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This is continuation of my previous prepping post - what you can do now - and addresses the storage of items other Tins, Jars, dry goods etc
Food storage tips
Firstly I have used metric units but if you need to convert Microsoft have a very handy utility ?Microsoft calculator plus? that will convert anything to anything (free download @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en ).
Poultry and eggs
As the avian version of H5N1 reaches your area poultry & eggs may first drop in price as consumers shy away and then may be withdrawn from sale if the government or retailers think there is a danger of them causing human infection. This is likely to happen independently of the virus becoming an h2h pandemic. Take advantage of the price drop and freeze poultry meat. Also make stock, concentrate it and freeze that.
Eggs can be stored for a long time (over a year) if immersed in Liquid Sodium Silicate solution (available mail order from www.molekula.com Sodium Silicate solution aka water glass [1344-09-8]), make up a mixture of 1 part to 9 parts water, use the freshest eggs you can get (not fertilised) and clean them (do not wash in water, if you must wash them use a little of the preserving mix) then place them in an earthenware or glass container and cover with the mixture to 5cm over the top eggs. The eggs must not show any sign of damage or they will not keep and will shorten the storage of others in the batch. Cover and store in a cool dark place where they will not be moved (the colder the better but no frost), check from time to time and top up with water if needed. When you use the eggs remove only those needed wash them in water and break them individually into a cup. If you are going to boil them make a pin hole in the shell (the process seals the shell and prevents gas release as they heat up) otherwise they can be used as fresh eggs but as they age the whites may not whisk up as well and the yolk sacks may be more fragile (a slight pinkish discolouration is OK).
Curing
Pork joints can be immersed in brine or packed in salt to cure them, the saltier they are the longer they will keep (salt hardens the meat and a little sugar helps negate this). If you over do the salt a bit, to extend storage, don?t worry; soak for a day or longer in water before use to leach salt back out (change the water 2 or 3 times).
If you haven?t done this before don?t worry, keep everything scrupulously clean and as cold as is practical. Write down exactly what you do weights, times etc. so you can look back and improve (remember to add tasting notes to this once you have tried the fruits of your labour). When drying/storing you need some kind of air flow and avoid damp places. Flies will try and lay eggs on damp meat so devise some kind of meat safe. I use something that looks like a fisherman?s keep net, hoops and lace curtain material with a hook for hanging at the top, it lets the wind blow through but keeps the flies out.
A simple test cure for the beginner
Buy two squares of belly pork (normally about 25x25x7cm each) mix some salt and sugar together in a ratio of about 15:1 and massage well all over the meat. Sprinkle a hand full of the mix into the bottom of a large Tupperware box place in the first piece, another handful of mix, the next piece, another hand full of mix, cover and put in the fridge. After 24 to 36hrs or so the salt should have leached out some liquid, discard this repeat the massaging & salting every day or two. Remove one piece after 4 days and the other after a week. You now have two pieces of streaky bacon I would leave them hanging on meat hooks somewhere cool in a slight draught and protected from flies for a day or two (to allow the salt to distribute evenly) before trying them. Slice some rashers from each piece and fry them so you get a feel for how salty they are (do not judge by the outer rashers). Resist the temptation to eat all of them leave a chunk of each on the meat hooks to see just how long they will keep ? this way you will be able to get a feel for the saltiness vs. keeping trade off and be able to adjust your curing times accordingly.
Brining
I normally use a weak sweet brine rather than dry cure for belly (streaky), loin (back) & leg joints (gammons/hams) as long as I can get them in the fridge or I can keep them cool. Make up a batch of sweet brine using 60g salt & 10g sugar per litre of water and stir well until it has all dissolved. Make a note of the weights of your joints (try and select solid leg or shoulder lumps as near to spherical as possible, they will cure more evenly and keep longer ? if you are new to curing I would stick to boned-out joints). Time in the brine is of the order of 4days/Kg for smaller cuts & 6days/Kg for the biggest hams but, as always, it is trial and error and personal preference. The brine should be stirred to mix every day or two and to ensure all sides of the joints get exposed to the liquid. Replace the brine every 14days. These are basic mixes and you can add pickling spices etc. of your choice. Once cured joints should be rinsed and **** up to dry as above.
