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8K views 42 replies 34 participants last post by  aimlow 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Growing up I had the fortune of having two former chefs as parents. While being raised I never saw store-bought bread in the house or even store-bought pasta sauce. Just about everything was made from scratch and not only was it healthy and monetarily efficient it was also quite delicious.
Years later and being far removed from that life I still feel that I have the ability to mix and match things off the top of my head to make great meals and make up recipes as I go.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a learn-able skill because for example my wife can only cook directly from recipes and sometimes not even that well. You can tell who the cook is in our home.
The ability to combine ingredients on the fly is, in my opinion a great survival trait as you can easily waste food and resources on something that may end up being inedible or just unpleasant to eat.

I'm not sure if other people agree, I just thought it was a concept that I haven't hear that much in terms of survivalism and its worth to have as a skill.

Thoughts?
 
#33 ·
I am reminded of pictures taken in a war-torn Arabic country: I forget which one.

The military had done an air drop of MRE's, and entire families turned out to pick up the scattered packages. A little girl of maybe 4 had her arms overflowing with MRE's, and she was trying to fit another one in.

People who have been hungry appreciate healthy eating.
 
#34 ·
Stocking all of the basic ingredients (rather than prepackaged meals) and being sure to have lots of spices in hand will go a long way toward preventing food boredom. Personally, I love to cook, I think it's fun to try to replicate food I've eaten at restaurants or at other people's homes - it takes a discerning set of tastebuds to identify the spices in a meal, much like trying to identify what instruments are playing in a symphony.

Post apocalyptically speaking, I think the biggest challenge is going to be making something tasty and delectable from squirrels or roadkill, but I truly hope it never gets to that. I can already cook wild game - deer, elk, pheasant -as long as someone else processes it and brings it to me looking like food :)
 
#35 ·
I've learned to enjoy cooking.

Call me crazy but after work I enjoy coming home, put on some good music, crack a beer, and spend the next 1-2 hours making a delicious dinner for the family. One thing I learned recently is patience is a virtue when cooking. Slow it down, take your time, the food will be better. Cant make great dinner every night, cause of things going on. Even on quick dinner night, the family eats together at the table, not the TV.
 
#38 ·
I just about cook everything from scratch that I eat, which is a restrictive diet, but I do buy stuff like bread for the rest of the family.

My Grandmother started me off allowing me to stand at her kitchen door and watch her cook plus ask lots of question. Then my Mother took over afterwards a crappy time at school. So I can cook but nothing fancy.

I rarely use a recipe for measurements, I just sort of do it by eye or handfuls of this or that.
 
#39 ·
That will definitely be a lot of people's achilles heel, not knowing: how to cook. After spending practically our whole adult lives with processed foods, we started doing scratch cooking about 4 years ago. Has made a big difference in our lives including clearing up some health problems. Would never go back. Yeah it affects how we prep because a lot of the easy processed foods we could store, we now don't. Our society is spoiled and when they can't go to McDonalds or pick up a frozen pizza in the store, lots of people will not know what to do:eek:
 
#41 ·
Cooking is, obviously, a basic skill. One cannot consider himself a survivalist without being able to cook from scratch. But: whatever major disaster we may encounter, 9 out of 10 chances, we would not be able to do much cooking in the first 2 years, at least. Ability to cook from scratch would help, a little, but we won't be able to use most of the methods we use now: no outside cooking, no cooking using a wood stove (both methods advertize one's presence, which may be deadly). Just about the only realistic way of cooking would be by using LP. Even worse, under many scenarios (like being stuck in the shelter for a long time), cooking of ANY kind would be impossible (not even boiling water). So it may be useful to practice cooking under those, extremely limiting, circumstances.
 
#40 ·
I taught myself how to cook (and I mean really cook, not just stick frozen food in the microwave or into the oven). I saw Julie and Julia and loved it. I'm a Julia Child fan. I have Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Joy of Cooking, and a number of other cookbooks, including old church cookbooks that were given to me by relatives. Old church cookbooks are great -- they have a lot of classic hotdish recipes like mom used to make. Some things are more difficult to make than others, but it is a matter of practice and following the directions. I think the hardest thing I've made is Julia's beef bourguignon, but it is well worth it.

Making things like soup or stews from scratch is not too difficult. The basic formula is this: Some meat of your choice, or beans, some veggies that go well together like tomatoes, carrots, onions, and celery, and a starch like potatoes or noodles. You don't have to get more complicated with seasonings if you don't want to. Good old-fashioned salt and pepper are the basics. Meat and veggies add a lot of flavor, and things like fresh basil, chives, etc., help a lot. The freshness of your ingredients is the main key in how well things taste. Once you get it down, just get yourself a decently-sized pot and you can make a very good meal with leftovers to freeze. The main work is cleaning and cutting up the vegetables and meat.

Personally, I don't see cooking from scratch as a restrictive diet. You can also have things like pizza if you are willing to roll out the dough. Joy of Cooking's pizza dough recipe is actually pretty easy and can be made during the weekend to have pizza Saturday or Sunday night.
 
#42 ·
Love The Old Cook Books

I grew up in a cooking family, though I have to admit there were some tight times and meals tended to be casseroles and basic staples, I grew up enjoying to cook.

Over the last couple of years I have been collecting cook books, I like to hit the goodwill about once a month, hard backs for a quarter and softs for a dime. The ones at yard sales seem to be overly priced, as they attach a sentimental value to grandmas books I tend to find. I like the older books where they show it all from game preparation to end product, these books tend to not require the more obscure ingredients for flavorings that may be hard to come by later.

I tend to look at these more than I actually prepare, as I shop on the markdown and sales areas and these determine my meal plans more often than not. I do like to try new things mostly as to prepare my learning curve now not when its my only option. I have done bread and pasta from grain to mill to bowl to oven, while it was better the time required I don't have now due to work to make it an everyday option.
 
#43 ·
i have always enjoyed cooking, it is a required life skill imo,
lived for 3 months on preps last year when work was making some SEVERE errors with my salary, and being able to change a recipe or make one up from scratch to go with lts food and what i could gather in the woods on weekends made meals enjoyable instead of simply bearable, cooking with rice, canned/foraged vegetables and whatever meat i could shoot were not hard, it was making it taste good and be different. speaking from experience food fatigue does not take long at all and it is not fun.
 
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