Rations For All

[RandyT0001]

For those communities that have D level of technology or better might have created rations for use by their military. The larger (D level) and/or more advanced communities are more likely to use this.

[ArmySGT.]

Randy,

is this 4th edition tech levels or 3rd?

Can you break down what a given tech level is capable of in regards to rations?

Thanks.

[RandyT0001]

This is Fourth edition tech levels. For Third Edition the tech level would be C or better.

Below is a general breakdown of food preservation:

Ancient
Pickling
Drying
Curing (salt)
Sugaring
Smoking
Jellying
Jugging
Freezing (1)
1820
Canned
1880
Refrigeration
Pasteurization
1920
Freezing (2)
Vacuum forming
1950
Preservatives
1960
Irradiation
1980
Modified atmosphere
2000
Electroporation
Pascalization

(1) In latitudes that allowed for winter freezing of food.
(2) Industrial freezing

[ArmySGT.]

Dehydrated rations first appeared with the North in the American Civil War. In WW2, the U.S. use dehydrated and compressed rations to conserve space and weight shipping food overseas. Such things as hashbrowns, chopped vegetables, and dehydrated soups. Not individual rations themselves but, as part of a overall menu reconstituted by a mess unit.

Some things from the American Civil War can still be found on supermarket shelves. Canned coffee, canned milk, canned cheese, crackers in wax paper, canned ham, bullion cubes, etc.

[WallShadow]

Dehydrated rations first appeared with the North in the American Civil War. In WW2, the U.S. use dehydrated and compressed r tions to conserve space and weight shipping food overseas. Such things as hashbrowns, chopped vegetables, and dehydrated soups. Not individual rations themselves but, as part of a overall menu reconstituted by a mess unit.

Some things from the American Civil War can still be found on supermarket shelves. Canned coffee, canned milk, canned cheese, crackers in wax paper, canned ham, bullion cubes, etc.

Heck, from the Civil War we have instant "pulverized" potatoes (described to be like instant hash-browns), instant coffee (actually a tar-like substance of concentrated coffee mixed with a liberal amount of sugar), and dessicated ("desecrated") vegetables for use as a soup additive/expander. Canned "Brandied Peaches" from sutlers was a slick way for enlisted men to get around the prohibition of liquor in the ranks. (officers, however....)
Check out the 1892 Sears Roebuck Catalog reprint in the grocery section for shelf-stable shippable foods available before the turn of the century. And Corned Beef in cans (boiled beef--in French, Boeuf Bouilli, hence the derivation of "bully-beef") was a forgone conclusion as an Allied article of mess throughout WW1.
(American) Colonial Era cookbooks have recipes for "pocket soup" or "Veal Glue", which is meat joints boiled down until the cartilage dissolves enough, the meat and bones removed, and the water component boiled off until the liquid reduces down to the consistency of a block of unmelted/undissolved glue--think unmelted Hot Glue or a blob of hard-dried Elmer's Glue. It was dry enough to literally carry in a pocket without sticking. This could be tossed into a pot of hot water and reconstituted as a broth.
Also from that era, there was jerkey, and its Native American cousin, pemmican: dried meat and berries compounded in a meat-fat matrix--carried in pouches, it provided ready sustaining nourishment in a ready-to-eat form.

[ArmySGT.]

Heck, from the Civil War we have instant "pulverized" potatoes (described to be like instant hash-browns), instant coffee (actually a tar-like substance of concentrated coffee mixed with a liberal amount of sugar), and dessicated ("desecrated") vegetables for use as a soup additive/expander. Canned "Brandied Peaches" from sutlers was a slick way for enlisted men to get around the prohibition of liquor in the ranks. (officers, however....)
Check out the 1892 Sears Roebuck Catalog reprint in the grocery section for shelf-stable shippable foods available before the turn of the century. And Corned Beef in cans (boiled beef--in French, Boeuf Bouilli, hence the derivation of "bully-beef") was a forgone conclusion as an Allied article of mess throughout WW1.
(American) Colonial Era cookbooks have recipes for "pocket soup" or "Veal Glue", which is meat joints boiled down until the cartilage dissolves enough, the meat and bones removed, and the water component boiled off until the liquid reduces down to the consistency of a block of unmelted/undissolved glue--think unmelted Hot Glue or a blob of hard-dried Elmer's Glue. It was dry enough to literally carry in a pocket without sticking. This could be tossed into a pot of hot water and reconstituted as a broth.
Also from that era, there was jerkey, and its Native American cousin, pemmican: dried meat and berries compounded in a meat-fat matrix--carried in pouches, it provided ready sustaining nourishment in a ready-to-eat form.