For the more adventurous
This is the ultimate preppers cure as it will be 6 months before it is even ready to eat. Dry cured air dried ham (prosciutto). Take a whole leg (preferably long cut with bone in) and get a long thin bladed knife and poke it down along side the bone on all sides. Get someone to help you stand the leg on its end with the bone poking up, pour salt into the knife holes and ram it done as far as you can (I have a big butchers steel I use for this), keep repeating until you are happy that you have about a cup full of salt packed all the way around the bone. This is done because the leg is so thick there is a danger that it will go bad from the bone out before the salt we are going to pack it in has a chance to penetrate through from the outside. Once this rather brutal procedure is complete crush up some pepper corns and coriander seeds (or what you will) in a pestle and mortar mix with a little salt and massage the leg working it into any cracks. Get a box ( I use a large wooden box that had Port in it but I dare say a plastic box would be fine as long as it has some drainage holes) pour 3cm of salt into the bottom and place the box in a plastic box or something to act as a drip tray. Place the ham on its side on the salt bed and pour more salt over the ham burying it. The ham should have a minimum of 2cm of salt all around it. Place a clean board, which should be slightly smaller than the box, on top of the salt and then a heavy weight (up to twice the weight of the ham) on top of the board to squash the juices out of it. Leave in a cool dry, rodent free, place for 3 days/Kg (upto 4 days/Kg if you want to keep it longer ? but no more). The ham is now removed cleaned with a damp cloth and rubbed all over with spirits or white wine vinegar (I use brandy). I then put two meat hooks through the meat and skin near the bone at the knuckle end and tightly bind the whole joint in muslin. Now for the tricky part, the ham now needs to be **** in a good air flow which is cool and dry and not liable to attack by birds, rodents etc. for up to six month, depending on drying conditions. The ham is ready to eat when it is firm but not hard ? if you leave it too long it becomes dry & very difficult to hand slice. Unwrap your ham and clean it with a cloth soaked in vinegar or alcohol if it has a lot of mould then use a scrubbing brush. As with salami & cheese most moulds are normal, if the ham has gone bad you will know it by the smelly black patches, this is almost always due to not finding somewhere with enough air flow whilst drying. Do not cook this ham! Slice as thinly as you can along the grain and eat with something to counter the saltiness, figs and melon are traditional. I like it with olive oil, black pepper, pasta & parmesan.
Sausages
For this you will need a mixer with sausage making attachments and casings. (you could get a butcher to mince for you and hand stuff the larger casings).
Casings can be bought mail order (Natural casing Co. +44 (0)1252 850454) and come in various sizes; in ascending diameter Lamb (chipolatas), Hog (bangers), Ox middle (salami, chorizo), Ox runner (fat salami, chorizo & boudin blanc), Ox bung (haggis). The first two are normally used for fresh sausages and the Ox casings for dried cures. Casings usually come in a small plastic bag packed in salt and keep for months in the fridge. To use remove what you need rinse by washing in a bowl of water and passing water from the tap through them like a hose, if you do not use them all repack in the salt. It is important to understand the difference between fresh sausages & dry cured. Fresh sausages, boudin blanc and haggis all need cooking and will not keep without refrigeration (or other preserving techniques which we will cover in a minute). The dry cures salamis, chorizo etc. - like the Parma style ham above - have a higher salt content and are air dried and can be eaten ?raw? (or cooked).
The procedure is simple, make up your mix & stuff it into the casings.
For a basic fresh mix:-
1.5Kg minced shoulder (lean & some fat) plus 500g minced fat (don?t skimp on the fat it makes them dry and horrible ? better to just eat less), 2 teaspoons of salt & 3 of milled pepper (Optionally you can add 100gm fresh bread crumbs, a grated apple, some finely chopped onion, some of your fatty smoked bacon etc. etc. just don?t over load the mix ? garlic should be used very sparingly as it always comes over much stronger than you expect). To store without fridge/freezer either ?home can? for which you will need a pressure cooker and canning jars, lids & seals (I have never done this but just follow the equipment manufactures instructions) or pack in lard. For the lard method melt the lard, fry the sausage so they are part cooked, pack them in large jars or a crock and pour over the lard and allow to set, for some reason small children seem to love digging them out I cant imagine why. (I have done this for camping for 2 weeks but am assured they will keep far longer). This could be a useful method if you had a freezer full and the power failed ? as long as you remembered to freeze plenty of lard too.
For a basic dry cure mix
The key point is to have 2% salt by weight to affect a cure, most of the rest is personal preference.
1.6Kg of coarse ground shoulder, 400g of the firm fat found just under skin (not minced), 40g salt, 4 Tsp crushed black pepper, 2 large cloves of crushed garlic, 300ml strong red wine.
