It is often pointed to in shipping that Radar came out of the war effort. Therefore war is good?
I happen to have faith that human ingenuity would have figured out the value of detecting range and bearing of an object sooner or later. Shipping technology has now stagnated in many ways, with most innovation coming from the private sectors of superyachts and yacht racing.
Regarding the history of money and currency. You missed out Whisky, of Whisky Rebellion fame. Also, barter has never been proven to be used as currency, and it is believed debt (I'll help fix your roof, if you help fix mine next winter, etc) is the original currency. It differs from modern debt and fiat currency in that the debt isnincurred voluntarily, and is locally controlled, not anonymously centrally controlled, and involuntarily increased across generations.
I was going to put booze/liquor in the poll! Good suggestion.
'Favours' were another candidate, which seems to allude to what you're saying. I think the real difference is that favours are qualitative, with the value of a given favour being up for some debate - whereas debt has developed a distinctly quantitative nature.
On that note, I once met a police negotiator who kept a list of all of his favours in a little red book, to be used as leverage at some later date. The man was probably a psychopath but he definitely knew how to get what he wanted.
A few centuries ago, in Europe, a lot of technological developments took place because most countries were afraid of being 'swallowed up' by larger, naighbouring countries. There was a constant threat of an invasion, or a war. [England, as an island, was pretty save. Natural watery borders and all that.]
Not every country focused on developing weapons, there were also those who tried to strengthen their position through agriculture and trading, so they could count on other countries they were on friendly terms with to keep them save.
So that's what I'm basing my own post-apocalyptic plan on.
I am good at canning food. I know how to prepare everything, and the different temperatures and times the jars need to be kept in a waterbath to be able to keep them good tasting, and to store them for at least a year. Probably a lot longer. So if people will give me food to can, I will keep a few jars from every batch for myself.
Making fermented products like kimchi and miso [although the miso might prove difficult after a while since I need to buy the spores online] are also no problem, and I'm learning to make mead at this moment. And I am able to skin animals and prepare said skins. Selling or trading those products seems worthwhile to me.
So I am pretty sure I don't need to provide "other services" to keep myself fed and warm when push comes to shove.
I completely agree, these are fantastic skills to have. Over the last few years I was introduced to the wonderful world of home made pickles, sauerkraut, berries and other canned goods. It's such a useful skill. They definitely last more than a year - we recently opened one labeled 1916, though my wife did mention that her grandmother started writing the wrong century in her later years. Still, the cherries were absolutely fine after sitting in the basement for 6 years.
My vote was on the 'cigarettes as currency' article, but I'd like to unofficially vote on a guest post (or comment) by Maureen on making Miso - is it easy to get into?
Making miso is fairly straightforward. There is a high salt percentage and lactic acid bacteria which makes failing actually difficult. You do need a lot of patience though. There are several koji, or strains of aspergillus oryzae which are suitable for making miso paste.
Light rice koji - for shiro miso: sweet, light flavor (2 weeks - 2 months to age), and shinshu miso: a bit salty and tart (6 to 12 months).
Red rice koji - my personal go to variant. For sendai miso: rich, savory, salty and a sweet undertone (6-12 months to age), and edo miso: rich, slightly savory and a deep sweet undertone (4-6 weeks).
Barley koji - combine with regular barley for mugi miso: salty, deep rich taste and underlying sweetness (12-18 months to age), or mellow barley for amakuchi mugi miso: bit sweet, salty and a distinctive flavor of koji and soybeans (1-2 months).
Soybean koji - combine with soybeans for hatcho miso: the fancy one. Apparently the emperor's favourite. Savory, mellow sweetness, and a pungent flavor which the Japanese call 'shibui' (18-24 months to age).
*taste notes mostly taken from Shurtleff's and Aoyagi's "The book of miso". Otherwise everything would be a variant of 'many much umami' and 'I want to marry this. Our children will be delicious.'
Step 1 - Grow your koji - The 'I have loads of time' version
To make koji, steam white rice/pearled barley/soy after soaking it for about 12 hours for the rice, or 2 to 4 hours for the barley (boiling after soaking will make it too wet for the spores to grow). Spread it on a clean, dry cloth. Wait untill it has cooled a bit to 35 to 40 degrees celsius before you add the spores. You can use a fine mesh strainer to easily spread it. Use 6 grams of the mixture described below on 1 kilo of rice if the spores are so to say 'uncut', but often they come premixed. Premixed are ready to use, just follow the instructions on the package.
Concentrated spores are fine, so to be able to handle them better you can mix it with toasted wheat or riceflour. (Toasting kills other, harmful bacteria). To toast the flour, just put it in a pan on a low fire and keep stirring until it is golden brown. You'll need about 29 grams of flour to mix with 1 gram of spores.
