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Here is a draft of my poverty food screed:

Poverty food

Like oriental food? Like Italian? Mexican or Tex-mex? Cajun? Scandanavian food? What do all these foods have in common? They are poverty foods. The ones that everyone eats everyday.

Take Oriental food... It’s cheap stuff. Local. Cooked simple. And good. And some of it takes time.

Same with all the rest.

The traditional food of the people is the cheap stuff that is available prepared with care and whatever time it takes.

What does that mean for preparedness? You may not be able to get stuff you eat normally. But you can eat well with local stuff, or people wouldn’t be living where you live. And don’t give me that excuse about living in the city. Pigeon is edible. And good, done well. Baby pigeons can fetch $28 a plate done well enough in the right restaurant.

And those weeds you walk by every day? Your great-grandparents waited for them to show up in spring.

All this pre-supposes that you have the knowledge to use the available resources and the training to turn those resources into mouthwatering meals. And that means you have to study.

Techniques.

What makes food good, instead of just something to eat to keep from dying? Flavor, texure, smell, familiarity and perceived value.

Start with good, fresh, local ingredients. Learn to identify them, and how to cook them, and when they are in season. I can’t help you with details since I don’t live where you do.

Take a little time now to add some traditional spices to your landscaping. I can get cilantro, cumin, basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic (volunteer and cultivated), onions (native and cultivated), and several types of local herbs and peppers within a two minute walk from my back door. Those spices and herbs can go a long way to making your food taste better and seem more familiar. Squirrel pot pie tastes a lot like chicken pot pie if you have the same spices in it.

Learn how to cook. Learn the basics of frying, sauteing, braising, roasting and baking. Some of that requires a mentor to teach you. Find one. Commercial cooks like to show off and talk about food and techniques.

One thing I see a lot with home cooks is a fear of ‘burning’ something that is just getting some color and flavor. Black doesn’t mean burned. Scorched flavor means burned.

When I make a stock for soup, I sweat the onions, carrots, and garlic for flavor. If I want a ‘blanc’ stock, I don’t let them get much color, but for things like game, and a ‘brun’ stock, I saute them pretty hard, well past what most home cooks are comfortable with. It’s ok if they have some black spots on them, if they don’t tasted scorched or burned. And the depth of flavor they add can make a dish work.

And it’s ok to screw up when you practice. Burn it? Toss it and try again. Failure is part of the learning process.

None of this requires expensive equipment. I’ve cooked over an open wood fire on 50 year old pans for 300 GIs. And they like the rations that they got, with some additions from local sources. Even GI spaghetti in a can is palatable if you can enhance it a little with techniques and a few local additions.

That’s chapter 1. I have many more to do. If you keep bugging me for it, I might move forward on it. Otherwise, I’ll forget it again.

/johnny