Don't forget condensed milk, canned ham, devil ham, liquid smoke, candied fruit, confections in waxed paper, dehydrated soup, salt pork, salt beef, hard tack, biscuit mix, corn meal, and pickled sausages.

http://www.26nc.org/Articles/cooking%20on%20campaign.pdf

[ArmySGT.]

I would expect that rations for most any survivor group are going to be fresh or dried.

Salted, if a group has access to salt such as near the sea, the Great Salt Lake, or a salt mine such as Kansas has deep, deep down.

Pickled, presents another problem. Vinegar. Where do you get it? I don't know of another way to make vinegar except from grapes. In the early 90's this meant California. Now with global warming, that can mean Oregon too.

Sugar cure, sugar does the same thing as salt. Drives water out of cells and creates an environment hostile to bacteria. Sugar could come from the Gulf states or from sugar beets.

Lastly, if in a village, that can mean a cold cellar. This worked well for our ancestors that packed away roots like potatoes, carrots, turnips, etc, and fruits like apples, pears.

[RandyT0001]

There are plenty of salt deposits in the US. I have attached a png map. There are also mineral licks that animals have used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_lick

Vinegar can be produced from a variety of sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar

There are two grape species native to North America, both can be used to make wine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_labrusca
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_riparia

Sugar cane is a warm temperate to tropical climate plant. It requires at least 24 inches of rainfall per year minimum falling over several months. It does not tolerate severe frosts so all sugarcane grows between 33 degrees north (about the AR and LA border) and 33 degrees south latitudes. Sugar beets grow in a cool temperate climate within a narrow soil type. Beets are grown in CA, CO, UT, MI, MT, ID and other northern states.

[bobcat]

for another source of Sugar you have Maple. which is plentiful in the North East particularly in Pennsylvania it take a while to boil the sap down to sugar but it is common enough that it is a reasonable source for rations. also it can be used to make a form of wine the same as a great many fruits and flowers. and as apple wine is most commonly used to produce vinegar pickleing would very likely become a common for of preservation even after better methods become available simply because of availability.

[RandyT0001]

Many Sorghum grasses are used as fodder and one, sorghum bicolor, is cultivated as a grain and is used to make sweet sorghum (molasses).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_sorghum

Maple trees grow across most of the US. Different species produce differing amounts and qualities of syrup.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Map_genus_Acer.png/640px-Map_genus_Acer.png
From Wikipedia

Maple trees have many uses, from Wikipedia:

"Commercial uses

Maples are important as source of syrup and wood. Dried wood is often used for the smoking of food. Charcoal from maples is an integral part of the Lincoln County Process used to make Tennessee Whiskey. They are also cultivated as ornamental plants and have benefits for tourism and agriculture.

Maple syrup
The Sugar maple (A. saccharum) is tapped for sap, which is then boiled to produce maple syrup or made into maple sugar or maple taffy. It takes about 40 litres (42 US qt) of sugar maple sap to make 1 litre (1.1 US qt) of syrup. While any Acer species may be tapped for syrup, many do not have sufficient quantities of sugar to be commercially useful.

Timber
Some of the larger maple species have valuable timber, particularly Sugar maple in North America, and Sycamore maple in Europe. Sugar maple wood — often known as "hard maple" — is the wood of choice for bowling pins, bowling alley lanes, pool cue shafts, and butcher's blocks. Maple wood is also used for the manufacture of wooden baseball bats, though less often than ash or hickory due to the tendency of maple bats to shatter when broken. The maple bat was introduced to Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1998 by Sam Holman of Sam Bats. Today it is the standard maple bat most in use by professional baseball. Maple is also commonly used in archery as the core material in the limbs of a Recurve Bow due to its stiffness and strength.

