Very cool, the Canadian Red Cross had two chefs show shoppers how to prepare good meals using disaster prep food and items.
Attention Walmart shoppers: Disaster cooking demo in Aisle 3.

-Blast

That is a great idea, disaster cooking. I would like to find a book or those types of recipes. Maybe ETS could compile one from all of us, and there could be a group who tries them out to ensure they meet the proper standards for an emergency situation. They could sell them on the web sight. I think the entire Gulf Coast would be a good market for them.

Pity. The demo could have been put to better use and wider viewing than that. Good idea, poorly executed.

Sue

Does this actually mean no microwave oven. I'm a little confused here, doesn't disaster cooking just mean its time for a barbecue. Are there really folks out there who have no idea about cooking without using a microwave oven (which is really just reheating)? I can't really believe that preparing food outside an electricity powered kitchen environment is too difficult, or is it really a survival skill for disaster victims (Sorry FEMA I mean survivors) or are there folks out there who really don't know how long it takes to boil and egg and are clueless as to how a box of matches work.

Saying that though, it is quite hard to find folks who know today how to prepare a rabbit of fillet a Cod.

To get the ball rolling on survival recipes, here is a recipe for Cullen Skink.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cullenskink_86087

It goes beyond "no microwave". I've lived through enough hurricanes to know that the power outage comes when they shut down the grid upon winds hitting 75mph. That's early in the storm. The power stays off for a week at least (at least where I lived) and the roads are all flooded and covered with downed trees so no one is going anywhere for a long time. After the storm, the bugs are thick and so is the humidity. Definitely not the best time to be barbecuing.

Everything in your freezer will thaw over that one week so you have to cook it or throw it out. My mother and sisters would begin cooking everything in the freezer the day before the hurricane arrived, while all the men and boys were outside with hammers and saws.

Since we had a big family and a couple of huge chest freezers, it turned into a feast. Whole turkeys, hams, steaks, seafood - all the perishables got cooked and laid out on the big table. Then we'd spend the next few days huddled in the dark, eating some great food, and then working our way into the canned goods by the end of the first week.

For people who are new to this dynamic, I think that disaster cooking classes would probably be a really good thing.

Dude, this disaster cooking is already more than what I do on a daily basis. (I'm sick, so sometimes every day resembles disaster day. I have you guys to keep me company, though!)

Stuff I've eaten today:

1. a can of soup
2. a croissant
3. a muffin
4. soda

Send those Red Cross chefs over!

-bingley

An aside -

Tabasco sells a cookbook for MREs. I had the older one for C rats at one point, given to me by a former 1SG.

Some of the meals are fairly decent.

They ate Cheez Whiz? Voluntarily? That really was a cooking disaster.

HJ

According to my DW, most of my cooking IS disastrous.

That's not "sick" that's "bachelor."

Like in Futurama, someone needs to invent "bachelor chow." Sell it in 50lbs bags next to the dog food.

I was thinking of Human Chow but however they decide to market it is fine with me.

Jeanette Isabelle

Human Chow and Bachelor Chow are different things. The first is a derivative of soylent green, and tends to taste a little old.

bingley

Human Chow, Bachelor Chow and Dog Chow are probably all the same thing. Just put the smaller kibbles in a bowl and add milk, coffee, or bourbon to taste.

Sue

There are many, many Americans who have never used a barbecue, have never been camping or hiking, and have absolutely no idea what the simplest hobo stove might look like (or even realize that such a thing exists). Many of them probably haven't even cooked over an open flame on a home stove.

And if they have used a barbecue, they wouldn't have any idea what to do if they ran out of propane or briquets.

I don't know about your folks across the pond, but from the British I've met/known, they've always been able to step up to practically any job where the main requirement is common sense and a bit of handiness.

If WalMart had any sense at all (probably a false hope), they would hold some well-advertised Preparedness Fairs in their parking lots and show all the stuff they carry that would be useful in such a situation. But I won't be holding my breath for that to happen.

