Food - the annual weather saga

 

Foods to ride out a natural disaster

With the annual hurricane season upon us, our focus always tends to shift from regular foods to those we would eat in the event of a major storm. Storms tend to bring images to mind of flooding, rain, damaged property, displacement etc. 

What do we eat at times like these? For the most part, we are told to go easy on what needs to be refrigerated and purchase more dry goods. 

When severe weather comes, within a few hours, it can alter the existence of many. In short, the weather is a game changer that doesn't care about your social standing. It will level you out with the most damaging of treatments. If we're not careful, the despondency of such an experience can ruin our creativity as we go into survival mode. 

As I ponder what we do with food in good times, a thought that came was how can we turn food to a form of delight during catastrophic times and boost the morale of survivors? What would we come up with using the ingredients and resources we would have to remain after disaster strikes? 

The ideas don't flow as readily when we think of them during good times. We hope to not need to test this anytime soon - the culinary creativity post-disaster. 

However, I have noticed that we use similar basic ingredients and come up with culturally diverse food based on the creativity of our people. More research must be done to highlight that, as a people, we can't starve - even when disaster strikes.