Maple wood is often graded based on physical and aesthetic characteristics. The most common terminology includes the grading scale from common #2; which is unselected and often used for craft woods; common #1, used for commercial and residential buildings; clear; and select grade, which is sought for fine woodworking.

Some maple wood has a highly decorative wood grain, known as flame maple, quilt maple, birdseye maple and burl wood. This condition occurs randomly in individual trees of several species, and often cannot be detected until the wood has been sawn, though it is sometimes visible in the standing tree as a rippled pattern in the bark.

These select decorative wood pieces also have subcategories that further filter the aesthetic looks. Crotch Wood, Bees Wing, Cats Paw, Old Growth and Mottled are some terms used to describe the look of these decorative woods.

Maples have a long history of use for furniture production in the United States.

Tonewood
Maple is considered a tonewood, or a wood that carries sound waves well, and is used in numerous musical instruments. Maple is harder and has a brighter sound than Mahogany, which is another major tonewood used in instrument manufacture.

The back, sides, and neck of most violins, violas, cellos, and double basses are made from maple.

Electric guitar necks are commonly made from maple, having a brighter sound than rosewood. The necks of the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster were originally an entirely maple one piece neck, but later were also available with rosewood fingerboards. Les Paul desired an all maple guitar, but due to the weight of maple, only the tops of Gibson's Les Paul guitars are made from carved maple, often using quilted or flamed maple tops. Due to its weight, very few solid body guitars are made entirely from maple, but many guitars have maple necks, tops or veneers.

Maple is also often used to make bassoons and sometimes for other woodwind instruments like maple recorders.

Many drums are made from maple. From the 70s to the 90s, maple drum kits were a vast majority of all drum kits made, but in recent years, Birch has become popular for drums once again. Some of the best drum-building companies use maple extensively throughout their mid-pro range. Maple drums are favored for their bright resonant sound.

Drum Sticks
Recently, maple has been used in drum sticks by Vic Firth®. The product line is called "American Heritage"® and the sticks have the same dimensions of the traditional hickory sticks. Currently, only 7A, 5A, and 5B sizes are made. (April 2014)

Agriculture
As they are a major source of pollen in early spring before many other plants have flowered, maples are important to the survival of honeybees that play a commercially important role later in the spring and summer.

Pulpwood
Maple is used as pulpwood. The fibers have relatively thick walls that prevents collapsing upon drying. This gives good bulk and opacity in paper. Maple also gives paper with good printing properties."

I went through the listing for trees in Tennessee to find what trees typically grow in West Tennessee and the Jackson Purchase area of Kentucky on Wikepedia. Two examples:
Oxydendrum arboreum - sourwood, sorrel tree - The leaves are a laxative. The shoots make excellent arrow shafts.
Pinus taeda - loblolly pine, bull pine, rosemary pine - This pine tree can reach a height of 30–35 m (98–115 ft) with a diameter of 0.4–1.5 m (1.3–4.9 ft). Exceptional specimens may reach 50 m (160 ft) tall. They are used for lumber, pulp and utility poles.

I have downloaded maps from the USGS that lists minerals processing and mines like the attached pdf. Unfortunately there is not a diversity of mineral deposits in West Tennessee. (If you trace north from the red bucket on the GA and SC border to a green bottle next to a gold and silver cross one finds a gold and silver mine in the eastern US.)

[.45cultist]

WWII era Klim is still around in the Hispanic food section as "Nido". WAAY better than Carnation in my opinion.

[ArmySGT.]

What sort of packaging do you expect to see from each tech level?

Below D, I expect kiln fired pottery and greased parfleche leather pouches, as well as natural casing for sausages and pemmican.

[RandyT0001]

From 1840, the early steam age, until today waxed paper, tin cans and glass bottles are used.
From 1880, the late steam age, until today add early plastics like celluloid and rubber. Cereals in cardboard boxes. Corrugated boxes used for shipping.
From 1920, the early electric age, until today add thermoplastics used in vacuum formed packages.
By 1960, the late electric age, there are additional plastics in use.
Today we still use all methods of packaging food.