[TheForge] dutch oven OT:

[Jerry Frost]

I've always liked keeping a pot of hot "stuff" on the wood stove, especially 
when the cook stove was wood too. You do NOT want to light up the wood cook 
stove unnless you really need it, the one we had would drive you out when it 
was -50f outside. Well, at -50 just cracking the door was usually enough, 
still. I didn't have cast iron for the hot stuff I had a BIG old commercial 
SS pot and kept it filled to around the handle rivet level. Neighbors would 
stop by on train day for a warm up and bowl of hot stuff; if it started 
getting a little thin they'd show up with a bag of onions, potatoes, 
carrots, beans, etc. Meat was never an issue everybody had moose hanging. It 
was an ever changing pot of hot goodness.

Keeping it hot enough is indeed a serious matter, food poisoning is never 
fun but when you live a couple hours fast snow machine ride from the nearest 
doc it's a life decision. I kept it simmering or let it freeze and brought 
back to a rolling boil for a while if I had to leave for a day or so.

Jer
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer" <artgawk at thegrid.net>
To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 9:55 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] dutch oven OT:


> Thanks for the warning Bruce.
> I was a biology major, long ago.
> The main drawback was that the perennial soup tasted pretty..well, brown.
> I did that perennial soup thing  most winters for a span of around 20 
> years in
> the very dutch oven given to me by the extraordinary Art Beal (RIP),Dr 
> Tinkerpaw,
> who demonstrated the technique for around 40 years and lived to be 96 
> years old.
> He fed himself, his animals and many guests on very little income and many 
> terraced gardens on a very steep hillside.
> As i noted..the dutch oven would pull a solid vacuum as it cooled. 
> Happened over too many years to be dumb luck.
> Perhaps pertinent , is the fact that right by the ocean in the winter it 
> seldom topped 60F.
> He taught me to pick wild mushrooms too....grin...
> Though his mycological precision later turned out to be a bit too loose 
> for my liking.
>
>
> On Nov 28, 2012, at 6:16 AM, Bruce . wrote:
>
> Keeping soup going for 9 mos. might be safe if you run a wood stove
> HOT all the time, but please be careful otherwise.
>
> Someone I knew once told me her "trick" of cooking something up in a
> pressure cooker, then leaving it on the stove -- cold -- all night
> because it "was almost like canning."  I immediately replied that it
> differed from canning in that when it cooled, air -- and bacteria --
> leaked in and started going to work on the contents.  She's lucky she
> never got food poisoning from this "trick"!
>
> You can get away with stuff like this through dumb luck.  Rather like
> you frequently can get away with speeding down a highway w/o killing
> yourself.  But your luck can run out.
>
> I suggest everybody read up on canning, JUST to learn about how food
> can spoil.  I expect those of you who cook are aware of the 40F-140F
> rule:  "Keep food below 40F or above 140F -- lest it spoil."  But are
> you aware of thermophillic bacteria that THRIVE between 113F and 252F?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophilic_bacteria
>
> From what I've read, most of these are irrelevant to our foods, but
> SOME of them can "spoil" canned foods kept too long at intermediate
> (>140F) temperatures during canning. Fortunately, these apparently
> don't produce food toxins, nor are they pathogenic, but they can
> degrade the quality of the food.
>
> I bring up thermophiles mainly to point out that there's lots you
> might not know.  People DO die of food poisoning.
>
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer
> <artgawk at thegrid.net> wrote:
>> Sigh.
>> As a bachelor, i kept a continuous soup going all winter..9 months 
>> sometimes.
>> Heat it up at night and the old dutch oven would actually pull a pretty 
>> good vacuum .
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Bruce
> NJ