Sue

I find it convenient to have both an indoor grill (Coleman 2 burner propane camp stove)for cast iron skillet, or Dutch oven cooking, and a larger outdoor grill ... grilling directly on the grating saves a lot of cleanup when water is limited, and due to the possibility of flare up needs to be done outside... bacon and eggs and bannock are done in the cast iron skillet...

most of my recipes call for 1# of ground beef so I typically freeze 1# packages, but during hurricane season I portion my ground beef into patties, so if necessary I can cook individual portions, and not have to use the whole frozen package

I have (3) 25# propane bottles so I always have 2 filled...if you haven't used an adapter to fill 1# bottles, if you place the empty cylinders in the freezer for a day or so, and invert the 25# tank to fill, you can get more in as liquid

an adapter hose allows you connect other propane appliances

I too will utilize my camping equipment, especially my stoves, along with stocks of canned food, and whatever frozen food is available. The barby is ready,along with a couple of propane tanks.

My situation is relatively simple. I only have about three camp stoves. How does Hiking Jim select among his stable of 115 stoves?

That makes me wonder. If we pull out the camping stoves and grills, surely people will want to use or borrow them for their own cooking, heating up water, etc. What do you do? Loan it out? Offer to cook their food for them? There's also safety concerns as camp cooking requires more caution. And the last thing you want is a neighbor starting a fire with your stove.

Not sure if this is the same scenario, but one of the wal-mart disaster cooking challenges I read about was designed to use only non-perisable goods. That could be a challenge in itself for a number of people who are usually reliant on fresh, refridgerated and frozen.

It might be worthwhile having a couple of Campingaz Bistro Stoves on hand for yourself or your neighbours (fitting the cartridge is the only tricky part);

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000Y854WC/re...ASIN=B000Y854WC

They are pretty cheap and effective costing about $15-20 (including a butane gas cartridge), and they are very easy to operate and control. Only a complete moron would burn down their own house with one.

I am happy to see this kind of stuff but, also a bit disheartened thinking the Canadians/ Red Cross know we are in for some rough times here in North America.

I do honestly hope the demonstration reached some people that may need these skills and/or got them interested in self-sufficiency.

Those are good stoves, had some on board a family members 36 foot sail boat that got lots of use for various meals.

Keep your good stoves for yourselves. And if a doctor needs boiling water for something, by all means, help him out.

But keep a goodly stash of suitable empty tin cans on hand, and give a neighborhood class on how to build hobo stoves.

If people aren't keeping up with what the economy is doing, or live in a probable disaster area (practically anywhere) and aren't making any effort to do some preemptive disaster preparation, they shouldn't expect to have access to someone else's top-flight stove (and their fuel).

Sue

That's why my plan does not include grilling outdoors. While I have the space, and I can get an outdoor grill, the population here is dense enough that someone is bound to ask, then another, then another, then another. I wouldn't mind cooking for a few other people, but I can't do more than that. That's just going to make me look like a jerk, and that's no good in situations where you may need your neighbor's help.

Camping stove, etc., are too small and too inconvenient to use indoors, and perhaps not even so safe. I decided on a portable gas stove, and after a bit of market research, I bought something from Iwatani. Their table top gas ranges are used in restaurants. They have extra safety features, and regulate heat output better. If you need high output, you can get their upper-end models. The construction is not necessarily what I'd call rugged, but it's better than the average. They use a proprietary butane mix, and their butane canisters can be attached to a crème brûlée torch. Their butane canisters seem to last a bit longer, too.

Here is a list of some of Iwatani's products from a restaurant supplies website:

http://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-su...h_field=iwatani

I am just a satisfied customer. I don't work for Iwatani or in restaurant supplies. Heck, as you can see, most of the time I barely cook. But when I have someone to cook for, I always break out the torch!

Da Bing