The fat should be diced in to small cubes (get the fat as cold as you can or it is very difficult/slippery to cut, also if you are going to use a machine to stuff the casings make sure the dice is small enough to pass through the stuffing plates or it will clog), mix well and refrigerate over night (if you don?t give the meat time to absorb the wine you will end up with a flood of liquid when you try to stuff the casings). This makes a basic Salami to make it more Chorizo style double the garlic, and a tablespoon each of paprika & green coriander seeds. The finished sausages should be wiped clean to remove any mix on the outside of the casings (I hang them up and give them a quick spray with a shower attachment then wipe over with a cloth soaked in vinegar). To dry hang them in a draught from meat hooks in a meat safe, do not let them touch each other, the air must circulate all around them. Curing varies from weeks to months depending the draught, humidity, temp & thickness. They are ready when they feel firm but not hard, do not worry about moulds it is quite normal (in fact you can add two Tsp. of Acidophillus to the mix to encourage this, commercial Salami normally has a white powdery coating) if they do begin to go bad you will know by the smell and they will become slimy, again this is almost always due to insufficient draught. I normally use a mix of Ox runners & middles so they do not all ?ripen? at the same time. I have kept them for over a year by which time they are rock hard and no longer nice to eat (consistency of jerky) but are great if you dice them finely and add them to a risotto or casserole where they can rehydrate and add background flavour.
Smoking
Wood smoke is an excellent preservative and adds flavour. Hams, bacon and dry cured sausages can all be smoked. It is fairly simple, by far the hardest part is finding a supply of wood shavings or saw dust. Most saw mills/joinery shops saw different woods and mix their dust. The shavings or saw dust must be of hard wood (in the UK this means Oak, beach or apple) which is unpolluted buy any softwood (pine gives a creosote flavour), chemicals (if they saw treated timber) and things like laminate, MDF, chipboard etc. Next you have to experiment with making smoke without heat, this type of smoking is not designed to cook the meat so should be at room temperatures. Try drying or dampening the dust until it smoulders with out catching fire or going out, then it can be started with a fire lighter and topped up with more dust from time to time. I have never worried too much about it going out for a while, as the residual smokiness seems to keep the smokehouse sterile ? no need to get up in the middle of the night, just start again the next day. As smoking is an optional extra you can smoke the bacon/ham as little or as much as you like, the more smoke the longer it will keep without over salting. If you can achieve this all you need is some way of containing the smoke around your meat. For small volumes try a metal rubbish bin type garden incinerator, I have a rather more sophisticated old brick out house that can also be used for hot smoking and as a wood fired oven for bread etc.
Cheese
Prepare by speaking to your local suppliers now. I am fortunate living in NW England our local Lancashire cheese can be bought in cloth bound rounds of about 8 to 20Kg either mature or unripe. An unopened unripe Lancashire cheese will keep for 2 years unrefrigerated and improve over time.
Jam
I am not going to bother with jam/chutney/pickles etc. here as they are well covered else where apart from lemons (unwaxed) which can be preserved by being packed in a jar, covered in salt and then moistened with a little lemon juice, they will exude more juice and end up in a saline syrup.
Fruit & Veg.
For all items in this category the cooler you can keep them the better. (No freezing - this cause cellular rupture and then rot).
Apples must be in perfect condition, individually wrapped in paper and stacked in a cardboard box (not too deep to avoid bruising the bottom layer) keep the box in a cool pantry. The apples will need to be unwrapped from time to time and checked, use or discard any showing even the slightest sign of damage.
Onions and garlic
They need to be somewhere cool, dark, not damp and with some air circulation. Hanging in netting bags with not more than 10 to a bag is good, keeps them away from pests and allows air circulation. N.B. their odours tend to taint other foods so watch what you store them with.
Citrus fruit
As onions but I don?t think the light matters.
Potatoes
Cool, dark, not damp. If you bought them in paper sacks this is probably the best way to leave them. Potatoes bruise more easily than people realise so handle with care.
Carrots
Buy them unwashed and store like the potatoes or in a damp sand box in layers not touching each other with sand all around, use time method for the ones you hope to keep the longest (you could try this method for parsnips & Swedes which tend to shrivel up due to moisture loss rather than rot). Do not waste your time on those nasty washed carrots in plastic bags the supermarkets sell, the washing process gets water into the crack where the leaf enters the carrot and the rotting process has usually started before you buy them, we just don?t notice as they tend to get used before it becomes a problem.
