Article – The Unexpectedly Deep History Of Canned Bread

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Today, B&M is most famous for their baked beans. None of its other canned products survived the pressures of supply and demand, leaving B&M’s baked beans and canned bread as its only remaining product lines. Canned brown bread, available in both plain and raisin varieties, may not be as popular as it was during World War II, when canned goods were a staple in households due to rationing and limited fresh supplies, but B&M still produces nearly one million cans annually.

Interestingly, the pandemic brought an increase in the volume of internet searches for canned bread, as more people turned to shelf-stable foods. B&M’s brown bread has a two-year shelf life, according to the manufacturer, giving you plenty of time to work up the courage for your canned bread taste test. Now, when it comes to actually preparing canned bread, there are some distinctly New England ways to enjoy it.

This is a product that gets a bit of mileage in the preparedness world (Preposphere?). On its face, it sounds like a pretty good deal – a bread product that doesn’t go stale for a couple years. I have to admit that I have never actually tried it but I may have to.  Throw in some canned butter and you actually have the begining of a decent meal.

I have absolutely no doubt that some of the readership has tried this stuff, and I’m sure that there’s a few people here who think it’s awesome  and eat it on a regular basis.

It does seem like an ideal product to tuck into the kitchen cabinet at your bugout cabin or in your stash of emergency food.

The article states that the term ‘bread’ is a little bit misleading since the product is more like a muffin or cake. It’d be nice if someone made a canned bread product that was actually closer to ‘real’ bread. A nice round rye to slice up for sandwiches would be kinda cool.

 

Range day

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I had to take a few guns to the range this weekend to function test them or sight them in before cleaning them and tucking them away. I had to test fire the Beretta 92, another PSA JAKL I picked up, and, most interestingly, the Sig P320.

The SIG P320 was a delight to shoot. The particular model I was shooting had a polymer frame but had tungsten weights installed in the grip area to give it some weight and heft. And, interestingly, it really did make a different. The pistol was quite accurate and very pleasant to shoot. But, then again, how often do you hear anything bad about SIG stuff? (Except for the usual charge levied against any made-by-blue-eyed-blond-haired-people firearm – price)

The Berttas shot just fine, so they’ll get cleaned up and tucked away. I need to play with the JAKL a bit more. But that SIG….well, I did what I needed to do but now I just want to shoot it some more for fun. Its a very nice gun.

I also need to load up some more .338 Lapua ammo and take the Ruger out for some more work. I fired 40 rounds through it last month to get the gun sighted in and, using bog-common components, it held about 1MOA. But I want better and need to source some Gold Medal Match Magnum primers. I shot 225 gr. hunting bullets which is fine, but I have some 250 gr. Horndy SST bullets sitting here and I expect better results with them.

I suppose at some point I should go play with my hunting PTR to make sure everything is just the way it needs to be. I’d like to go hunting more than a handful of times thus year, but work schedule always seems to have something to say about that.

News – Property Owners Win Again: Tennessee Appeals Court Affirms That Warrantless Searches by Game Wardens Are Unconstitutional

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Warrantless ‘searches’ (which really should be called intrusions) of a person’s property are one of those things that makes me go from 0-to-boogaloo with no stops in-between. It seems that some .gov organizations (local, usually) feel that they’re exempt from needing warrants to roam your property for reasons.

One situation I had been following closely is a case in Tennessee where game wardens, in the name of pursuing their mandate, can come onto people’s property surreptitiously, leave surveillance devices, monitor the property, and it’s all kosher because…reasons, I guess.

To my simplistic way of thinking, unless there’s some truly exigent circumstances, any badge-wearer or .gov employee has zero business being on Zero’s property uninvited.

Apparently a court in Tennessee has agreed with my sentiment:

JACKSON, Tenn.—Late yesterday, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Jackson affirmedthat the Tennessee Constitution bars game wardens from conducting warrantless searches of private property. The ruling upholds a circuit court victory for Benton County landowners Terry Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth. Terry and Hunter sued with the Institute for Justice (IJ) after the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) ignored their “No Trespassing” signs by entering and installing cameras on their land. The victory applies broadly to all private land Tennesseans have put to “actual use,” whether by fencing, farming, posting, gating, hunting, fishing, camping, or otherwise.

….

