Clark L. Kidd - Food Storage for the Clueless

1999 by Clark L. and Kathryn H. Kidd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, at permissions@deseretbook.com or P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-73568

ISBN 1-57008-608-X

Printed in the United States of America

Alexanders Print Advantage, Lindon, UT

JIT

For Dale and Lynne Van Atta,

who can laugh with us about

the days when we were

young and stupid,

now that were

no longer young

Acknowledgments

We extend grateful acknowledgments to: Jane Brady and Steve Walker, for asking questions, questions, and more questions, many of which made it to the question and answer sections at the end of the chapters.

Judy Willis, who loaned us thousands of reference books, and who bravely tested the recipe for Over My Dead Body survival bars on her own loving family, after the evil Jane Brady convinced us they were fit for human consumption.

Marsha Zimsky, who knows everything about food storage and who cheerfully shared her knowledge when called upon to do so, and who provided up-to-date medical information concerning the deadly side-effects of the traditional wheat and honey storage.

Jeanne Jankus, one of the few successful siegers, who told us of the existence of diastatic malt, and convinced us that breadmakers would benefit by this unusual information.

Marla Jolley Jensen and Carla Child, for recipes that came from such diverse places as Utah and Kenya. Some of the best substitutions in the book came from one or the other of them or from Missy Hooper, who supplied recipes that had been posted on the Internet by Eileen deMars, a benevolent stranger (some of these were created by Louwanna Young, a talented stranger).

John Hansen, for telling us how Hurricane Mitch jeopardized his sons access to Dilantin.

Michele Henderson, Donna Kneeland, Nancy Clark, and others who passed along food storage information that came to their attention.

Brian Dixon, an Oregonian who has been baking with sourdough for nearly twenty-four years, for the sourdough information that became Appendix B, (thanks to Darryl Greenwood of Vancouver, B.C., for posting it on the Internet!).

Leland Phipps, whose excellent talk on the spiritual side of food storage gave us information we needed for the epilogue (and who provided us a second copy of that talk after some nameless incompetent author lost the first copy).

The Utah State University Extension Service, for providing tons of useful material (visit their web site and get even more valuable information!).

Scott Card, for cheerful food storage-related editorial comments throughout the writing of this booksome of which resulted in additional helpful sections in assorted chapters.

Janna DeVore, whose gentle editing made the proofreading less odious than it otherwise would have been, and Jana Erickson, whose art design made the book as visually appealing as we hoped it would be.

And to Cory Maxwell of Bookcraft, whose enthusiasm for the project kept us writing during those sixteen-hour days.

Introduction

Where Do You Fit?

There are a lot of food storage books on the shelves. If this is the book youve chosen, you probably fit into one of two groups of people.

The first group is a big one. It consists of people who arent interested in food storage but who have a nagging feeling that maybe they should be interested.

Maybe youve heard counsel from your church leaders that you should be storing food in case of a national catastrophe. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) are counseled to keep a years supply of food and other essentials on hand (thats one years supply, people!), just in case. There are more than 10 million members of the LDS Church, and a hefty percentage of them are either working on their food storage, or are feeling guilty that they arent.

If youre not a member of the LDS Church, you may think you should be interested in food storage anyway. Anyone who follows the stock market or reads the newspapers could be nervous enough to believe that a food storage program might be a good idea. And if youve ever visited the grocery store before a snowstorm, you know how quickly those supermarket shelves can be stripped of all the essentials of life.

In fact, it has been theorized that there is only enough food on the shelves of your citys supermarkets to feed your city for three days. This alone may inspire you to wonder if you should be interested in food storage, even if you arent.

Years ago, the authors of this book read the personals section of a San Francisco newspaper. The Women Seeking Men column was full of notes from a lonely woman who advertised herself in nearly a dozen brief ads, each of which showcased a different facet of her personality in the desperate hope of attracting a mate. One of the ads that has always stuck with us was the comment, I would like to be interested in macram. She didnt say she wanted to be proficient in macram; she said she wanted to be interested in it. All we could assume was that at the time she wrote the ad, she had no interest whatsoever in macram. The very thought of macram was so boring to her that it put her to sleep. Indeed, people who were fascinated by such a tedious subject were pathetic human beings who were only worthy of her disdain. Nevertheless, for some reason only she could explain, she wanted to cultivate that fascination despite her distaste for the art. One can only hope that over the years she overcame her aversion to macram, and has finally developed an interest in it.

If you feel the same way about food storage, this is the book for you.

The other group of people who may buy this book are at least marginally interested in food storage, but they havent been motivated enough to do any work on it. This, too, is a big group. As we move into the new millennium, we find that life is becoming increasingly complex. There are more things to do than there are hours in the day. Being a soccer mom alone is a full-time occupation. With such compelling things as soccer to consider, other things that may interest usand even things we may consider to be important for our well-beingare all too often lost in the hustle of day-to-day living.

Maybe youre too busy living your life to devote a whole lot of energy to food storage. Maybe you dont think you have enough money to devote to something you will probably never need anyway. Perhaps you have the time and the money to do something, but youve been hesitant to do anything because you dont know whats the best solution for you.