced, we've used them up to a month after opening. We usually let them set a week before opening them, two weeks is okay.. Don't remember any spoiling. If you get a good vacuum with them, I would think they would last quite a long time comparable to anything home canned, if everything is boiling when you put it together, and the vacuum is good, it is a sterile, acid environment. However, I am not a canning expert, and Jim and i've survived with our regime. For washed eggs, I don't know. Never had them. In fact, I haven't refrigerated eggs since 1986!

2) Brown onions (Spanish onions). Keep them in net bags, in a locker near the waterline, as cool as is possible from nature. Don't know how long. 20 kilos of onions lasted us about 8 weeks. Use them in salads, and in cooking. Garlic will keep the whole time too, but both need to have been dried properly, and sometimes, you'll have spoilage if not.

3) Cabbages . What worked best is to wrap them in newspaper, loosely, and place stem up in cardboard boxes. Use outer leaves if okay, or peel dried out ones off and discard. If they start to smell funny, find the culprit and toss.

4) Carrots. Well, you won't be using them for carrot sticks, but they are fine cooked, if they were limp, to start. Lightly steamed, use them with raw cabbage in a vinaigrette, add to curries, stews, and other vegetables. Very useful, and Vit. A.

5) Potatoes and sweet potatoes. Leave dirty, have in a cool, dark, place. Can be satisfactorily canned, work then in potato salad, if you can get celery (ha!) or cucumber for crunch. We used celery seeds, just for the flavor. Last 2 months, might eke out a little longer, don't know.

6) Fruits: on our boat they are a room temperature deal. Pink Lady apples keep about 2 months un refrig. in Oz; Oranges, 6 weeks or so; grapefruits longer than oranges--and the large Marquesan pamplemousse, the light green grapefruits, have a very thick skin, and i don't know how long they keep. If you take some from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus, the Tuamotans will greatly appreciate them, and oranges. Marquesan oranges are orange size, but green on the outside and orange inside, like Ranjipur limes. The only fruits we make space for in the fridge are raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries. All the others last even shorter times, but are relegated to a fruit basked woven in Vanuatu.

Pawpaws, may be used as fruit or as a salad crunchy when green. We made a lot of green pawpaw salads, with whatever other green crunchy things we could add.

...What MUST be refrigerated?

Not mayonnaise, if you use it. Mayo's in the 33 yr. bin, with the eggies.

What must be refrigerated is lettuce or bok choy. Chard, or silverbeet, up to 5 days, stems in fresh water, change water every day, and cut fresh bottom. Celery, up to 2 months. Cucumbers, once opened, or eat it all. I don't know how long cukes will keep, always managed to disappear fresh crunchy items. So called scallions or fresh green onions, only 2 weeks. Snow peas, up to 3 weeks. Sugar snap peas, up to 3 weeks.

Red, white, and fish meat. Beef, pork, lamb, and chicken, vacuum bagged, in coldest part of fridge, 3 months. Get boneless cuts, or bone them yourselves. Our fridge is only small, so bone that chook, and make a rolled roast out of it. Do not freeze, as there is a risk of the juices crystallizing and piercing the vacuum, and then it spoils. Fish, treat it as at home. If you catch a really big one, put it down in the fridge, in freezer bags, and work your way through it. Fresh fish can be pickled, too, but I have only ever used it up in 2 weeks, so I don't really know how it will keep.

Now, if Zaida is interested, all the meats, including fish, can be home canned. it will be a lot of work, but the flavours will exceed all but the very best French canned goods, imo. Try and get hold of the Canadian or US govt guides to home canning. The very best canned chicken I had was aboard a Canadian boat, and she used it in a stir fry, lovely intense flavours! You can try some freeze dried foods (like for backpacking), for emergency rations. It is a wonderful thing to boil water, and there is dinner after steaming for a few minutes, when you are cold, wet, and tired. There are also retort packaged foods in boil-in bags, which you can place on top of the rice when it is cooking and they'll heat up and be ready to go.