Mix it well. Line a tray (preferably wood, or something with openings to get rid of excess water) with some cloth. For the first 24 hours you need to keep the temperature of the rice/barley/soy with spores between 28 and 36 degrees Celsius, an incubation box for chicken eggs is prefect for this, and spray it every now and then with some water to keep the humidity around 90%.
After the first 24 hours you can stir the mixture for the first time, for the best spread of the spores you can keep on mixing every 4 hours or so. The starter will be ready to use when the koji is producing yellow-greenish spots. Red rice koji for example will be ready in about 40 hours.
As soon as that happens, move the tray to the fridge to cool it. Spread it out as much as you can since koji can retain heat, and completely green koji will not produce a pleasant miso.
---OR---
Step 1 - Buy your koji - The 'I have better things to do' version
Use 'dry rice koji', a type of ready to use rice which already has the aspergillus oryzae in it. To rehydrate it you'll need to use about 200ml lukewarm water for every 500 grams. Mix it well, make sure the rice doesn't stick together.
Cover bowl with shrink wrap, let it sit for about 1 to 2 hours. Stir the mixture again after about 15 minutes.
If you can crush the koji rice between your fingers, it is ready to use.
Optional - 15 ml unpasteurized store bought miso paste. This speeds up the fermentation process and maximizes the chances of success.
Regarding the legumes, soybeans are used for the classic miso, but you can also use another kind of legume. Go wild!
Recipe:
Rinse the legumes and let them soak overnight (8 to 12 hours) in plenty of water. Rinse and strain.
Boil the legumes for about 3 to 4 hours until you can easily crush them between your fingers. After that, strain them en let them cool.
Crush the legumes untill you get a paste, you can keep it 'chunky' if you prefer. Not everything needs to be mashed up. I usually use a plastic bag (very fancy) and crush them by hand. After that you can combine everything in a bowl, make sure you mix the ingredients well.
By that time you should also have a jar, or jars ready. You should either sterilize those by boiling them in a large pan for at least 15 minutes, or placing them in a oven for about 10 minutes on 160 degrees celsius.
Cover the sides of the jar with a bit of salt, and put the paste inside. I use the ball method: I roll a small amount of paste in a ball shape, squish this inside against the bottom and layer the paste like this untill the jar is halfway full. Make sure you leave no air bubbles, use a pestle if you need to.
After that, place a piece of shrinkwrap or parchment paper in the jar, cut to size so it covers the paste. Layer a bit of salt on top of it, make sure you completely cover the area between the edge of the shrinkwrap/parchment paper and the sides of the jar.
Place something on top of the paste to keep it pressed down, for every 500 grams of paste you'll need a weight of 500/750 grams (bag filled with salt, some glass weights, et cetera).
Keep the jar(s) away from sunlight, somewhere at room temperature. The miso will darken with time. If you discover mold, don't panic. This only grows on the outside of the paste, so you can scoop it out and wipe down the jar. After a few months, just follow the general fermenting guidelines, you can taste if it is to your liking. Remove the greyish oxidized parts if there are any.
Wow, thanks so much, Maureen! Very much appreciate the detailed instructions - I've saved them for future reference :) I'll have a look at acquiring ready-made koji here; seems like it makes the process pretty painless.
Apologies for taking over 2 weeks to reply btw, this month I transitioned to full-time childcare (generous pat. leave where I live) and I barely have time to catch my breath! It was so much easier when I could catch up on messages in the office.
Cigarettes are usually only used to trade and as a currency in prisons and other circumstances when obtaining food and water is not a priority, I think. And as a former smoker I regret to inform you that cigarettes do get dry, very sharp and disgusting after a while. Even when you keep them in the foil.
As someone who has been working on her own Substack and has way too many fiction ideas to realistically get them all posted let alone in a somewhat regular schedule... could I perhaps steal this concept? I guess technically it’s fair use and you couldn’t stop me anyway but I’d rather be polite about it!
I loved all of these thoughts, and I don’t know which I’d want to have in depth (though the war and technology and cigarettes and currency especially fascinated me!) I voted censorship and literature since that’s where my own pseudo-career is and one of my hills to die on. Lol
I’m hyped for the next New Orion by the way! Don’t wanna rush but it’s such a good series!!!
Nice format.
It is often pointed to in shipping that Radar came out of the war effort. Therefore war is good?
I happen to have faith that human ingenuity would have figured out the value of detecting range and bearing of an object sooner or later. Shipping technology has now stagnated in many ways, with most innovation coming from the private sectors of superyachts and yacht racing.