Food storage tips
Firstly I have used metric units but if you need to convert Microsoft have a very handy utility ?Microsoft calculator plus? that will convert anything to anything (free download @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en ).
Poultry and eggs
As the avian version of H5N1 reaches your area poultry & eggs may first drop in price as consumers shy away and then may be withdrawn from sale if the government or retailers think there is a danger of them causing human infection. This is likely to happen independently of the virus becoming an h2h pandemic. Take advantage of the price drop and freeze poultry meat. Also make stock, concentrate it and freeze that.
Eggs can be stored for a long time (over a year) if immersed in Liquid Sodium Silicate solution (available mail order from www.molekula.com Sodium Silicate solution aka water glass [1344-09-8]), make up a mixture of 1 part to 9 parts water, use the freshest eggs you can get (not fertilised) and clean them (do not wash in water, if you must wash them use a little of the preserving mix) then place them in an earthenware or glass container and cover with the mixture to 5cm over the top eggs. The eggs must not show any sign of damage or they will not keep and will shorten the storage of others in the batch. Cover and store in a cool dark place where they will not be moved (the colder the better but no frost), check from time to time and top up with water if needed. When you use the eggs remove only those needed wash them in water and break them individually into a cup. If you are going to boil them make a pin hole in the shell (the process seals the shell and prevents gas release as they heat up) otherwise they can be used as fresh eggs but as they age the whites may not whisk up as well and the yolk sacks may be more fragile (a slight pinkish discolouration is OK).
Curing
Pork joints can be immersed in brine or packed in salt to cure them, the saltier they are the longer they will keep (salt hardens the meat and a little sugar helps negate this). If you over do the salt a bit, to extend storage, don?t worry; soak for a day or longer in water before use to leach salt back out (change the water 2 or 3 times).
If you haven?t done this before don?t worry, keep everything scrupulously clean and as cold as is practical. Write down exactly what you do weights, times etc. so you can look back and improve (remember to add tasting notes to this once you have tried the fruits of your labour). When drying/storing you need some kind of air flow and avoid damp places. Flies will try and lay eggs on damp meat so devise some kind of meat safe. I use something that looks like a fisherman?s keep net, hoops and lace curtain material with a hook for hanging at the top, it lets the wind blow through but keeps the flies out.
A simple test cure for the beginner
Buy two squares of belly pork (normally about 25x25x7cm each) mix some salt and sugar together in a ratio of about 15:1 and massage well all over the meat. Sprinkle a hand full of the mix into the bottom of a large Tupperware box place in the first piece, another handful of mix, the next piece, another hand full of mix, cover and put in the fridge. After 24 to 36hrs or so the salt should have leached out some liquid, discard this repeat the massaging & salting every day or two. Remove one piece after 4 days and the other after a week. You now have two pieces of streaky bacon I would leave them hanging on meat hooks somewhere cool in a slight draught and protected from flies for a day or two (to allow the salt to distribute evenly) before trying them. Slice some rashers from each piece and fry them so you get a feel for how salty they are (do not judge by the outer rashers). Resist the temptation to eat all of them leave a chunk of each on the meat hooks to see just how long they will keep ? this way you will be able to get a feel for the saltiness vs. keeping trade off and be able to adjust your curing times accordingly.
Brining
I normally use a weak sweet brine rather than dry cure for belly (streaky), loin (back) & leg joints (gammons/hams) as long as I can get them in the fridge or I can keep them cool. Make up a batch of sweet brine using 60g salt & 10g sugar per litre of water and stir well until it has all dissolved. Make a note of the weights of your joints (try and select solid leg or shoulder lumps as near to spherical as possible, they will cure more evenly and keep longer ? if you are new to curing I would stick to boned-out joints). Time in the brine is of the order of 4days/Kg for smaller cuts & 6days/Kg for the biggest hams but, as always, it is trial and error and personal preference. The brine should be stirred to mix every day or two and to ensure all sides of the joints get exposed to the liquid. Replace the brine every 14days. These are basic mixes and you can add pickling spices etc. of your choice. Once cured joints should be rinsed and **** up to dry as above.
