Instapundit links to Popular Mechanics testing survival rations.
I've eaten my share of MREs, LRRP meals, C-Rations and K-Rations. I've even sampled the 10 man field ration. They'll keep you alive and keep your gut working, but they're expensive and sometimes they're hard to find.
On the other hand, with a big dutch oven and a fire you can feed yourself and your family for little or nothing. A big bag of beans, some ham or bacon, or vienna sausage and you've got a heck of a meal. Catch a chicken and make a gumbo, or a pigeon. There are lots of pigeons in the urban landscape and they make a fine gumbo.
Recipes? Use your imagination. But, some basics are in order. While the electricity is still running, go over to the cooking section of The Frugal Outdoorsman and look at the menu board. We've got everything over there from beer bread to salsa to pot roast. All the menus are game oriented and are designed to be cooked outdoors.
Once you've mastered the basics of gumbo and bread you can get creative, make your own recipes. You can also take a couple of MREs and make them into something special. Some pepper sauce, some garlic, maybe a little cajun spice and you've got a great meal.
Remember, there have probably been more meals cooked over an open fire than inside a kitchen in the history of man. This isn't anything new. What works in the campsite will work in the backyard. But you've got to practice.
3 comments:
Pre packed "Survival" rations are horrifically expensive. Modern supermarket variety quick to fix foods are cheaper by far, taste orders of magnitude better and with today's aluminized mylar packaging are good for several years. Take a long, slow stroll through your local Piggly Wiggly, Albertson's or WalMart to see what I mean. Tinned meats and fish abound, potatoes in mylar envelopes require only hot water and are tasty enough for regular dinners, dozens of pasta side dishes can be prepared with only water, margarine and milk doll 'em up pretty nice. Dried fruit is an old standby and is available in rainbows of flavors. Breakfast bars and toaster pastries in mylar packing are good for years as well and taste pretty dang good.
A few years back several Scouts and I designed a menu for a Scout Troop's 50 mile hike. What we learned from a previous hike was that commercial freeze dry hiking foods are designed for sedentary 50 something females. Teenage boys who are putting 10-15 miles behind them in the Cascade Mountains need something like four to five times the calory intake provided by Mtn House and the like. Not to pick on Mtn. House, they're all bad.
Some of the Scouts and I researched the available dry and concentrated foods available off the supermarket shelf, then made up menus for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and snacks. We were able to feed a kid over four times the caloric intake per day at less than 1/5 the cost of commercial freeze dried meals and at less gross weight. Not only that, but hte kids actually liked our food choices. The kids especially liked using Ramen Noodle packets to fill available spots in their packs. Foods available now would make it even easier and less costly.
One of the criteria was that any dish had to be cookable in less than seven minutes in order to conserve stove fuel. The Boys cooked over open fires whenever possible, again to conserve fuel. And because its way more fun.
So it's not necessary to stick to the MRE type foods for one's shtf food box.
Gerry N.
I bought a high-$ case of mixed MRE entrees a while back, and they tasted awful. My dog turned up her nose at them. No way would I buy an MRE now without a taste test.
The problem is the large number of companies making MREs and making them with quantity and lowest possible cost as the highest priorities. There's a gold mine out there waiting for a miner with quality and best possible taste as the highest priorities.
PawPaw, you hit a nerve here.
MANY years ago I'd eat a can, maybe even two, of Vienna Sausages sitting/waiting in a pirogue or in a blind, but there is no way in the world I'll have a bunch of them for emergency rations. That would be far over my limit. :-)
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