Staples, a variety of flours for home baked breads. Yeast in foil packets, I prefer to the less expensive large packages of yeast. Old yeast requires coddling to get to work, and it stays fresher in the packets. Make your own experiment, you'll see. I have learned how to fix bread that didn't rise, and to work with old yeast. The secret to it is that not all the yeasts die, so you "prove" the yeast, and if there are only a few bubbles, it needs a pinch of sugar, and some time, at 85 F. or ~30 d. C., and they will eventually multiply enough so that they will rise a loaf. I usually double the amount, then. Rice and Pasta keep well if you keep weevils out of them Basically, this means air tight containers. You can kill bugs with dry ice; bay leaves do not work. Air tight containers means that infestations are at least contained. Flour can be frozen for a week or so, and if you have a freezer, you can do this. It's good. I used to use the method at home. Then store in air tight container and it will be fine for a long time. I bought some flour from a barrel outdoors in the Solomons. Of course it had bugs in it. I sieved them out, depriving us of that protein--just not liking the idea, but really, once baked for 45 min., they wouldn't hurt you. We have used tinned "cabin bisquits", and found them satisfactory bread substitutes. We have used Danish tinned bacon, and enjoyed it.

I think the real trick is finding recipes where you can make food you'd otherwise never eat, like tinned corned beef: I have a recipe for a roll using it that is acceptable at the supper table. One key thought is to bring all your favorite herbs with you. You can grow them underway, not easy, but doable (even the Hiscocks grew lettuces.) Lettuces and herbs are prone to acquiring infestations from insects that fly out to the boat. And Agriculture will want your dirt when you enter a new country, so be prepared to wash living plants very carefully if you've a hope of getting them through agricultural inspections, and some will confiscate no matter what you do. Everyone is different.

Some frieze dried or just plain dried foods are your real friends, green beans, peas, chili beans (as a meal). Especially if you do not have a water shortage aboard. Your onions not only add vit. C if they are raw, but a lot of food benefits from having some added, unless of course, you are one of the unfortunates whose digestive system can't handle raw onion or garlic. I have used dried fruit satisfactorily in cakes and breads.

We met one boat about the size of yours (a 60 footer), that had a fruit and veg cooler in the starboard v-berth. That whole fridge was kept cold but above freezing, and they had quite the cornucopia stored there, all in accessible, good air circulation bins. If you're considering adding supplemental refrigeration, that is one thing to consider.

Please feel free to ask questions, but people have written books about provisioning, and I really can't cover the subject fully in a single post here. A whole lot depends on what are must have foods for you guys, and which do not matter and how you generally like to eat.

Ann

[Sojourner]

I'm too much of a noob at sailing (or rather owning a boat and going far off the path yet) but from my other life of living in a VW bus without a fridge, have one or two small tips to add I didn't see above:

1) Eggs: yes, dont fridge them, we get sometimes 6 weeks out of them. Just keep using them, but test them before use: Float them in a cup of water. Totally sunk, eat later. One end rising off the bottom but still sunk, eat today. Floating, toss. We keep them cool and dark in a bilge.

2) We used to make Indian yeastless bread (chappatis) all the time. Super quick on a pancake pan, doesn't use much energy or take much time. if your yeast goes south, flour+water+salt, knead, flatten, onto a dry pan, 1 minute you're done.

3) Green onions are the best, just buy them with the roots on and stick them in cups in the cockpit. They'll not only last forever, but grow feet higher if you don't trim them to eat. We also grow herbs onboard, but I assume you'd have thought of that. I've found rosemary and mint the hardest to kill, while cilantro is my holy grail...that chit bolts on me every time like a pony in a lightning storm

4) Jicama! Like a potato but served raw it tastes and crunches like an apple. All over americas, but also I've seen them in china, so maybe in some tropics you can find them and stock up. That might last like a potato but give you something sweet for salads for much longer than apples...

