Bruce heard an interview on NPR about a book on World War II. It’s entitled The Hunger Of War. He was stunned to learn that more people died from starvation than through violence during that time. Many of the problems were faced in places that had given up local food production in favor of imports. When the energy shortages and the imports ceased the populations no longer had the means or ability to feed themselves. I just ordered the book and will begin it today. I’ll post a review when I finish it.
This book came at a time when I have become fascinated by the food crisis in Greece. I just read an article about the Greeks beginning to deal directly farmers in order to afford to put food on the table. We tend to think of hunger as something that can only happen in other places, to people who live much closer to the edge than most of this country does. It happens in Africa and in the war-torn regions of the Middle East. It happens to somebody else. Until it happens to you.
I shy away from posting gloomy things. I like to write about food and community, family doings and weather, books and events. Today I feel the urge to go that dark place. The economic news continues to look ugly. The weather gets nuttier with every passing season. The Monsanto battle is one I don’t see resolving any time soon. I urge you all to look in your pantry. How long could you feed your family if you needed to rely on what was on hand today? If you store nothing else I hope you store some open pollinated seeds and some good gardening books. At least store seeds of squash and beans. They produce well in a lot of places and provide a big bang for the garden buck. I hope you’ll do a walk-about and look for those spaces where you could grow some food. It doesn’t need to a John Seymour, perfect sustainable backyard. It might be your church yard or your playground. It might be the space that runs along the side of your driveway. Join a community garden group and plant something. The experience will be useful someday.
I hope you’ll put away some staples and cook with them from time to time. They are cheap and nourishing and very accessible today. Think oats and rice, pasta and sauce, dried fruit and some canned squash and pumpkin. Applesauce can be used to stretch eggs in cooking.
If I sound as though I maybe got up on the wrong side of the bed today I hope you’ll do an amazon search for memoirs of wars and sieges. Read some stories of the Great Depression. I watched more of the Wartime Kitchen series on youtube this morning. It’s a good look at living with less and making do. I always hope for good things and a happy future for my children and grandchildren but I know that woman have always hoped for those things. It didn’t always work out that way. I know that most of you who visit here are already doing a lot. So spread the word. The time to think about food was yesterday but it’s never too late. I’m not much for protesting on the street but I hope to plant in solidarity with people everywhere who don’t wish to held hostage to circumstance. Share your food and garden stories please. They will inspire the rest of us. Share your recipes. They will educate. Share your fears. They will give us the opportunity to support each other. Above all, eat good food.
April 6, 2012 at 10:58 am
I agree very much with what you have said. I seriously watch anything I can find about the depression and ww2 food. I met a gentleman who had lived through ww2 and his experiences with food shortages made him obsessive about it in his later years. He spoke of having ONE piece of cheese to feed the family of 5 and as they argued over how to cut it, it started to move, being full of maggots…they quickly cut it and ate it. Food was food.
I hope we never, ever, see things get that bad here. I work daily to make sure my family has both food stored and a means to make more.
April 6, 2012 at 11:49 am
Thank you, Kathy for this. A dear friend immigrated with her family from war-torn Europe as a young child in the late ’40s. Her grandfather had starved to death in Berlin at war’s end. When the grandmother who stayed behind came to visit years later she brought 5# of potatoes in the huge purse she carried on the plane! I know a man now in his 40′s a successful professional who went hungry as a child here in the US. When he cooks for his family he makes piles and piles of food. Going hungry leaves a primal scar and we don’t want that for our loved ones and friends. I am re-reading Astyk and Newton’s ‘A Nation of Farmers’, a must-read for anyone just starting on this journey!
Thanks for all you do and write!
April 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Good advice! I am so proud that my family was able to eat food from our garden yesterday- just a basil/tomato pizza (we grew the tomatoes and basil) but that’s a start! I’m currently trying to figure out how to deal with garden pests on my tomatoes organically (will NOT buy Monsanto poison) so I don’t think we’ll get the amazing harvest we did last year. (The bugs mostly left us alone last year, for some miraculous reason, but we have horn worms and some other type of larvae eating the leaves this year.) I’m hoping we’ll get enough tomatoes so I can try canning, but maybe not this season. I didn’t think I had a “green thumb” at all, but the trick is to keep trying, talk to people, read, read, read, and experiment. I don’t have much luck growing large slicing tomatoes but I’ve found that cherry tomatoes work really well for me, for instance. (A discovery I made after someone gave me a cherry tomato seedling that went berserk in my tiny garden!) It’s hit or miss with basil; I’ve tried planting it in several locations in my yard, and one year it will grow like crazy, then the next it won’t do anything. I have no luck with lettuce (which should be so easy!!) and strawberries. But again, I keep trying! I’ve learned that I’m better off not buying seedlings from the local home improvement store. (Except for collards- I’ve had some great luck with collards that I bought on a whim from the home improvement store this year, so I’ve also learned that there’s an exception to every rule!)