For the more adventurous
This is the ultimate preppers cure as it will be 6 months before it is even ready to eat. Dry cured air dried ham (prosciutto). Take a whole leg (preferably long cut with bone in) and get a long thin bladed knife and poke it down along side the bone on all sides. Get someone to help you stand the leg on its end with the bone poking up, pour salt into the knife holes and ram it done as far as you can (I have a big butchers steel I use for this), keep repeating until you are happy that you have about a cup full of salt packed all the way around the bone. This is done because the leg is so thick there is a danger that it will go bad from the bone out before the salt we are going to pack it in has a chance to penetrate through from the outside. Once this rather brutal procedure is complete crush up some pepper corns and coriander seeds (or what you will) in a pestle and mortar mix with a little salt and massage the leg working it into any cracks. Get a box ( I use a large wooden box that had Port in it but I dare say a plastic box would be fine as long as it has some drainage holes) pour 3cm of salt into the bottom and place the box in a plastic box or something to act as a drip tray. Place the ham on its side on the salt bed and pour more salt over the ham burying it. The ham should have a minimum of 2cm of salt all around it. Place a clean board, which should be slightly smaller than the box, on top of the salt and then a heavy weight (up to twice the weight of the ham) on top of the board to squash the juices out of it. Leave in a cool dry, rodent free, place for 3 days/Kg (upto 4 days/Kg if you want to keep it longer ? but no more). The ham is now removed cleaned with a damp cloth and rubbed all over with spirits or white wine vinegar (I use brandy). I then put two meat hooks through the meat and skin near the bone at the knuckle end and tightly bind the whole joint in muslin. Now for the tricky part, the ham now needs to be **** in a good air flow which is cool and dry and not liable to attack by birds, rodents etc. for up to six month, depending on drying conditions. The ham is ready to eat when it is firm but not hard ? if you leave it too long it becomes dry & very difficult to hand slice. Unwrap your ham and clean it with a cloth soaked in vinegar or alcohol if it has a lot of mould then use a scrubbing brush. As with salami & cheese most moulds are normal, if the ham has gone bad you will know it by the smelly black patches, this is almost always due to not finding somewhere with enough air flow whilst drying. Do not cook this ham! Slice as thinly as you can along the grain and eat with something to counter the saltiness, figs and melon are traditional. I like it with olive oil, black pepper, pasta & parmesan.
Sausages
For this you will need a mixer with sausage making attachments and casings. (you could get a butcher to mince for you and hand stuff the larger casings).
Casings can be bought mail order (Natural casing Co. +44 (0)1252 850454) and come in various sizes; in ascending diameter Lamb (chipolatas), Hog (bangers), Ox middle (salami, chorizo), Ox runner (fat salami, chorizo & boudin blanc), Ox bung (haggis). The first two are normally used for fresh sausages and the Ox casings for dried cures. Casings usually come in a small plastic bag packed in salt and keep for months in the fridge. To use remove what you need rinse by washing in a bowl of water and passing water from the tap through them like a hose, if you do not use them all repack in the salt. It is important to understand the difference between fresh sausages & dry cured. Fresh sausages, boudin blanc and haggis all need cooking and will not keep without refrigeration (or other preserving techniques which we will cover in a minute). The dry cures salamis, chorizo etc. - like the Parma style ham above - have a higher salt content and are air dried and can be eaten ?raw? (or cooked).
The procedure is simple, make up your mix & stuff it into the casings.
For a basic fresh mix:-
1.5Kg minced shoulder (lean & some fat) plus 500g minced fat (don?t skimp on the fat it makes them dry and horrible ? better to just eat less), 2 teaspoons of salt & 3 of milled pepper (Optionally you can add 100gm fresh bread crumbs, a grated apple, some finely chopped onion, some of your fatty smoked bacon etc. etc. just don?t over load the mix ? garlic should be used very sparingly as it always comes over much stronger than you expect). To store without fridge/freezer either ?home can? for which you will need a pressure cooker and canning jars, lids & seals (I have never done this but just follow the equipment manufactures instructions) or pack in lard. For the lard method melt the lard, fry the sausage so they are part cooked, pack them in large jars or a crock and pour over the lard and allow to set, for some reason small children seem to love digging them out I cant imagine why. (I have done this for camping for 2 weeks but am assured they will keep far longer). This could be a useful method if you had a freezer full and the power failed ? as long as you remembered to freeze plenty of lard too.
For a basic dry cure mix
The key point is to have 2% salt by weight to affect a cure, most of the rest is personal preference.
1.6Kg of coarse ground shoulder, 400g of the firm fat found just under skin (not minced), 40g salt, 4 Tsp crushed black pepper, 2 large cloves of crushed garlic, 300ml strong red wine.