“This decision is a massive win for property rights in Tennessee,” said IJ Attorney and Elfie Gallun Fellow in Freedom and the Constitution Joshua Windham. “TWRA claimed unfettered power to put on full camouflage, invade people’s land, roam around as it pleases, take photos, record videos, sift through ponds, spy on people from behind bushes—all without consent, a warrant, or any meaningful limits on their power. This decision confirms that granting state officials unfettered power to invade private land is anathema to Tennesseans’ most basic constitutional rights.”

….

TWRA thought that its warrantless searches were legal under the century-old federal “open fields” doctrine. In 1924, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect any land beyond the home and its immediately surrounding area. The Court reaffirmed the doctrine in 1984 when it held that property owners have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” on any land the Court deems to be an “open field”—a broad category that, according to a new IJ study, includes about 96% of all land nationwide and at least 92% of land in Tennessee specifically.

For people like you and I , with our particular interests and ideals, the notion of privacy and property rights are of heightened importance. If I’m berming a conex full of guns and food on my forty acres somewhere, the last thing I need is some state agency roaming the acreage without my permission….laying cameras and ground sensors, taking pictures, observing, etc. And, to my way of thinking, that applies to drone surveillance as well. I don’t really expect any sense of privacy from a low earth orbit satellite, but I do expect privacy 80 feet above my house.

I have a similar feeling towards the seemingly common practice of law enforcement slapping tracking devices on vehicles without a warrant. You modify my property with a surveillance device, you better have some paperwork about it or we’re going to have some words in a courtroom.

I applaud the Tennessee court for applying what seems to me as common sense in their decision.

Paratus gifting

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A couple quick notes about Paratus, which is in about five weeks.

First, the Paratus gifts for this year’s recipients have arrived. Finally. I am never using that particular vendor again.

Secondly, I received an early Paratus gift in the mail today. Much thanks to the person who sent it.

And, finally, the Paratus cards showed up last week so we’re on track for that. For those who are curious, the Paratus card list is actually fairly short….about three dozen people. Want to get on the list? Instructions are in the FAQ.

While I absolutely love getting stuff in the mail, lets slow it down and wait until Paratus is actually here before we do the gift-is-in-the-mail thing. This is like getting Christmas gifts before Thanksgiving has even occurred.

 

Beretta G conversion

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Broadly speaking, when it comes to 9mm handguns, I’m a Glock guy. This doesn’t mean the Glock is my favorite 9mm handgun…it isn’t. My favorite 9mm handgun is the HiPower. But the Glock has he qualities that I look for in terms of a tool for looking out for Number One.
I do have a stable of other guns, though. One of them is the Beretta 92 (or M9, if you prefer.) Because of it’s military ubiquity it seemed a good idea to have a couple. The 92 goes back to the wondernine school of handgun design where you had a heavy double action pull and subsequent rounds were single action. Additionally, you had a manual safety. The manual safety is the part that makes no sense to me…it has a heavy double action pull like a revolver, so why does it need a manual safety?
Beretta addressed this by making the ‘G’ series where the safety is mechanically rendered into a decock-only. Thumbing the safety decocks the gun and the safety then springs back to the ‘fire’ position. In this way you never have to worry about your safety accidentally getting engaged when you don’t want it to.
Fortunately the necessary parts to convert your Beretta to the G version are available for about fifty bucks. The instructions, as provided by Beretta, are awful. YouTube to the rescue.

Sadly, no matter how you slice it, the whole experience is still a springs-flying-across-the-room and need-three-hands experience. But…it’s done.

I can’t recall the last time I encountered anyone carrying a DA/SA pitol that had a manual safety. The heavy DA is the safety. I find them to be useless and will modify a pistol to decock-only if I can.

Anyway…took a half hour but now both my M9s are decocker-only.

Flux

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I tried to behave myself with the big Missoula gun show this weekend, and I thought I was doing a good job of it until someone offered me a SIG P320 Five-X 9mm for sale. Now, I am not one who wants to take on the logistics of a new gun but…I needed a SIG fire control group, slide, and barrel. Why, you ask? To make this happen:

Its a SIG P320 in a Flux Raider chasis w/ a couple 30-round mags.

I am, apparently, a bit suggestible when it comes to advertising. To be fair, my MP5k won’t fit in my desk top drawer at work so the Raider does have that going for it.