I’m learning how to start seeds from scratch. (Don’t over water!) I’ve got a long, long, way to go, but at least I’ve started the journey. I enjoy reading your blog to see where that journey might lead one day. 
April 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm
I wrote this up in my blog a while back about during the depression when my great-uncle took his gun everywhere. Whatever he found, he shot and brought home. Raccoon and possum don’t appeal much to me, but they ate it.
http://livingtheseasons.com/2011/09/17/shoot-and-bring-it-home/
April 6, 2012 at 4:14 pm
I will be interested to hear more about that book. Have been planting tomatoes today, here in mid-Alabama. In the spirit of using things up–does anyone know if there’s a use for all the little canning pears you get when you try to thin them back to 6″ apart? I wondered if there was enough flavor to make jelly.
April 6, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Hi Kathy: Please don’t be afraid to post your feelings because you are not alone. What keeps me going is my faith. Janet Van Amber Paske (Home Economist) has written a series of 5 books called Stories & Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930′s. I have 4 of the 5 that I was able to find at library book sales and thrift stores. I also have a reprint of The Martha Washington Cook Book. Being a cook book collector the ones I really appreciate are the books from the very early 1900′s. I also enjoy reading the blog “The Old Foodie”. She posts 5 days a week and gives history and recipes. There is also a blog called “Pilgrim Seasonings”. At 71 I’ve been privleged to have lived a frugal life. Yes – Privleged! Gardens and canning have been with me most of these years. Although I have bulging disks in my lower back and a pinched nerve causing terrible sciatic pain I still plan on having a garden this year. Just plain old stubborn me. I shake my head at the food stamp program that our Gov’t has going. There’s no education that goes along with that program to teach the recipients how to cook from scratch and unfortunately the people who depend on this program buy mostly prepackaged processed food. They have no idea what a parsnip, rutebaga or sorrel are. My grandparents and parents got by during the Depression thanks to ration stamps. A lot of folks just a few years younger than myself have no idea what they were for. My g’parents/parents lived in the city and did not have any property to plant a garden. My parents did move to the country when I was 5 years old and the first thing they did after moving in was to plant a large truck patch. Keep up the good work and I’m looking forward to more at your blog Preserving Abundance. Marion
April 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm
A year ago, I saved an article by author Ellen LaConte “Garden Like Your Life Depends on It: The Benefits of Small-Scale Food Production”. I work in Extension and have been planning a series of classes to help people grow their own groceries, which is a step in the right direction, but Ellen’s article points out how serious this issue is. She writes about rising food prices, pressure on home budgets, and ever-increasing tremors in food supply chains…which “will make gardening looks a lot more than a hobby, a seasonable workout, a practical way to fill your pantry with your summer favorites, or a physically, spiritually and mentally healing activity, or all four”.
She then explains why gardening is so important now, “starting this spring and with an eye toward forever”….including peak oil, acreage coverted to biofuels not foods, damaged/depleted soils, monoculture and susceptibility to plant diseases/insects, climate instability, and the roller-coaster economy. “Which is why we need to garden as if our lives depended on it…bringing food production processes and systems closer to home is going to provde vital to our survival. We need to take producing our own and each other’s food as seriously as we’ve taken producing a money income, because growing numbers of us won’t have enough money to buy food in the conventional ways and there will be less of it to buy.”
However, as a long-time vegetable gardener with a job, a family and community volunteering, I admit I have found it challenging to “scale up” my home food production…AND my consistent use of it…to seriously lessen my use of the grocery store. For example, even as I enjoy a pantry full of home-raised and preserved fruits and veggies, I either get complacent and buy bananas and fresh broccoli at the the grocery store OR mid-winter our family is tired of soft canned fruit and is craving something fresh. And to expand home food production to the quantities for year-round storage and consumption is a steep learning curve, a more intentional process, and takes a dedicated amount of time and effort.
A year ago, the Lord blessed me with this job (4 days a week only 4 miles from home) which gives me extra time each week to dedicate to this level of gardening effort…it almost has to be treated as a part-time job to help provide for the family’s needs. “How do you get so much done?” people often ask me, not realizing that you have to carve out time and money for what you deem important in your life…and for me, that means less tv, less computer time, fewer entertainment activities, and a more intentional focus on home food production.
Thank you for your website, your book, your appearance on NatGeo, and positive, community-minded approach to dealing with the challenges we are facing in the areas of food and home in the future.
April 8, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Kathy: Today at the Root Simple blog they posted a site you and your readers may be interested in. I’ve perused this site and it is very informative. http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html. Marion
April 10, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Can you tell me the author of the book? I’ve looked for it everywhere and all the internet comes up with is about “The Hunger Games”. Not quite the same thing! I’m fascinated with food during WWI & WWII, so I would very much like to read this book.
Thank you!
April 12, 2012 at 8:45 pm
The rising gas prices are affecting everythings price. I have put in more raised beds and am going to be inteentional in seeking ways to help me be able to feed my family