Have you been in one of the many Asian Grocery shops?The biggest impression I get is the huge range of DRY Goods.
There are shelves full of dried beans , grains and packets of dried vegetables
This must be the standard way of preserving food in Hot and arid countries
We have moved too far away from this form of keeping food.
We have been led down the hi tech paths of Jam Making [lots of sugar]
or pickling [lots of vinegar and salt]
or the industrial tin can [lots of metal]
In a world where the supply of sugar either from the distant tropics or the hi tech sugar beet industry has gone for ever.
We are left with either boiling sea water to make salt or smoking fish/meat or drying vegetables.
Forget the Microwave,gas or electric oven we will need to use the sun or a drying grid in the home fire chimney as the french peasants have used for millennia.
We need to forget our way of life and see how the sucessful parts of the third world manage.We are obsessed with third world disasters [possibly to comfort ourselves].
In Africa there are whole streets of workshops making wonderful household furniture starting with tree trunks at one end and a velvet sofa at the other - each shop does part of the job.
There are pumpkins and roots drying on the roofs.
The Third world of Africa and India - at the rural local level at least - has survived without heavy industry for aeons.
Our Salvation may lie in their techniques