Here’s the funny thing…the donor P320 that I used to get the upper half of this gun from turns out to be actually rather nice. My only experience has been with the 220- series of SIG pistols from back in the day. The Five-X is actually a nice handful and seem very well made. I might have to take it to the range and if I like it I might just have to buy another one to have a complete pistol.

The Flux Raider, by the way, is a very, very, very niche sort of thing. And as interesting as it looks…they make an even smaller one:

Not sure how useful that thing is, but that commercial should get an award.

Further early gifting

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Some people just seem to want to avoid he rush, it seems. I received a couple books in the mail the other day and I am interpreting them as an early Paratus gift.

Someone sent me some books a few months back and I promised to post my opinions on them and I still haven’t gotten around to reading them. Just too dang busy. Hopefully I” get them and these two read sometime in the near future.

BUT….much thanks! And if the person who sent me these books would like to send me a mailing address of some type, there’s a Paratus card with your name on it!

 

Article – Yes, You Can Cook Tinned Fish in Its Tin

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Interesting article that addresses one of the issues about ‘cooking in cans’:

“The current debate often centers on the presence of BPA (bisphenol A) in can linings,” Motta says “At José Gourmet, our tins are BPA-NIA (BPA-Not Intentionally Added), meaning no BPA is deliberately included in the products.” He added that the industry is moving towards 100-percent BPA-free linings in compliance with EU regulations.

My takeaway is that it’s probably not a great idea to cook tinned fish directly in the tin for every meal, but in terms of health impact, it’s similar to microwaving food in a plastic container — an at-your-own-risk kind of activity that falls squarely in line with the improvisational spirit of using whatever’s handy to get the job done. With a better grasp of the science behind cooking in cans, I’m ready to embrace it in spirit if not exactly practice, heating the tinned fish separately and then adding it back to the can to serve.

It used to be a thing that you could cook heat your canned food, say, some Chef Boyardee for example, by putting the can in boiling water. When the food was heated all the way through you could open the can and eat. No muss, no fuss.

The change in this practice started a while back when cans were starting to incorporate plastic liners in them to help keep the cans from rusting and avoid flavor issues from the contents of the can reacting with metal….you can see this most notably in high-acid foods like tomatoes and pineapple which will eventually react with the can in a way that leaves a black ‘mold’ in the can.

This article seems to suggest that if there is an issue with the cans used these days, the negative impact is as minimal as the risk you get from microwaving your food in a plastic container.

I suppose that in a crisis, two or three days of canned ravioli heated in boiling water will do you far less damage than not eating at all, but I think I’m still inclined to just have a quality mess kit and a way to clean it. I am curious, however, about retort pouches. Obviously MRE’s are designed from the ground up to be heated in boiling water. But what about things like pouches of tuna and chicken from the supermarket? Just as boilable as MRE’s? Or are we back to worrying about plastic liners becoming part of our GI tract?

On the other hand, most foods that are canned are already cooked and simply need to be re-heated to be tasty. That doesn’t mean they can’t be eaten cold…just means they won’t be as enjoyable. And ‘not enjoyable’ beats starvation any day of the week.

Plastic container prep

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A few posts back I mentioned that I had bought a new bunch of Scepter water cans.

Any new plastic container is going to have ‘that plastic smell’. Also, you don’t know where that container has been or what its been exposed to in its time at the warehouse. So, the smart survivalist will clean these things out if for no other reason than to at least get rid of that unappealing strong plastic smell.

Ten bucks up at CostCo gets you about 14# of baking soda. You don’t need 14# of baking soda to wash out a water jug, but more is better, right? I err on the side of overkill, so I fill a gallon pitcher with hot water, dump in about a cup of baking soda, stir well and dump it into the water jug. Seal it up loosely so water can escape a bit and get the threads of the cap. Shake vigorously, shake some more, and then finally shake it vigorously.  I give it about 30 seconds of violent shaking so I can feel the water hitting all the sides of the jug. Don’t be gentle.

Now, if you’re just doing one jug, you can dump out the mix and then rinse the thing out thoroughly with cold water from a hose. But, since I’m doing more than one, I’ll dump the mix into the next jug and repeat the process. I’ll do this for two or three jugs and then use some fresh baking soda/water mix.