Regarding the history of money and currency. You missed out Whisky, of Whisky Rebellion fame. Also, barter has never been proven to be used as currency, and it is believed debt (I'll help fix your roof, if you help fix mine next winter, etc) is the original currency. It differs from modern debt and fiat currency in that the debt isnincurred voluntarily, and is locally controlled, not anonymously centrally controlled, and involuntarily increased across generations.
I was going to put booze/liquor in the poll! Good suggestion.
'Favours' were another candidate, which seems to allude to what you're saying. I think the real difference is that favours are qualitative, with the value of a given favour being up for some debate - whereas debt has developed a distinctly quantitative nature.
On that note, I once met a police negotiator who kept a list of all of his favours in a little red book, to be used as leverage at some later date. The man was probably a psychopath but he definitely knew how to get what he wanted.
I like these lil tid bits, could always refer to it as the Monthly Musings.
I’d quite like to start recording or writing but I struggle with committing to an idea.
Always good to read more of your work.
Glad you like it! Thanks ^^
A few centuries ago, in Europe, a lot of technological developments took place because most countries were afraid of being 'swallowed up' by larger, naighbouring countries. There was a constant threat of an invasion, or a war. [England, as an island, was pretty save. Natural watery borders and all that.]
Not every country focused on developing weapons, there were also those who tried to strengthen their position through agriculture and trading, so they could count on other countries they were on friendly terms with to keep them save.
So that's what I'm basing my own post-apocalyptic plan on.
I am good at canning food. I know how to prepare everything, and the different temperatures and times the jars need to be kept in a waterbath to be able to keep them good tasting, and to store them for at least a year. Probably a lot longer. So if people will give me food to can, I will keep a few jars from every batch for myself.
Making fermented products like kimchi and miso [although the miso might prove difficult after a while since I need to buy the spores online] are also no problem, and I'm learning to make mead at this moment. And I am able to skin animals and prepare said skins. Selling or trading those products seems worthwhile to me.
So I am pretty sure I don't need to provide "other services" to keep myself fed and warm when push comes to shove.
I completely agree, these are fantastic skills to have. Over the last few years I was introduced to the wonderful world of home made pickles, sauerkraut, berries and other canned goods. It's such a useful skill. They definitely last more than a year - we recently opened one labeled 1916, though my wife did mention that her grandmother started writing the wrong century in her later years. Still, the cherries were absolutely fine after sitting in the basement for 6 years.
My vote was on the 'cigarettes as currency' article, but I'd like to unofficially vote on a guest post (or comment) by Maureen on making Miso - is it easy to get into?
Making miso is fairly straightforward. There is a high salt percentage and lactic acid bacteria which makes failing actually difficult. You do need a lot of patience though. There are several koji, or strains of aspergillus oryzae which are suitable for making miso paste.
Light rice koji - for shiro miso: sweet, light flavor (2 weeks - 2 months to age), and shinshu miso: a bit salty and tart (6 to 12 months).
Red rice koji - my personal go to variant. For sendai miso: rich, savory, salty and a sweet undertone (6-12 months to age), and edo miso: rich, slightly savory and a deep sweet undertone (4-6 weeks).
Barley koji - combine with regular barley for mugi miso: salty, deep rich taste and underlying sweetness (12-18 months to age), or mellow barley for amakuchi mugi miso: bit sweet, salty and a distinctive flavor of koji and soybeans (1-2 months).
Soybean koji - combine with soybeans for hatcho miso: the fancy one. Apparently the emperor's favourite. Savory, mellow sweetness, and a pungent flavor which the Japanese call 'shibui' (18-24 months to age).
*taste notes mostly taken from Shurtleff's and Aoyagi's "The book of miso". Otherwise everything would be a variant of 'many much umami' and 'I want to marry this. Our children will be delicious.'
Step 1 - Grow your koji - The 'I have loads of time' version
To make koji, steam white rice/pearled barley/soy after soaking it for about 12 hours for the rice, or 2 to 4 hours for the barley (boiling after soaking will make it too wet for the spores to grow). Spread it on a clean, dry cloth. Wait untill it has cooled a bit to 35 to 40 degrees celsius before you add the spores. You can use a fine mesh strainer to easily spread it. Use 6 grams of the mixture described below on 1 kilo of rice if the spores are so to say 'uncut', but often they come premixed. Premixed are ready to use, just follow the instructions on the package.
Concentrated spores are fine, so to be able to handle them better you can mix it with toasted wheat or riceflour. (Toasting kills other, harmful bacteria). To toast the flour, just put it in a pan on a low fire and keep stirring until it is golden brown. You'll need about 29 grams of flour to mix with 1 gram of spores.
