I enjoy reading books by Michael Pollan. While I don’t agree with everything he writes (such as the inadvisability of doing home canning) I do agree with much of what he concludes and writes. He also has an underlying wit in his writing which makes his books more interesting and readable.
Several years ago, I read the book Cooked. It begins:
“At a certain point in the late middle of my life I made the unexpected but happy discovery that the answer to several of the questions that most occupied me was in fact one and the same.
Cook.
Some of these questions were personal. For example, what was the single most important thing we could do as a family to improve our health and general well-being? And what would be a good way to better connect to my teenage son?… Other questions were slightly more political in nature. For years I had been trying to determine (because I am often asked) what is the most important thing an ordinary person can do to help reform the American food system, to make it healthier and more sustainable? Another related question is, how can people living in a highly specialized consumer economy reduce their sense of dependence and achieve a greater degree of self-sufficiency? And then there were the more philosophical questions, the ones I’ve been chewing on since I first started writing books. How, in our everyday lives, can we acquire a deeper understanding of the natural world and our species’ peculiar role in it? You can always go to the woods to confront such questions, but I discovered that even more interesting answers could be had simply by going to the kitchen.”
So what does this have to do with food storage and preparedness? His question “how can people…reduce their sense of dependence and achieve a greater degree of self-sufficiency?” gives us the answer. We have to cook to use our basic long-term food storage foods. We have to cook to create more complex meals from our 3-month supply (more complex than heating a can of soup). By knowing how to cook, we decrease our dependence on food corporations, grocery stores, delis, and restaurants. By knowing how to cook, we feed ourselves and our families more wholesome foods. By knowing how to cook, we are able to take better advantage of our gardens. By knowing how to cook, we are able to preserve foods for our future use.
What a simple answer to so many questions. And yet, it is a skill that has been and is being lost. Don’t let that happen in your life and your family. Develop the preparedness skill of cooking and enjoy the independence that cooking offers you and your family.
(From a post written and posted 9 March 2015)