5) Making yogurt... I cook a LOT of indian (both on the boat and in the VW before), and keeping enough yogurt in the fridge for any size trip is tough. So before you run the yogurt out, save a tablespoon of it, put it in a jar with a liter of milk (the long life UHT milk works great, with half a lemon's worth of juice (1 tbsp). Keep it warm (in the shade upstairs maybe; I put it on the dash of the bus, but now use our bread machine on the boat) for 8 hours or so. Boom, endless supply of fresh yogurt! I bought a dozen yogurt starter capsules from amazon for the boat for a few bucks in case i run out of the stuff and want to make a batch

6) Speaking of indian food, if you like that stuff, it's the best. We have a cabinet dedicated to only indian masala powders. You can take a handful of beans and rice and it'll taste amazing. I can't find any other cuisine that needs so little and is so cheap to be so filling and tasty as Indian. Add some of that fresh yogurt and chappatis and that's why it was our bus life too...

7) Also speaking of Indian, forget real butter and just get cans of ghee. It's healthier than butter and lasts for YEARS at room temperature I keep it in a bilge just in case, but still. You can even fry with it, since it has no milk solids. Amazing stuff for any cuisine, not just indian food. You can make your own ghee if you're in the sticks: melt down 10 sticks of regular butter, simmer for an hour or two very low heat and skim off the fats on top every few minutes. When it is all golden brown and clear as a bell, you're done, and what's left will cook up to 480 degrees F without burning (vegetable oil only cooks to 390 or so, fyi for deep frying enthusiasts) and will last forever in a regular jar without canning or refrigeration.

8) Honey of course lasts literally indefinitely with no refrigeration. Try to mess up a jar of honey, it'll embarrass you!

9) Alcohol: we're getting a still. 'Nuff said

Dang I love these early morning coffee rants! Cheers, y'all....

[Pelagic]

Thanks for some great guidelines and tips.

Ann, special thanks for the detailed explanations.

Zaida has got into canning (8 jars of mango/apple chutney yesterday) and if they are as good as her first 2 batches, I will be very happy

I will get the Lin Pardey book.

Any recommendations on a canning recepie book?
I have made 3 crates with dividers to take 36 jars in the sub floor.
So far we have chutney and beets, but looking for recepie ideas.

[Pelagic]

Sojourner, fantastic ideas. We really love curries and what little we know of Indian. Next year will be in Malaysia and Thailand, so hope to stock up on the better ingredients not easily found in the Philippines

[JPA Cate]

I agree with soujourner about the honey: it is magic! And you can use it for burn dressing, just like aloe, if you grow a little. Really live plants on board are a nuisance, because of quarantine issues. But she is right about yoghurt. Even powdered mild makes satisfactory yoghurt, with the starter from last time's batch.

I also have a sourdough starter recipe, 'cause we like sourdough this and that.

Back to what in particular the cooks would like to know.

Night, night, guys, see ya tomorrow.

Ann

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Sojourner, fantastic ideas. We really love curries and what little we know of Indian. Next year will be in Malaysia and Thailand, so hope to stock up on the better ingredients not easily found in the Philippines

Yaay! Our go-to, too lazy to cook Indian: handful of garlic and ginger browned in ghee (wanna get crazy, plus a handful of mustard seeds or whole cumin, and some asefatida powder), throw in chicken parts, a cup of yogurt, 2 Tbsp whatever curry powder you have (or Korma, Tandoori, Tikka powder, anything..failing that garam masala and some turmeric, a little ground coriander maybe), whatever veggies you have if any or mushrooms, boil the chicken in yogurt till tender, squirt of lemon juice, done in 20 min, over some rice or lentils. High protein, low fat.... These days I can make it start to finish in a single family guy episode

Also, I really gotta lay off the coffee

[clownfishsydney]

For most vegetables and some fruits, wrap in paper towels. We kept onions, carrots, potatoes and more for over 8 weeks in warm weather in Queensland. For yogurt, you can also use milk powder instead of carton milk to make more.

[AndyEss]

Ah, now it's clear - the secret ingredient is watching Family Guy while cooking. I don't refrigerate eggs, but do keep the cartons on the counter over the fridge where it is a bit cooler. Adding insulation to my fridge top is on my to-do list.
Grazie for the ghee making procedure.

[GordMay]

Carolyn Shearlock’s The Boat Galley Website ☞ https://theboatgalley.com/
Storing Food without Refrigeration ebook ($7) ☞ https://theboatgalley.vipmembervault...courses/view/5