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SweetTea · Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 117 Location: Kansas City, MO

And not the kind on the back of guns, either. Stocks, and, to a lesser extent, broths, are one of the simplest foods to digest. Since their invention, they have been used to feed the sick and weak who are unable to keep anything else down. Stocks are made from the bones which would otherwise be thrown away (or at best, composted). They are easy to make before the apocalypse, and not so incredibly hard to make afterward. They are easy to freeze, and can serve as a good thermal mass to keep freezers cold when the power goes out. They can be frozen into single servings and be thawed whenever needed. They come in whatever flavor you want, including beef, chicken, vegetable, crustaceans, venison, and rabbit. The only thing that doesn't do well being stocked is fish, for some reason all of its "fishy" (and I mean this in the worst way possible) qualities come out and all of the "fishy" (in the good way) bits don't really come through.

All stocks are made from bones. Broths are made from meat. We will deal with stocks for now, and a couple of nice broths later. Stocks are almost always more nutritious because they have gelatin in them. This gives stews their lip-smacking unctuousness. It is also one of the easiest protiens to digest since it's in liquid form.

Enough talk, let's make some! What follows will not be recipes per se. I'm not just being a dick, most stock recipes are only lists of ingredients. This is because stock-making isn't so much a recipe but a way of cooking in and of itself. Therefore, we will go into the technique with general ingredients and then get into popular combinations.

First, you need a lot of water. Stockmaking is pretty much only worth it when you can do 3 gallons or more, but the upward limit is only dictated by the size of your pot and how much of each ingredient you have. I like the taste of my municipal water, so I use it. If your water sucks, use the bottled drinking water from the grocery store that are sold in gallon milk jugs for 79c a piece. Next, you need some bones. About 2 liters for each gallon should be plenty. Meat isn't required, but they're nice flavor-adders since gelatin itself is pretty tasteless. Any bones will do, stocks are meant to be made from whatever you have. The connective tissue in the bones will dissolve into gelatin and flow out into the water. You want to start with cold water, and not let the water boil for any period of time so that the pores do not shut and trap the goodness inside the bones. You can just have bones and water and call it stock, but it's usually nice to add flavor enhancers. These aren't meant to usurp the subtle meaty flavor, but build a nice frame around it. This is almost always the job of aromatic vegetables, herbs, and spices. This whole amalgamation is brought together in room-temperature water, and then simmered until the bones are so bereft of connective tissue that they crumble and break at the slightest bending or tension. The solids can be strained out and composted, and what you will have left is an elixer that must be gotten out of the zone (40-140 degrees F) as quickly as possible before bacteria sets up shop. Finally, freeze into single servings by pouring them into muffin tins or tupperware and then bagging them into ziplocks. Line them along the bottom or back of your freezer and forget about your lovely stock until someone gets a cold, the power goes out and you have enough thermal mass to keep everything cold for a while.

And now for some popular combinations of the bones-enhancers duo:

The Ubiquitous Chicken aka chicken noodle soup waiting to happen
Chicken bones (good ones are backs and necks)
1 Tablespoon of salt for every gallon of stock you're making
A couple cloves of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
A small yellow or white onion (or shallot if you're fancy), minced
.5-1 pound of carrot, broken into thumb-sized pieces
1 teaspoon- 1 tablespoon of peppercorns, depending on how much you like pepper
Whatever herbs you like, I find parsely and oregano to be nice

The Lovely Beef aka the best chile base ever
Beef bones (good ones are shanks, oxtails, and vertebrae)
1 Tablespoon of salt for every gallon of stock you're making
1 medium red onion, minced
1 handfull of dark green vegetable (collard/mustard/turnip greens, broccoli, maybe some peas if you like peas)
1 tablespoon red pepper flake
1 tablespoon peppercorns

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The flavorants can be varied a million different ways. Popular ones are members of the alium family (onions, garlic, leeks, shallots), celery, carrot, and all manner of herbs and spices.

There are also broths. These are made from the flesh of animals and vegetables rather than the bones, and are generally more flavorful. Add meat along with bones to make super-yummy stock, or use things other than meat to make broths. For example:

Vibrant Vegetable Broth
Any assortment of the following:
carrot
onion
broccoli
peas
leeks
spinach
collards
tomato
bell pepper
chile pepper

Along with salt, pepper, and whatever herbs and spices you think go with the veggies you have. This is full of vitamins, minerals, and easy to digest calories. It also makes one hell of stew base.

Furthermore, you can make broth from grain. The standard is barley, but any whole grain will do. By whole grain, I don't mean whole grain meal or flour, but entire grains. However, rice is kind of lousy at being brothed.

Barley (or any other grain) water
1 cup of whole grain for every gallon of water (barley, bulgur wheat, flint or dent corn, millet, etc)
.25 cup honey for every gallon of water
1 tablespoon of salt for every gallon of water

As if this article wasn't long enough, it's time for a final word on making stocks and broths after the apocalypse hits. Before TSHTF, stock can be made on a stove or in a large crock pot. However, after the apocolypse goes down, low and steady heat is very wasteful. It can be made on the hearth of the fire that you're using to heat your house (in fact, winter is the best time of year to make stock, see below for another reason). Also, you can heat up fireplace bricks or rocks in your cooking or heating fire until they're ripping hot and then drop them in the water. Keep swapping out hot rocks for cooled down ones to keep the mixture at a simmer or just below it.
Also, winter is the best time for making stock. First, you can use the slow heat of a fireplace to heat up the stock. Second, you can cool it down by lidding the pot and setting it outside in the snow. As long as it's colder than 40 degrees F, you'll get out of the zone lickity split.

Sorry the article was so long, it's a big subject. Questions, comments, and criticisms are very welcome.

Goblin · Site Admin Joined: 14 Feb 2008 Posts: 228

Great post! Good recipes...assuming you have an abundant water supply. Smile

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chuckbrick · Joined: 02 Jun 2008 Posts: 2 Location: Austin, Tx

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