I live on an island where you have to try really hard to actually be somewhere that is more than about 50 miles from the sea, but I think you’re actually exaggerating the importance of salt a bit; if you’re eating meat, you’ll be getting salt in your diet.
And of course the waterwheel-powered freezer (actually might be easier to try to hack the compressor itself and run this off the waterwheel) would only be one facet of my strategy, which would also include salting, drying, smoking, curing etc.
In any case, a watermill is a good source of multipurpose mechanical power, but we’re still getting ahead of ourselves; this thread was supposed to be about what kit to immediately assemble to face unknown post-apocalyptic peril.
The survivors might not be eating much meat after the initial supplies ran out. Not everyone knows how to hunt-- it’s not always as simple as just going out into the woods and shooting something. They may be able to inexpertly butcher off a steak or two from a deer, but they won’t know how to prepare the whole thing. Further, If they don’t know how to preserve it, they certainly won’t have a regular supply.
So, I think the diet of most post-apopolyptic survivors will be primarily vegetarian. Crops may germinate in the wild for a time (depending on the seeds farmers are currently using) and it stands to reason folks staying in one area would cultivate their own food.
Keeping livestock seems to be the obvious solution, but it’d be very hard for people to be able to gather enough to feed them through the winter. Chickens would be okay, because they can scrounge for bugs and eat table scraps, but cattle-keeping would probably be beyond the abilities of most.
Salting meats is the best possible way of preserving them in these conditions. Many people wouldn’t have the know-how to build a smoke house, but anyone can salt-preserve meat-- it’s not that hard.
Gonna disagree with you here, I think the reverse is actually true. Go to your local hardware big box store, there’s lots of smokers for sale, thus I would assume lots of people smoking stuff in their backyard. But I don’t see the counter part for salt curing. Never had someone offer me salt cured meat they made themselves.
Unless homemade jerky is a combo of the two processes, in which case I stand corrected.
And, concerning where to attach the pump (see above post) I’m think the situation would inspire me to be very creative. Hell, you could siphon a bunch of fuel out of this omnipresent traffic jam everyone inserts into post apoc settings.
-rainy
Smoking for flavor and smoking for preservation are two different things. For salt-preservation, all you need is a water-tight container, salt and meat. There’s a bit more to it, but basically all you do is pack the meat in the salt, and change it out a few times.
Smoking meat is a much more laborious process, and if you get it wrong, the meat will spoil.
Also, remember what I said about gas going bad-- you could siphon it for a while, but you’d be stranded after a while.
Admitedly I don’t know which one is more complex. I want to guess salt curing is since a lot of very primative cultures smoked/dried foods but I always associate salt curing with later points in history. But like I said, I don’t know.
Anyway, I’m only siphoning until I figure out where to attach the hand-crank pump, and I also specified a diesel 4WD since diesel isn’t as vulnerable to ‘spoilage’ as gasoline.
But hey, at least if we both end up in the 0.1% of survivors we won’t be in direct competition on our first shopping trip!
-rainy
Tell you what, I’ll let you into my band of survivors, since you seem to be a pretty smart fellow.
I imagine my group will be pretty stylin’. We’ll be the only folks around with butter, anyway. 
Deal. Two Dopers in the same band of survivors…:)…what ever is left, we’ll soon be in charge of.
-rainy