Keep in mind, when you dump the water/soda mix out of the jug it will leave traces of baking soda on the inside that will eventually dry to a powdery film. This is why the rinse with clear cold water afterwards.

By this method I either totally eliminate the plastic smell, or reduce it to virtually nothing. And, of course, I’ve now cleaned out the inside of the jug. If you’re a suspenders-and-a-belt guy you may want to disinfect or sterilize the jug afterwards. Thats pretty much the same process but using water/bleach instead of water/baking soda.

And, finally, when it’s time to fill these things you can add all sortsa ‘water preservers’ or bleach to promote storage life. Its my understanding that municipal water (“city water”) is fine to store right out of the tap since it has already been treated by the municipal water provider.

I should also point out that I do this for any large plastic container that I am storing something edible in. My buckets for rice, wheat, etc., also get this treatment. In that case it is imperative that you make sure the bucket is completely bone dry before you fill it with your food product. After cleaning I usually let the bucket/container sit in a dry place indoors for a few days to completely dry out.

Can I get away with not doing any of that and just fill the things up without going through that effort? Absolutely. But this is stuff you’re putting away for a rather dire circumstance. When that dire circumstance occurs (or is occurring) aren’t you going to want every confidence and advantage possible? Of course you will…so spend the ten minutes and do the work. Future you will thank you.

 

Cost of custom

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I have a Springfield Armory 1911 (my only 1911, in fact) that I bought used many years ago….I’m talking back in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. It has a Baughman ramp front, target rear, full length recoil guide, extended beavertail, adjustable trigger, and at least another half dozen modifications. The previous owner had all this work done because when SA made this thing you couldn’t buy the gun with all those options. Back when this gun was born your only real choices were if you wanted a parkerized or blued copy of a GI 1911. Maybe there were one or two options available like different sights but that was about it. If you wanted all those other bells and whistles…well…you had a trip to the gunsmith in front of you.

Nowadays you can just pull a SKU out of SA’s catalog and get a pistol with even more and better options right off the shelf.

I mention this because I was re-reading an old blog post of Tam’s about the cost of custom guns. The things that she put into a custom .300 Blackout rifle are things that are, to a degree, now available ‘off the rack’ from several different makers. Notably, my Ruger .300 Blackout comes with a threaded barrel, an adjustable trigger, can take detachable magazines, has a good stock, a solid attachment point for optics, optics-ready bolt handle, and a few other features that, for the time period she as doing this in, were ‘custom’.( Her .300, though, is much prettier than my .300 . I wonder if she still has it.)

But what those two guns have in common is that the features we wanted, insisted on actually, eventually wound up becoming ‘standard features’. Other good examples would be pistols from the factory now coming with optic cuts already done. The sudden craze of every rifle barrel from a manufacturer being threaded. Adjustable triggers on everything. It goes on and on.

It used to be that a bespoke boomtoy was so personal and unique an item that it was practically a persons ‘signature’. Elmer Keith’s No. 5, Patton’s Ivory handled SAA, Diaz’ Winchesters, etc. And now, someone somewhere is making exact copies or at least guns that have all those features. Even my BBQ gun isn;t really unique since its a cataloged item with machine engraving…rare, yes. Custom? Absolutely not.

I have one bespoke gun and it’s story is very similar to Tam’s – I bought a bunch of clapped out Mausers from Sarco back in the late 80’s, threw away the stocks and barrels, and cleaned up the actions. I bought a brand new 29″ stepped military barrel in 7×57, put it in, added some Williams receiver sights, blued the whole mess, dropped it into an old commercial Mauser stock of ancient vintage, and made an ugly rifle that I thought was perfect. It doesn’t win any beauty contests but I love shooting it.

I’m not sure you can call anything made of drop-in parts custom, but the most recent might-be-custom gun I have is the Glock I put together a few months back. There isn’t a single thing thats ‘custom’ about it except for the combination of parts which is probably not terribly unusual. But, it’s certainly custom to me.

Custom guns never really ‘pay off’ in the long run. You’ll never get your money out of them, but you do get a higher degree of satisfaction and pleasure, I think, than you would have gotten out of the plain Jane version that was ‘off the rack’.

But it is interesting to note that what used to be considered custom years ago is now, to a degree, mainstream…or at least avaialble on a non-custom basis.