Snow? In Feb? In New England?

[lordlundar]

Ah yes, for a good chunk of the US 20-40 centimeters of snow in February means the world is going to end and it's time to stock up for the long haul should emergency rescue dogs not get to them before they freeze to death.

For me it means the sun rose so I could see the shit I have to shovel.

[EricKei]

I can sympathize. I live in FL, and we deal with this mass hysteria every time there is a hurricane projected to hit. And again with people buying epic shittons of perishable goods, like steak and ice cream.

Same back in the New Orleans area. Granted, water and batteries are the first thing to sell out (despite the fact that grocery stores will literally bring in 18-wheelers carrying nothing BUT water because of this)...Tho my now ex-roomie (thank goodness) seemed to be honestly amazed that batteries were in short supply five days after Hurricane Isaac this past summer x.x

As for meats...well, we had really good coolers and a freezer that we *gasp* actually kept SHUT except when we really had to grab something out of it...plus a couple of grills and an outdoor fireplace that doubled as a makeshift grill, thanks to the miracle of cast-iron cookware ^_^ So it worked out. Wouldn't wanna do it again, tho.

[BlaqueKatt]

I could easily - with a bit of thought for balanced nutrition - buy all the necessary food for several months of off-the-grid camping at my local grocery store, and provide a varied diet.

Or a couple cases of MREs, a case is 12 meals, with all the calories and nutrients needed for an adult for one day(most MREs are 1200-1400 calories), with a 10 year shelf life, some are ok, some are awful, but it's food, and in an emergency, flavor isn't a top priority.

[sms001]

Y'all here at cs.com may not realize how much just knowing this site's here does help in the midst of a rough shift.

Can't think of how many times I've thought in the very back of my head "You don't know it, you nasty little SC, but there is a quirky guy in England that you pretty much owe your life to right about now." It brings a smile to my face.

Glad you made it through TM. We've had 'OMG911tyBBQ it's a hurricane/blizzard/alien invasion' threads before, but I don't know that anyone's pointed out people like the Tuna Lady; smug about being so on-the-ball prepared. I imagine you probably DID see some prepared people in your lines, only you wouldn't notice, because they were the ones with fairly normal purchases topping off the stuff they already have at home. Stuff they have because, you know, they live in New England. And it's Winter.

And love the idea about donating emergency stock to a food pantry afterwards. You should call it in to the local news (or tip the pantry to do so). It'd make a good fluff piece: "Wondering what to do with all the (news euphemism for 'crap we scared you into buying')? Darlene Saneperson of the local Food Pantry says they can always put it to good use..."

[EricKei]

sms -- Don't be silly. We all know the stores will be all too HAPPY to give full cash refunds without question for those food items that nobody kept the receipts for. Ditto the used gas-powered generators (people try to return these waaaaay too often despite the nice clear signs saying you can't...)

[AccountingDrone]

In re MREs - I am stuck, some of them have mushrooms or palm products in the ingredients. Mushrooms cause anaphylactic shock in me, and palm products cause gastric dumping, and as an aside, shellfish [clams and oysters mainly] cause violent reverse projectile gastic dumping.] I have to be very circumspect about food content.

In the interest of cross-cultural education...
Canned beef exists, but for whatever reason is not popular. (Which is odd, given that beef is probably the most common meat in the US.)

tinned beef has a rather bad reception in the US from the WW1 era - 'bully beef' was a really nasty original tinned beef that frequently was rotten or otherwise inedible. Sort of how spam and chipped beef got a bad rap in WW2. I will point out that my dad, as with others in the same area as he was in [3d Army] pretty much refuse to eat certain foods - specifically chipped beef on toast, scrambled eggs, french toast and anything that could be conceivably made with a slice or more of bread, powdered milk, flour, powdered eggs and chipped beef. See, the army provided bread trucks, so frequently the only 'hot food' they would see for weeks on end that didn't come out of a 'C' ration can was made of those ingredients.

Vast snippages.

Wow. I would consider that a severe paucity of necessary and/or sensible groceries, especially in an area which is prone to bad weather. Being unable to get five kinds of dehydrated grains and seven of legumes at my local grocery store - not to mention the specialty deli which handles dried stuff, nuts, etc - would confuse me.

