daily portion?

[hawk]

I know nothing of this matter but... if I were to have to store the food I fed my family for the winter it would fill up half the house!

what was the average portion of food eaten on a daily basis ?

 

[rafterob]

That was why they had root cellars,Canning sheds, smoke houses etc. Where I come from meat was hung in the barn from November to March and stayed frozen throughout. Interesting question to see if you can find some primary sources on that.

 

[renovato]

In a lot of areas, corn was a primary food. So you had a corn crib out back filled with dry ears of corn. A few sacks of flour, salt, and the like in the house. Dry foods take a lot less space also, and they dried a lot of what they grew. Throw in somewhere to store cured meats and canned goods and you have the basics to get through a winter.

My grandparents lived in Arizona, so they didn't store any cured meats because of the heat, but they were quite self sufficient and fed a large family with what they grew and dried or canned, along with sacks of corn meal and flour, a few containers of lard, etc. Grandma had a small enclosed rear porch that she stored home canned foods on floor to ceiling shelves. Grandpa was quite the gardener. He dried a lot of his crops including green beans (those were good!) and okra. He also left a lot of his crops in the ground through the winter like carrots. They store well in the ground in areas where the winters aren't severe.

As for the portions that folks ate, remember that they were a bit smaller than we are today. On the other hand, they also worked a lot harder than most of us do, and they needed to consume enough calories to do it. They did get a lot of their calories from fat. More so that we do today generally. Fat is pretty concentrated, so a little went a long way.

I'm big on preparedness and food storage. Storing mostly dried goods, I can pretty much store enough food for a family of four in a large closet, or an off corner in the shed. Most of the "convenience" foods we eat today are mostly water. Water is bulky and that makes the foods bulky to store.

 

[F.G. Ford]

After a while, you got a little tired of salt pork & beans, if you were lucky, you had patatoes and onions.
Flour and corn always made up some kind of bisquit, that filled the hole.
And if times were really hard, you had leather soup.
Winter was hard and lean!
So with this in mind, yesterday's leftovers are not so bad, are they
Old Ford

 

[Birdman]

another thing to remember is that the variaty of foods we have access today did not exist in most places 3oo years ago. Only the basics were stored and simple basic meals constructed from what was available. More variaty was available in a town or city enviroment then a rural area because of imports or food being brought in from various places to sell in town. Also the variaty of grains, veggies, fruits etc had for the most part not yet been developed, there were several kinds of each that could be grown but the hundreds of various breeds that are available again had not been developed yet. Smoke house, spring houses, ice houses, were all possabilities for food storage as well as the occasional addition of fresh foods from the wild(if the persons knew anything about wildcrafting)

 

what was the average portion of food eaten on a daily basis ?

By who? Where? When? Romans? America, Europe? Rich, poor, army, hunters, farmers?

 

[gjkershul]

The US enlisted ration in 1797 at Mackinaw was:
1 1/3 pounds pork or 1 1/4 pounds beef-fresh or salted,18 ounces of bread or flour, two ounces of whiskey,
Additionally two quarts of salt,two quarts of vinegar, four pounds of soap, and 1/2 pound of candles were provided per 100 rations.
A soldier on extra duty was allowed and additional half ration.

 

[hawk]

I was just thinking how much a family of for mite have stored up for a winter ....seems quite a lot

you would need to build another cabin to keep it safe in.

is that ration per day ?

thank you for your replies

 

[gjkershul]

Yes that was the daily ration. The quarter master store house was a large structure in the fort.

 

[crockett]

Hawk 2- sounds sort of like you want maybe a more modern bent on this topic. During the depression my grand mother canned everything the family ate- two adults, four children, and usually a relative or two living with them. The house was sort of a typical bungalow and the cans took up one side of the basement wall- to give you an idea. I also think my grandfather dug a long ditch outside that he lined with hay/grass in which cabbages, potatoes, etc were kept. They also had a chicken coop. As I understand it- plenty of food for six or more people- I don't think you have to have another building.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

many family farms this area had a smokehouse. also a spring house. most communitys of any size had an ice house where ice was stored, it was gathered from frozen ponds and rivers and from barrels full of water that were left outside to freeze.
many veggies/fruit were either dried or kept in the ground or root cellar. canning didn't come along until late 1800's but fruit preserves were made and sealed w/wax. pickling and salting was common also.

 

[hawk]

my basement was half full of canning and pickeling and brandy and wine growing up also a couple dozen laying hens at any given time .

we still went to the store every week .

with the portions given that's about 240lbs of meat ,200lbs of flour and 9 bottles of whiskey per person in 6 months or one winter season.my calculations maybe off?


in the house I live in now I'd need to build an other cabin ...and the way I've been workin' latly I would think I qualified for the extra ration :wink:

 

[gjkershul]

My calculations on the whiskey comes to 2.8125 US gallons.
Are you going by Liters or Imperial quarts per bottle as my Canadian reenactor friends from above the Soo were prone to do?

 

[Captain outwater]

Figure about 3 pounds of food per person. Much of it was not stored for very long. Meat was 'on the hoof' until use, and little was stored. Hams were smoked and other pork salted. Thats hams hanging in the kitchen, and a barrel or two of salt meat. A few bushels of wheat and a barrel of flour, corn in the crib, vegetables in season or roots in a cellar or other cool place.
They ate more bread and meat than we do, particularly in the winter.

 

[hawk]

Hamkiller I figured 6 months or 180 days 2 oz./day divided by 40oz. /bottle

9 bottles or 2.8125 gal... with out the odd double ration added in for extra duties or christmas cheer!

Cheers!

 

[Blizzard of '93]

you'll be surprised how long cabbage will keep covered with hay/leaves and buried. carrots, beets and turnips too.
course they made kraut a good deal.
my Grand-dad was good at smokeing hams, he had a smoke house built into a clay bank and folks brought him hams, sides of bacon, turkeys and beef to cure and smoke. he used corncobs, apple and hickory wood. needless to say they had plenty of meat to eat. he and Dad kept bees and did some gardening but mostly 'maters cabbage corn and corn-stalk beans - they traded honey for produce such as okra and taters.

 

[dsuursoo]

spring houses are remarkably effective, and have been around since god knows when. my dad still has one of the ones his dad built on the farm, and grandad built his on the foundation the prior owner had put one on sometime in the 1900s, and seems that the foundation had been there before that.

dad did some digging about and has found old musket balls and whatnot around the foundation,but not as deep as the foundation bottom. dunno how fair an indicator that is of age, but the house easily dates to the french and indian war, or at least the main timbers and foundation do.

they're simple in concept but can get as fancy as you want. a trough for water to run through, shelves to keep goods in, a vent at the top to let air out, and feel free to store items in the running water, provided you keep them in large jugs or similar. the same springhouse also feeds water to the farmhouse.

i reccomend foxfire book one if you're interested in springhouses as food storage. my dad does indeed use his, mostly for lagering his homebrew and keeping finished beer cold for hot days, but they've kept butter, eggs and fruit up there when there's been too much for the fridge in the house. it's just a bit of a hike to get to. it is, however, right next to the workshop and sawmill.

dad knows what he's doing, i guess.