Twice in my life I have been faced with “Oh, God… I could starve to death…” Both situations were about three months long and taught me what foods are important… and what foods are not.
Years ago, as a young, knuckle-headed, save-the-world-adventurer I bought a one-way ticket to the remote jungle island of Papua New Guinea. I found the most unreached and unknown areas I could find in the ethnology books and headed in that direction.
Every plane I took got smaller and smaller until at last I was in a rickety four-seat Cessna with a pilot who was so nervous about the landing strip we were heading for he was sweating bullets. The plane stalled out as he dipped into the dense jungle valley, descending as quickly as possible so as to hit the airstrip before he hit the mountain at the end of it. There were remains of three previously crashed planes on that mountain side.
As the plane hit the grass airstrip with a breathtaking jolt my pilot was swearing a stream of profanity in a mixture of Melanesian Pidgin, Australian English, and his own “Tok Ples.” I climbed out of the tiny plane to be greeted by natives that had never seen white skin before.
A day’s hike further into the dense jungle I found a village that welcomed me and asked me to stay. They built me a hut, an outdoor komp korup (shack) with a fire-pit that was sheltered from the constant rains, and set to work teaching me to speak their language. I, in turn, did my best to help them with the multitude of infections, malnutrition, and malaria that made the average life span 42 years of age.
It was possible to hike back to the airstrip and get a plane back out to the coast and I managed to do this about once every three months or so. However, usually the scheduled trip did not work out due to huge rain storms, reluctant pilots, and general mis-communication issues. There were times when I spent days and weeks living on the village fare of kaukau (sweet potato) and wild greens.
When I did manage to get to town, I had learned what foods are important to have on hand, and what foods are pretty useless. My usual shopping list was for three months of supplies, without refrigeration, and for cooking over a fire:
40 pounds of dried rice (both the rice and beans were good trade items.)
40 pounds of dried beans
90 Tin cans of meat (canned meat)
30 1/2 lb blocks Cheddar cheese (shelf cured… made in Australia by Kraft)
Salt, Garlic, Pepper, Cinnamon, Sugar
Tea
Dried milk (6-8 cans
Eggs (fresh eggs keep on the shelf for 6 weeks, IME)
Flour 20 – 30 lbs
Baking Powder
Oil 10 liters
Dried Fruit -several bags
And that was all.
(When I got the chance, I once got 4 pounds of peanut M&M’s for comfort food. I was so excited to get those M&M’s! But, I happened to get a visitor from America at the same time. He experienced culture shock so severely over our extremely isolated situation, he ate the whole 4 pounds of M&M’s in one week. They helped him hang on to his sanity until he could get a plane out of there.)
Let me tell you about these foods, and why they were sufficient for me.
Rice and beans together (especially if you use brown rice and black beans) are extremely nutritious. Together they make a complete protein. Both are mineral and vitamin rich. Your body can process rice and beans as a staple every single day and be satisfied. Believe me, I know.
Tin Meat. Over there it was usually some kind of fish or a beef slurry of some sort. Any kind of meat cooked in rice made the rice more satisfying. It kept forever. It was easy to throw a couple cans in my backpack when hiking from one distant village to another, and made a highly appreciated gift to the occasional village leader.
Cheese. Cheese makes everything taste better. It is also a protein. It hard situations, you will find yourself expending more energy than usual… working harder. Proteins and carbs make it possible to stay physically fit when you are under physical stress. The shelf life of a waxed cheese is pretty good, three months at least. Especially if you trim off the mold as it occurs. I once kept some of that cheddar cheese wrapped in tin foil for 9 months and only had little mold spots to carve off.
Seasonings. The times I totally ran out of food and had to live on greens and kaukau the salt, pepper and garlic made it tolerable. It all tasted good, even if it didn’t fully satisfy my body’s needs. The cinnamon and sugar made ordinary rice turn into a desert worth mentioning. Especially with sliced papaya or pineapple mixed in. It also made hot tea a comfort food.
The dried milk was another source of fat and protein that my skinny body desperately needed. I heaped it into my hot tea, onto my rice and cinnamon and made frying pan biscuits with the flour, baking soda, oil, dried milk and eggs. Also pancakes.
Tea. Tea may seem superfluous, but I tell you truly; it was a main staple. That hot tea kept me warm when the cold rains soaked me to the bone. It gave me energy when I needed to hike another 10 miles. It made the driest piece of cold kaukau tolerable. It made me lots of friends too. Tea parties around the fire during rainy season made me an indispensable member of the village.
Flour. Now days I grind my own wheat (and this is what I plan to do during the next hard time), but in Papua New Guinea I couldn’t get wheat, so I bought flour. With flour I could make skillet biscuits, pancakes, tortillas, english muffins and dumplings in meat “broth.” The bad thing about flour was that it was easy to spoil. It got weevils. It got damp and sour… It was quickly used up. With flour I had to get containers that sealed really well and make sure to KEEP the container sealed all the time.
Dried Fruit. This was a cross between comfort food and necessary food. I often kept a pocket full of this when hiking. It kept me going. It could be hydrated and eaten with biscuits as a treat. I think mainly what it did was keep me loaded with Vit. C… which helped keep me diarrhea-free. A definite plus.
Oil. This was probably one of my most coveted items by the natives. They craved oil. The oil could fry anything and make anything taste so much better. Fried kaukau and sauteed greens were suddenly gourmet with a little oil. All the breads I made in the skillet were possible because of oil.
You may be wondering about vegetables… I did buy some canned veggies but rarely ate them. They had so little nutritional value they were pretty much worthless and unsatisfying. Instead, I planted a small garden and was fully sufficed with the amount of greens I harvested there: onions, turnip greens, carrots, garlic, potatoes. I eventually ceased to buy canned veggies and bought more dried fruit instead. The only canned “vegetable” that still occasionally made it onto my shelf was tomato soup.
Now, living simply by choice, I grow cabbage, onions, carrots, and beets, and tomatoes. These suffice us, along with the (coming soon) production of a dairy cow and the harvest of wild or pastured meats.
When I order bulk foods for storage my main three are still rice, beans and wheat. And I still find them satisfying; not just for myself, but for the whole family.
And my cooking pans are the same: a cast iron skillet, a pot with a lid that fits both, and a teapot.
I left that jungle mountain to explore Mid-East Asia, and then the Middle East. Years later, in a short season of poverty, I experienced hunger again. About 10 dollars a week sufficed me for food during those months. Again it was rice and beans and block of cheese. I made bread or tortillas with stored wheat, salt, and sourdough starter that I kept on hand. It cost me nothing.
I have a couple preferred cookbooks that have simple recipes using ingredients like the ones I mentioned above. One is “Cooking from Home Storage” Another is “Basics and More.” I also dry my own fruit and vegetables in a solar dryer now and keep them on hand for future use.
My previous experiences with meager food supplies are an education I value far more than my so-called college degree in ethnology.
I challenge you to try it for yourself, now… when you can afford to learn what you need and why.
Food Storage Calculator: http://www.7xsunday.net/food-storage.html
