Canning has been mentioned before, but I thought I would set out a recipe guideline here. The kind of canning I am proposing is not the tin can type, but more the pickling-in-glass-jars type. It is a low-tech, low-sodium method of preserving just about anything.
Skill used:
-cooking (obviously … recommended level 2, canning is not difficult, but it is more demanding than burning toast)
-mechanics( level 2 … for figuring out how to get the sheet metal correct for a good seal)
Tools:
-pot or stone pot (frying pan not really deep enough in my opinion, but my opinion is not crucial)
-nearby fire (and all the usual substitutionary suspects … hotplate, integrated toolset, etc…)
-rock OR lump of metal OR … (really just a weight to aid the sheet metal lid seal during the cooling process)
Consumed in the process:
-item to be canned: meat OR marrow OR fruit(apple, blueberry, strawberry) x1 (or however many portions are envisioned to fit)
-glass bottle x1
-sheet metal (for the lid and seal)
-water x1 (clean OR not) (you boil the glass bottles and food in it, water lost to canning process and boiling evaporation)
When eaten, gives:
-nutrition to the player (and perhaps some hydration)
-glass bottle (optionally the bottle could contain 1 charge of clean water…)
This would probably result in needing to add three items to the game: pickled meat, pickled veg marrow, and pickled fruit, each with their own nutrition value.
As availability of salt or salt water is the rarity control for jerky, so the sheet metal ingredient is intended to moderate pickling factories.
When eaten, gives:
-nutrition to the player (and perhaps some hydration)
-glass bottle (optionally the bottle could contain 1 charge of clean water...)
Maybe some other liquid like fruit juice from pickled fruit, Meat stew from pickled meat and Vegetable broth from pickled vegetables.
Also pickled eggs, cucumbers etc (?).
I like the idea a lot. However, I see the sheet metal requirement as being a little prohibitive in the canning process. As someone who’s already canned some homemade food before, I’d suggest merely adding some Mason jars as lootable in houses, and having those replace the glass bottle and the sheet metal in the canning recipe. Mason jars have these really easy to use lids with a layer of soft rubber on them that seals your jar perfectly, and they’re not at all uncommon.
Agreed. I think that water bath canning should be added too. You would need a pot/stone pot, a pair of tongs, and mason jars as well as the ingredients. Typically canned food this way lasts ~1 year without being opened before going spoiled, something I learned when I started canning stuff with my mom. Something pretty easy to can is strawberry jam, all you need is some fruit protein that could be found at grocery stores or restraunts, and a bunch of sugar. I would reckon maybe a level 2 cooking skill would be required at most.
By the way, any canners out there, this is an amazing recipe.
Every fall my Italian grandmother canned boiled, peeled and puréed tomatoes for use later during the year in pasta sauces and whatnot. I would be pretty down with the possibility of canning tomatoes for use in making a ‘‘red sauce,’’ although it’s probably not that worth it to do so in Cataclysm, what with the amount of micro involved for such little reward.
We’ve still got some water-bath-canned homemade applesauce here. (Blend of Cortland & Northern Spy, in case you’re interested. Good shit.)
Regarding volume, the glass bottle in-game has 3 doses of your average human-consumable liquid: water, Mutagen, broth, etc. No idea what sort of capacity a Mason jar has but the serving size in Cata appears to be 250 ml.
I’m rough estimating because I know how big 2 liters is because I’m not used to the metrics system (fucking American education system).
1/4 liter jar: Small jar for canning those Marloss berries
1/2 liter jar: Medium jar for general good products.
1 liter jar: Huge jar for storing that dead bear for winter.
Uh, the Plastic Canteen is 1.5 liters (six doses), if that’s any help. Plastic carboy was supposed to be a gallon IIRC and is 10 doses. (Even 2 liters seems small for a whole bear.)
Hadn’t known Marloss berries spoiled. Would be interesting to see how they react to the whole cooking process.
Speaking as a Canadian, it’s not that hard to convert metric to imperial volumes, you just need to learn that 1 cup is roughly 250 ml, which means that 1 quart is also roughly 1 liter, and 1 gallon is roughly 4 liters. Volume conversions are easy. What’s most tricky is distance (yards? feet? inches? miles?) and oh god the ounces (which exist in a state of quantum uncertainty between being a measure of weight or volume).
It really sucks being a Canadian because you have to constantly juggle between using metric and imperial. For example we use km for road distances, but we use feet for personal height. We use grams for weights on commercial products but we use pounds for personal weight. Buying beer in a store, you’ll measure it by ml, but in a restaurant/bar, you’ll ask for a pint. It’s a labyrinthine pandemonium of units.
[quote=“gtaguy, post:15, topic:692”]It’s not ignorance.
It’s a failure of the American education system, it will probably be 30 years before it is taught.[/quote]
I really don’t like it when people say this. It’s really up to you whether you want to learn something or not, that’s what the internet or public libraries are for. No offense to you, of course, I just don’t like people blaming their laziness on our broad “educational” system.
That being said, as an engineering student in the United States, I can say that the metric system is used quite a bit in science related careers. Also, my calculus teacher had a good laugh about that Canadian problem, Tankra!
That said, a commit to the codebase for three canning recipes (meat, veggy, and apple) has been accepted. If you do your own builds, sync up with the codebase and try it out.
How about dried meat and spices? In the wintertime, bind up some meat in string (3ft) and hang it from the side of your survival shelter. You could do the same for herbs if something like garlic or basil was ever implemented.
