The Chatelaine's Keys

Sharon March 11th, 2009

Resources:

My book is necessarily only an introduction to a host of engaging topics that deserve much more exploration – fortunately most of them have been explored in depth by various writers, bloggers and on websites.  Your library and the internet are likely to bring you connections to a host of new resources.  Here are some of those I recommend.  If you have links or references for inclusion, please email them to me using the contact pages above or at [email protected].

General Food Storage and Preservation Books and Internet Resources:

Emery, Carla The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book   As if there were another book I could start with!  Carla put together the most comprehensive book about food ever – including many, many ways of preserving and storing food.  Well worth the money – now in the 10^th edition.

If you don’t know the incomparable Jackie Clay, take a romp through her advice columns and essays in Backwoods Home on food storage and related topics – she answers a monthly column on food preservation, and has many essays.  If Jackie wrote a book, you can bet I’d buy it!  She’s the best there is on practical food storage:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/advice/advice.html

Green, Janet, Hertzberg, Ruth, and Vaughan, Beatrice Putting Food By Penguin, 1991.

Hupping, Carol. Stocking Up:The Third Edition of America’s Classic Preserving Guide.  Fireside, 1990.

Chadwick, Janet The Busy Person’s Guide To Preserving Food Storey Publishing, 1995.

The most current and complete source on the internet is The National Center for Home Food Preservation, which has wonderful links and information:

http://uga.edu/nchfp

Food Storage Information:

The resource on this subject is Alan Hagan’s exhaustively researched and detailed Prudent Food Storage FAQ.  It is a bit of a dry read, but it will answer questions you didn’t know you had about storage life, how to pack things, etc… http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/

If you are trying to figure out how much food to store, a good starting place is this Mormon food calculator – there are some items that we wouldn’t eat, and that don’t go with the local and sustainable model, but they offer a starting  point, some nice basics on how much food actually is required for a family for a year: http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

This is a very user-friendly basic food storage site, which includes handouts and plans for getting started:  http://everydayfoodstorage.net/

Food Storage and Emergency Equipment:

Emergency Essentials sells almost anything you could need from camp stoves to food to 5 gallon plastic buckets for storing grains www.beprepared.com

www.usaemergencysupply.com sells a wide array of food storage equipment, including buckets.

www.usplastic.com sells wholesale quantity plastic food grade buckets

Tools for Food Preservation and Sustainable Living:

www.lehmans.com – Lehmans sells all sorts of non-electric and manual tools for food preservation, from cherry pitters to dehydrators.  Not cheap, but superb quality.

The Local Exchange www.thelocalexchange.org – A great source for a lot of useful stuff.

Sustainable Choice: www.sustainablechoice.net – sun ovens and grain grinders

Recipes for Eating from Storage: 

The multitalented Pat Meadows wrote a great series a while back about meals in which you can combine grains and legumes - here are some ideas: #2007/06/variations-on-theme-i-food-patterns.html and #2007/06/variations-on-theme-ii-meal-patterns.html

Here’s a source of some terrific food storage recipes: http://www.mormonchic.com/recipe/recipebox/pages/foodstorage.asp 

There are a gazillion bean recipes on this site: http://americanbean.org/ , and tons of ethnic bean and grain recipes here: http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/food_intros/Beans_Grains.html 

Robins, Laura Pantry Cooking Gibbs Smith, 2006.

Girsberger, Tami The Essential Food Storage Cookbook Brigham Distributing, 2007.

Dehydration:

An amazing online resource for both dehydrators and dehydration recipes: http://www.dryit.com/  It is the creation of Gen McManiman

McManiman, Gen Dry It, You’ll Like It! McManiman Publishing, 1997.

We modeled our solar dehydrator on this one at Sue Robishaw’s wonderful website.  You might also check out her solar oven plans: http://www.manytracks.com/Homesteading/SolarFoodDryer.htm

Canning:

Ball Company The Ball Blue Book of Preserving. Altrista Consumer Products, 2004.

I do strongly encourage everyone to either print canning information from the web out, or to purchase a canning guide, ideally _The Ball Blue Book_ - canning from memory is potentially dangerous, so have the recipe and all information in front of you while you are doing it.  If you keep the info on the computer, you may not refer to it when you most need it.

Fermentation

Katz, Sander Wild Fermentation  This is the definitive book on lactofermentation, and has wonderful reciples.  Katz has a website full of information and recipes,  www.wildfermentation.com

Ziedrich, Linda, The Joy of Pickling Harvard Common Press, 1998. Covers fermented as well as vinegar pickles – wonderful stuff!

Root Cellaring and Season Extension:

Coleman, Eliot, The Four Season Harvest:Organic Vegetables From Your Garden All Year Long Chelsea Green, 1999.