Mix it well. Line a tray (preferably wood, or something with openings to get rid of excess water) with some cloth. For the first 24 hours you need to keep the temperature of the rice/barley/soy with spores between 28 and 36 degrees Celsius, an incubation box for chicken eggs is prefect for this, and spray it every now and then with some water to keep the humidity around 90%.
After the first 24 hours you can stir the mixture for the first time, for the best spread of the spores you can keep on mixing every 4 hours or so. The starter will be ready to use when the koji is producing yellow-greenish spots. Red rice koji for example will be ready in about 40 hours.
As soon as that happens, move the tray to the fridge to cool it. Spread it out as much as you can since koji can retain heat, and completely green koji will not produce a pleasant miso.
---OR---
Step 1 - Buy your koji - The 'I have better things to do' version
Use 'dry rice koji', a type of ready to use rice which already has the aspergillus oryzae in it. To rehydrate it you'll need to use about 200ml lukewarm water for every 500 grams. Mix it well, make sure the rice doesn't stick together.
Cover bowl with shrink wrap, let it sit for about 1 to 2 hours. Stir the mixture again after about 15 minutes.
If you can crush the koji rice between your fingers, it is ready to use.
Step 2 - Preparing the miso
Ratios:
500 grams of koji rice
500 grams of legumes
120 grams of salt
Optional - 15 ml unpasteurized store bought miso paste. This speeds up the fermentation process and maximizes the chances of success.
Regarding the legumes, soybeans are used for the classic miso, but you can also use another kind of legume. Go wild!
Recipe:
Rinse the legumes and let them soak overnight (8 to 12 hours) in plenty of water. Rinse and strain.
Boil the legumes for about 3 to 4 hours until you can easily crush them between your fingers. After that, strain them en let them cool.
Crush the legumes untill you get a paste, you can keep it 'chunky' if you prefer. Not everything needs to be mashed up. I usually use a plastic bag (very fancy) and crush them by hand. After that you can combine everything in a bowl, make sure you mix the ingredients well.
By that time you should also have a jar, or jars ready. You should either sterilize those by boiling them in a large pan for at least 15 minutes, or placing them in a oven for about 10 minutes on 160 degrees celsius.
Cover the sides of the jar with a bit of salt, and put the paste inside. I use the ball method: I roll a small amount of paste in a ball shape, squish this inside against the bottom and layer the paste like this untill the jar is halfway full. Make sure you leave no air bubbles, use a pestle if you need to.
After that, place a piece of shrinkwrap or parchment paper in the jar, cut to size so it covers the paste. Layer a bit of salt on top of it, make sure you completely cover the area between the edge of the shrinkwrap/parchment paper and the sides of the jar.
Place something on top of the paste to keep it pressed down, for every 500 grams of paste you'll need a weight of 500/750 grams (bag filled with salt, some glass weights, et cetera).
Keep the jar(s) away from sunlight, somewhere at room temperature. The miso will darken with time. If you discover mold, don't panic. This only grows on the outside of the paste, so you can scoop it out and wipe down the jar. After a few months, just follow the general fermenting guidelines, you can taste if it is to your liking. Remove the greyish oxidized parts if there are any.
Step 3 - Eating the miso
You have now miso paste. Congratulations, and enjoy! ･ᴗ･
Wow, thanks so much, Maureen! Very much appreciate the detailed instructions - I've saved them for future reference :) I'll have a look at acquiring ready-made koji here; seems like it makes the process pretty painless.
Apologies for taking over 2 weeks to reply btw, this month I transitioned to full-time childcare (generous pat. leave where I live) and I barely have time to catch my breath! It was so much easier when I could catch up on messages in the office.
Cigarettes are usually only used to trade and as a currency in prisons and other circumstances when obtaining food and water is not a priority, I think. And as a former smoker I regret to inform you that cigarettes do get dry, very sharp and disgusting after a while. Even when you keep them in the foil.
As someone who has been working on her own Substack and has way too many fiction ideas to realistically get them all posted let alone in a somewhat regular schedule... could I perhaps steal this concept? I guess technically it’s fair use and you couldn’t stop me anyway but I’d rather be polite about it!
I loved all of these thoughts, and I don’t know which I’d want to have in depth (though the war and technology and cigarettes and currency especially fascinated me!) I voted censorship and literature since that’s where my own pseudo-career is and one of my hills to die on. Lol
I’m hyped for the next New Orion by the way! Don’t wanna rush but it’s such a good series!!!
All the best to you!