The fat should be diced in to small cubes (get the fat as cold as you can or it is very difficult/slippery to cut, also if you are going to use a machine to stuff the casings make sure the dice is small enough to pass through the stuffing plates or it will clog), mix well and refrigerate over night (if you don?t give the meat time to absorb the wine you will end up with a flood of liquid when you try to stuff the casings). This makes a basic Salami to make it more Chorizo style double the garlic, and a tablespoon each of paprika & green coriander seeds. The finished sausages should be wiped clean to remove any mix on the outside of the casings (I hang them up and give them a quick spray with a shower attachment then wipe over with a cloth soaked in vinegar). To dry hang them in a draught from meat hooks in a meat safe, do not let them touch each other, the air must circulate all around them. Curing varies from weeks to months depending the draught, humidity, temp & thickness. They are ready when they feel firm but not hard, do not worry about moulds it is quite normal (in fact you can add two Tsp. of Acidophillus to the mix to encourage this, commercial Salami normally has a white powdery coating) if they do begin to go bad you will know by the smell and they will become slimy, again this is almost always due to insufficient draught. I normally use a mix of Ox runners & middles so they do not all ?ripen? at the same time. I have kept them for over a year by which time they are rock hard and no longer nice to eat (consistency of jerky) but are great if you dice them finely and add them to a risotto or casserole where they can rehydrate and add background flavour.
Smoking
Wood smoke is an excellent preservative and adds flavour. Hams, bacon and dry cured sausages can all be smoked. It is fairly simple, by far the hardest part is finding a supply of wood shavings or saw dust. Most saw mills/joinery shops saw different woods and mix their dust. The shavings or saw dust must be of hard wood (in the UK this means Oak, beach or apple) which is unpolluted buy any softwood (pine gives a creosote flavour), chemicals (if they saw treated timber) and things like laminate, MDF, chipboard etc. Next you have to experiment with making smoke without heat, this type of smoking is not designed to cook the meat so should be at room temperatures. Try drying or dampening the dust until it smoulders with out catching fire or going out, then it can be started with a fire lighter and topped up with more dust from time to time. I have never worried too much about it going out for a while, as the residual smokiness seems to keep the smokehouse sterile ? no need to get up in the middle of the night, just start again the next day. As smoking is an optional extra you can smoke the bacon/ham as little or as much as you like, the more smoke the longer it will keep without over salting. If you can achieve this all you need is some way of containing the smoke around your meat. For small volumes try a metal rubbish bin type garden incinerator, I have a rather more sophisticated old brick out house that can also be used for hot smoking and as a wood fired oven for bread etc.
Cheese
Prepare by speaking to your local suppliers now. I am fortunate living in NW England our local Lancashire cheese can be bought in cloth bound rounds of about 8 to 20Kg either mature or unripe. An unopened unripe Lancashire cheese will keep for 2 years unrefrigerated and improve over time.
Jam
I am not going to bother with jam/chutney/pickles etc. here as they are well covered else where apart from lemons (unwaxed) which can be preserved by being packed in a jar, covered in salt and then moistened with a little lemon juice, they will exude more juice and end up in a saline syrup.
Fruit & Veg.
For all items in this category the cooler you can keep them the better. (No freezing - this cause cellular rupture and then rot).
Apples must be in perfect condition, individually wrapped in paper and stacked in a cardboard box (not too deep to avoid bruising the bottom layer) keep the box in a cool pantry. The apples will need to be unwrapped from time to time and checked, use or discard any showing even the slightest sign of damage.
Onions and garlic
They need to be somewhere cool, dark, not damp and with some air circulation. Hanging in netting bags with not more than 10 to a bag is good, keeps them away from pests and allows air circulation. N.B. their odours tend to taint other foods so watch what you store them with.
Citrus fruit
As onions but I don?t think the light matters.
Potatoes
Cool, dark, not damp. If you bought them in paper sacks this is probably the best way to leave them. Potatoes bruise more easily than people realise so handle with care.
Carrots
Buy them unwashed and store like the potatoes or in a damp sand box in layers not touching each other with sand all around, use time method for the ones you hope to keep the longest (you could try this method for parsnips & Swedes which tend to shrivel up due to moisture loss rather than rot). Do not waste your time on those nasty washed carrots in plastic bags the supermarkets sell, the washing process gets water into the crack where the leaf enters the carrot and the rotting process has usually started before you buy them, we just don?t notice as they tend to get used before it becomes a problem.