Preserving Steaks and Bacon

For several years now, we've managed to have meat dinners ...both steaks and bacon.

For the steaks, buy either rib eye or a good rib steak (and cut off the bone so there's nothing extra to carry, and you don't have to dispose of the bone); take a J-cloth and soak it in white vinegar; squeeze it until most of the liquid is gone but it's still wet -- and wrap each individual steak in it. (When held up, the wrapped steak should almost 'drip' vinegar, but not quite). 

Put several of these wrapped steaks in a Ziploc bag, and seal it. Keep it deep in a pack and we've found this will keep the steaks for several days; we pack them Thursday at home and have them Sunday night for dinner. 

I wouldn't leave your pack sitting in the direct sun to heat up, but we've never had a problem. The steaks have a distinct odour to them when taken out of the bag, but it never seems to hang around after being barbecued. 

I treat bacon the same -- buy a large 2-lb chunk from the butcher, wrap it the same way, and we've gone from Thursday night to Wednesday morning without any problem.
Wash the j-cloths well, and you've got them available for the rest of the trip.

Enjoy.

John Barker