Doomsday DefenseSection
Food
Gathering, hunting, trapping, fishing, preserving and cooking food when stores are empty and the power is out.
Field notes
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Home Canning Safety: The Botulism Rules You Can't Break
Low-acid foods (vegetables, meat, fish) must be pressure-canned. Follow tested USDA times, and when in doubt, throw it out. Botulism kills.
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Haybox Cooking: Retained-Heat Cooking That Saves Fuel
Boil a pot, then seal it in an insulated box and let stored heat finish the cooking over hours. Cuts fuel use dramatically when fuel is scarce.
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How to Build a Fire That Actually Lights
Fires fail for lack of small fuel, not big logs. Gather tinder, pencil-thin kindling and split dry wood first, then build up from the smallest pieces.
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The Food Danger Zone: 40°F to 140°F
Bacteria multiply fast between 40°F and 140°F. Never leave perishable food out more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90°F. It matters most when the power is out.
In the library
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Camp Fires and Camp Cooking
An 1862 Army of the Potomac pamphlet teaching Union soldiers to cook rations over camp fires: soups, stews, bread and field ovens.
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Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making
W. Hamilton Gibson's illustrated 1881 guide to camp shelters, log huts, canoes, and building and setting traps, snares and deadfalls.
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Canning, Freezing, Storing Garden Produce
USDA's guide to preserving a harvest: canning, freezing, drying, pickling, jams, root-cellar storage and community canneries (1977).
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Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables
USDA bulletin on choosing the right canner for each food and canning fruits, tomatoes, pickles and vegetables at home (1965).
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Home Canning of Meat and Poultry
USDA bulletin on pressure-canning meat, poultry, sausage, stew and soup stock at home, with spoilage checks (1966, revised 1972).
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The Book of Camp-Lore and Woodcraft
Dan Beard's 1920 handbook on fire by friction and flint, cooking fires, camp kitchens, packing horses and dogs, and axe and saw work.
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The Fireless Cook Book
How to build and use a retained-heat (haybox) cooker, with 250 recipes that cook with a fraction of the fuel (1909).
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Wild Medicinal Plants of the United States
A 1906 USDA catalog of wild plants then collected for the drug trade: names, range, habitat, the parts used and their market prices.
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Woodcraft
Nessmuk's classic 1884 pocket guide to traveling light in the woods: camps, campfires, cooking, and getting lost and found again.