Getting To Know Your Pantry

This issue, I’d like to talk about an element of personal resilience that, happily, we can all put in place. You will probably recall a few times in the last two winters when the roads were covered by a sheet of ice. If you didn’t have a fire-breathing, snow-eating four wheeler, you may have been a bit wary about venturing out into what could end up being an all day harrowing experience or worse. Your vehicle could end up joining the lost souls in the roadside snowdrifts at the bottom of one of our hills. We would have stayed home if there were nothing we needed to get. It may have been batteries or candles if the power was out, but, most likely, it had to do with food and water.

Most of us have at least a cupboard or maybe a closet that we call the pantry. At times like this, we peruse our pantry treasures for a likely dinner menu. There may be a pile of small cans of smoked shellfish and sardines, Aunt Martha’s rhubarb chutney ripening these many years, other items in black holes that you gaze upon as if for the first time, squinting to read the labels. And then on the floor in the corner, we find an old bag of rotted and dried potatoes behind a large tin of caramel corn. In sizing up the possibilities, we first narrow our choices down to what we can be fairly certain won’t kill or severely sicken the whole family. In considering this, we know that the things with the least nutritional value are most likely to stand the test of time: that tin of caramel corn is a no-brainer.

Happily, those situations don’t usually last very long and we can usually come away with nothing worse than a good story or two. Our grocery stores have about a 3-day supply of food on hand. You may have personally experienced one of those "prepare for the storm" runs on the store. There is usually still a lot in the store; the only things that are missing are the things you are looking for. You get the feeling, though, of what it would be like if everybody was in there seriously trying to stock up for what might be a long term emergency. One answer to that problem would be to have a huge warehouse of emergence supplies. The best answer is easier and much better than that. A well-stocked pantry in every home will far exceed the capacity of a huge warehouse, will have food available at the point of use, and will include only the foods that each household likes to eat.

A three-day supply of food and water is a bare minimum and fairly easily acquired and stored. There is an art to putting together and managing a 3-month supply of food and water. How much do we need? What should we stock up on? What storage requirements do different foods have? How do we use and restock so that nothing exceeds its shelf life?

Luckily for us, the Vashon Food Security Group is hosting a series of three workshops to instruct us on the basics of home emergency food storage,

The first session, Emergency Preparedness, will be this Saturday, Jan. 21, 10-noon, presented by Cathy Fulton. You will learn how to make a 72-hour food kit to feed your family in all types of emergencies.

The next session, Three Month Food Supply Basics, will be two weeks later, Feb. 4, 10-noon, presented by Gene Kuhns, former emergency preparedness specialist for the Mormon Church (The Mormons have long advocated and practiced long term food security). At this session, you will learn: how to determine how much of the foods your family eats need to be on hand, how much water do you need and how to store it, how to rotate through and replace your stock. You should come away with the ability to start planning and stocking your own long term custom supply of food for your household with the ability to help your neighbor as well.

The third session, Keep The Process Going, will be two weeks later, Feb. 18, 10-noon, presented by my wife, Elizabeth Sullivan. Here, you will learn how to start laying away extra food on a tight budget, habits for keeping your pantry needs in mind when you shop, stocking up during sales, and learning to eat out of your pantry, perhaps, some about keeping and using fresh foods. Together you’ll plug into a spreadsheet a few of one family’s favorite recipes to come up with a tentative storage plan. There will be a presentation by Minglement on bulk purchases.

There will be a $20 fee per household for all three sessions; further details and locations for the sessions will be given as you register. Please register in advance: cathy@MariposaGardens.org or 463 5652

There will be a bonus session that will be free for everyone on Ready-made Long -term Food Stores, on Feb 11, 10-noon at the Land Trust Building. Shelf Reliance Foods will be presenting their line of freeze dried foods with a shelf life of up to 25-30 years. You will have an opportunity to taste their products and to purchase them.

Maybe the next time you get snowed in, you can leave your slippers on and know that you are going to eat well.

Comments? terry@vashonloop.com