>> What are historical foodstuffs that could be preserved for more
>> than a couple of days?
> Family and friends canned and dried foods in season to use the rest
> of the year. Dried, salted beef and other meats.

Eggs - untreated, a few weeks; preserved with a sealant like isinglass,
a few months.


>> What *can* be kept without refrigeration?
> Oil-packed confits (chicken, duck, goose, red meats), pickled anything
> (pig's feet, etc.), dried anything (apples, peaches, tomatoes, green
> beans, fish, etc.). Grains like wheat berries and cracked corn for
> polenta. Dried salamis and sausages. Some cheeses. Tomato paste (juice
> and pulp cooked way down) packed into 1/2 pint jars and canned. Dry
> cookies (biscotti, etc.).

For an expanded list in that spirit from around here in about 1812,
look at the rhyming catalogue "My Shop Bill" by the poet-shopkeeper
Peter Forbes of Dalkeith, on my "Music of Dalkeith" pages. (Forbes
saw himself as a spinoff of Burns, and was probably the inventor of
Burns Night).

It's hard to read to the end without drooling and you certainly can't
buy most of that at Tesco or Lidl in Dalkeith now. Refrigeration might
have reduced the diversity of products on sale as much as it widened it;
labour-intensive preservation techniques became economically unviable.

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