Tony Littlejohns - The Hoffmann Plague

Jane thought for a second. ‘Well, what did our ancestors use, like in the middle-ages? I’m guessing they boiled up the carcases of animals and rendered them down to get the fat. Plus, I suppose some would have had access to butter.’

‘Yes, that’s true. We could do with some ourselves! By the way, how did you get on this morning?’

‘Oh, Jamie, you should have seen Max, he was fab!’ Max’s ears pricked up and he looked at them. Jane rubbed his ears. ‘I couldn’t have done it without him. There were thick beds of brambles everywhere, and finding the entrances to the burrows was much more difficult than I’d imagined. I’d have missed most of them if it wasn’t for Max. I pointed some rabbit droppings to him and picked some up to let him smell them, and off he went… He stopped at every entrance and I put snares down at each point. We got eight done, but he was getting tired so we came home.’

‘That’s great. Well done, Max!’ He reached down and stroked Max, who whined and wagged his tail. ‘And well done you, too. Well, rabbits normally come out at dusk, but I’d guess that without humans around now they’ll be active all day. Maybe you should go back later this afternoon and check the snares?’

Jane grinned. ‘Ahead of you, there… I’d already decided to do that!’ Jamie laughed.

While Jane prepared the mackerel for lunch, he read through some of his books. He’d planned to use the bags of compressed wood cat litter for the smoking, but discovered that pine and other softwoods couldn’t be used because of their resin content. At least they’d be good fuel for the Kelly Kettle and the wood-gas camping stove, though. He put the books aside and started preparing the two fish.

Jane grinned at him and he smiled back; it felt good to be productive and learning new things for their futures. He gutted the fish, removed the heads and fins, then cut one fish in half for their meal that night, and the other one-and-a-half he cut into thin fillets. He layered them in a tub with salt between each layer and covered the top with more salt, then put on the lid to store them overnight. The salting would draw out moisture and help prevent microbial growth, and after that they could be smoked or dried.

They ate the fried mackerel with sea beet, chives and flat-bread, dressed with olive oil and vinegar: it was delicious and both said they’d never eaten fish that fresh before. After clearing up they had some coffee then spent the afternoon working in the garden.

As evening drew on and the sun got low in the sky Jane set off to check the snares. Max followed her out, but she sent him back in to Jamie as she was going to walk there. It took her under ten minutes and once there she climbed up the embankment and onto the railway. She was delighted to find rabbits in two snares – one small and one average-sized – and grinned to herself. The others were empty, but three had either fallen or been knocked over. She reset all the snares, put the rabbits in her pack and headed home.

Max came to the door as soon as she walked in and followed her back to the kitchen, where Jamie was sitting at the table with a glass of wine, reading up on preserving food. He poured her a glass, which she accepted gratefully.

‘Well?’ he enquired with a smile.

Jane tried to play it cool but failed, and broke into a big grin.

‘Two! I couldn’t believe it when I saw them.’ She took them from her pack and put them on the kitchen counter.

‘Oh, that’s brilliant, Jane, well done!’ She beamed at him and they clinked glasses and toasted each other.

‘Listening to my dear old dad all those years ago paid off, bless him. I never thought I’d use the knowledge, though!’

‘Well, I’ve been reading the books on preserving, including two others I found belonging to the previous owners, and the meat can be cooked with oil, spices, vinegar and sugar, then put into preserving jars. To keep them longer than a few days you can heat-process the jars in boiling water for about twenty minutes, which causes a vacuum inside, and after that they’ll keep for up to a year. Isn’t that fab?’

‘That’s really good news. It also sounds a bit more palatable to me than jerky!’ she laughed.

‘We can do both. The jerky will be great for travelling food when we go out and as snacks. We can also rehydrate it in casseroles if we want to. I think we’ll have to see if we can find some more preserving jars as well.’

‘What about that kitchen shop on Devonshire? I’m sure there’ll be some in there.’

‘Yes, we’ll have to pay a visit as we’re going to need all we can find.’

For their evening meal Jamie steamed the remaining fish with soy sauce and chives and made some rice to go with it. They also ate some of the chutney and pickles that the previous owners had made. Afterwards, they sat on the sofa in the conservatory with a few candles lit, drinking wine and discussing plans. Max lay stretched out between them looking contented.

They spent part of Friday morning preserving the meat and the rest of the day gardening. While looking around her house after moving in Jane had found a cloth bag of potatoes under the sink that were wizened and sprouting large roots. Some had rotted, but others looked okay so they planted them.

They kept one rabbit as food for that day, while Jane prepared half of the larger one and cooked it with spices, sugar and vinegar, sealing it into three preserving jars for later use, according to the instructions in the preserving books. The other half Jamie cut into thin strips and salted for turning into jerky. He chopped up some hardwood from the wood-pile and lit a small, smoky fire in the bottom of one of the converted bins. The fish was rinsed of its salt cure and the smaller half he put on the lowest rack to smoke. The remaining fillets from the whole fish, along with the rabbit, he put on the top rack where it was coolest, to dry it completely.

Throughout the day, in between gardening, he fed small amounts of wood onto the fire to keep the smoke going. Max would stand next to him sniffing at the smell of fish, looking at him enquiringly to see if he was going to get any, though he had no reason to be hungry as he had eaten the leftovers from the rabbits.

By late evening, after maybe twelve hours, it was evident that the smoking hadn’t worked as he’d hoped. The fish on the lowest rack had cooked rather than smoked, and was rather tough. Probably half that time would have done the same job, but made it nicer to eat. It wasn’t a huge problem, but it meant that it wouldn’t keep for long and would have to be used up soon, maybe in a casserole.

The fish and rabbit on the top rack, however, had dried out nicely. The fish was hard and almost brittle once it had cooled. The rabbit jerky was leathery and splintered when bent. After letting them cool, he tasted the rabbit jerky and found it to be perfectly acceptable, if a little bland. Jane reached the same conclusion. They decided the next lot they made would be marinated first in a kind of barbeque sauce before drying, to give it more flavour. The dried fish was put into a cloth bag and hung in the cellar. They went to bed that night feeling rather pleased with their first attempts at food preserving, but they knew it would take a lot of trial and error to perfect techniques and develop a working system that suited them.

When they awoke on the Saturday morning the weather had turned. It was windy and overcast with a constant drizzle of rain. They looked out the window while drinking their coffee, then looked at each other; neither of them felt like working on the gardens in that weather. They knew that from now on they would have to work outside in all weathers because their survival depended on it, but they had achieved a lot in that week and most of the initial work was done. They had many seeds planted in the gardens and in tubs on the patios, as well as for tomatoes in the conservatory.