Bubel, Mike and Nancy, Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables Storey Publishing, 1991.

Dairying:

Carroll, Ricki Home Cheesemaking : Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses Storey Publishing, 2002.  A wonderful, comprehensive book!

Fascinating site filled with information about cheesemaking: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese.html

www.cheesemaking.com  is a source for all dairying supplies

More cheesemaking info: http://www.leeners.com/cheeserecipes.html

http://www.kountrylife.com/content/how98.htm

Cultures, rennet, info: http://thecheesemaker.com/

The source for kefir information: http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefir-faq.html

How to make great butter: http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2008/01/holy-cow-i-made-my-own-butter.html

Sources for Bulk Foods – Farmer Direct:

www.localharvest.com offers a nationwide listing of small farmers in your area.  You can search by the product you are looking for or location.  A great resource!

http://www.farmerdirect.coop/ is another source that sells direct from farmers.

For anyone living in the northeast, this resource is invaluable for locating sources: http://www.farmandfood.org/

Some sources for grains: http://www.greenpeople.org/WholeGrains.html 

If you want to go beyond navy beans, consider ordering bulk heirloom beans from Seed Savers

These folks have dried fruit that is farmer direct as well as many other products: http://www.alfalfahouse.org/html/products.htm

These folks grow a uniquely aromatic rice in Louisiana and ship anywhere: http://www.stanselrice.com

Organic farmers in Iowa who sell direct: http://www.paulsgrains.com/

These list bean wholesalers by state, as well as having a large number of recipes:  http://www.usdrybeans.com/home/

An organic small grain mill that sources all grains in the pacific northwest: http://www.fairhavenflour.com/

Also in the pacific northwest, a sustainable, family run farm that raises many grains and sells in bulk: http://www.bluebirdgrainfarms.com/

Twin Valley Mills grows and sells their own sorghum and sorghum flour – useful for creative bakers or those who can’t tolerate gluten.  www.twinvalleymills.com

Fairview farms sells bulk, non-gmo soybeans (excellent for making tofu and soymilk as well as general cooking:  www.fairviewfarms.com

Sources for Bulk Foods, Other:

The grand old-man of bulk storage foods: http://www.waltonfeed.com/

www.bulkfoods.com has reasonable prices and shipping rates for a variety of items.

Some of the best prices for pre-packed beans and grains come from www.survivalacres.com

If you can get together with a group of other folks, you can order at wholesale prices. For those who live in the Western US, here is a link to a good source of natural and bulk foods: http://www.azurestandard.com/

Grain supplier for the west that sells at wholesale prices:  www.wheatmontana.com

Emergency Essentials sells grain already packaged in pails, as well as 5 gallon buckets, dehydrated foods, flashlights, crank radios and a host of useful items.  www.beprepared.com

Bulk Foods: Gluten Free, Special Diet

For those looking for some interesting older grains, including Emmer wheat that can be tolerated by many people who can’t tolerate wheat in general: http://www.bluebirdgrainfarms.com/index.html

Bobs Red Mill sells not only good grains, but may gluten-free choices: http://www.bobsredmill.com/

This nutritional supplement is odorless and tasteless and can be used for children who have medical issues and will not eat appropriately.  NanoVM from Solace nutrition has formulations for children 1-3 and 4-8, and the older version can be used by older children as well www.solacenutrition/products/nanovm/nanovm.html

Information about starting Food Coops and Buying Clubs:

Here’s is a source, free, of the best publication available on starting a food co-op:
http://www.cgin.coop/public/food-coop-info/start-a-food-coop

Bob Waldrop, the founder of the Oklahoma City Food Ccop, which is an inspiring model for community food systems everywhere offers this advice on starting your own:

http://www.oklahomafood.coop/organizing.php
Starting a business is not simply or easy; this resource covers the bases from meetings to money. There also is an organization dedicated to helping startup co-ops: http://www.foodcoop500.coop (note that the suffix is .coop NOT .com).

If you want to start a buying club (to share wholesale sized orders) you can find out more at www.unitedbuyingclubs.com

Sources of bulk herbs and spices:

For medicinal herbs, spices and teas, I like this place: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/ and this one: http://www.starwest-botanicals.com/ Both places emphasize fair trade herbs, sustainably harvested.

For spices (not organic or fair trade, but of very high quality) www.penzeys.com 

Best sources of reasonably priced, open pollinated seeds:

Fedco: www.fedcoseeds.com - the best for northern gardeners, great prices, bulk quantities.

Baker Creek Heirlooms  - great for southern gardeners, good prices, wonderful people to support.

Pinetree Seeds   - Small packages at great low prices

Bountiful Gardens  www.bountifulgardens.org - these seeds are designed for intensive gardening, and growing the most possible calories in small spaces

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