How do you guys make nutritous and tasty soups without a selection of pulses and grains to soak and put in them?

... never mind.



So yeah, I guess I was making assumptions about what types of foodstuffs are readily available in the USA.
It does make some things easier to understand.

It is actually *much* better now, though we actually have a very small 'small town IGA' type grocery in my town.

Historically 75% or so of the US population did not live in cities, or really suburbs up until the 50s, and until the late 60s early 70s the average home town grocery had: speaking as small town Western NY state.]
Beef, Pork, Chicken, Ham, Bacon, hot dogs, 'breakfast sausage' and 'cold cuts' - typically bologna, sliced ham, sliced beef, liverwurst, sliced turkey. Turkey was a Thanksgiving and Christmas item, Lamb was an Easter item. If you wanted goose or duck, you better hunt or know a hunter. Fish was found typically as frozen fish sticks, canned tuna, canned salmon and canned oysters.

Greengrocery fresh
potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, cabbage, green beans, corn on the cob in season, lettuce [iceberg] radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and in season apples, oranges, bananas, pumpkins, grapes, watermelon, canteloup, button mushrooms [forgot those]

Veggies frozen - corn, peas, spinach, lima beans, succotash, green beans, and I honestly can not remember any frozen fruit from that era, it tended to be canned.

There was a fair amount of canned fruit and veggies, but we actually had a half acre garden and canned our own. Seasoning was salt, pepper, paprika and parsley. You might find chili powder and curry powder. Sweet spices were cinnamon, cloves, 'pumpkin pie spice' and nutmeg. Condiments were worchestershire sauce, catsup, mustard and a variety of homemade relishes made from other ingredients [like pickle relish, which is its own condiment now.]

Honestly, when you go over to Lilleks and see the horrible food ideas, those cookbooks were from companies trying to get people to cook something other than the same 10 or 12 set meals every week from birth to death. The food situation was *dire* - think of how the British government tried to ditch people out of the whole WW2 food restriction menus with education programs, and how all the womens magazines started shoving out all the recipes, and pushing trying new foods. If you were whitebread normal caucasion WASP [white anglosaxon protestant] US, with no 'ethnic' tossed into the blend, you didn't think of all the fun and odd foods available. At least I had an Amish mom, so I had some good stodgy Germanic food to dig into, along with the stuff my dad tried in Europe and brought home. Back in the 60s, I actually was probably the only kid in my school other than my brother to actually eat a fresh artichoke boiled up and with drawn butter in 1967. [Thanks to Dad being stationed at the Presidio at one time ]

[EricKei]

Never been a fan of MRE's. Getting them during Katrina and Isaac did nothing to alter my opinion of them.

I would think that WW2 vets, in particular, would shy away from peanut butter and bubble gum (or was that chocolate?)

chipped beef on toast

...aka, "Sh** on a Shingle", as I recall

[Deserted]

Never been a fan of MRE's. Getting them during Katrina and Isaac did nothing to alter my opinion of them.

I would think that WW2 vets, in particular, would shy away from peanut butter and bubble gum (or was that chocolate?)

Had to have been chocolate; that was one of the main things included in WWII field rations, IIRC.

chipped beef on toast

...aka, "Sh** on a Shingle", as I recall

Exactly what we called it in the Navy. First time, not bad... five hundredth time? Not so much.

[MoonCat]

...aka, "Sh** on a Shingle", as I recall

Yep, that's what my father called it. He was familiar with that from his Army days.

In some stores it's now possible to get things that weren't around when I was a kid. You can buy canned shrimp, mackerel (that was a trend back in the 70's I think), Vienna sausauge (tiny little hotdogs), and chicken. Sardines, too, but those have been around forever.

Last time we lost power from a storm (2006), we bought a couple bags of ice and dumped them into a styrofoam cooler, and put cold cuts, butter and half & half in there. We tried not to open the fridge or freezer, and because we had a lot of stuff in there, we lost almost none of it. Turns out that when you have a packed freezer, the frozen items last longer than they do if you have a lot of empty space in there.

We were lucky in that we could light the gas burners on the stove, so we could cook, and we could make coffee (yay for an old-fashioned stove-top percolater!)

We did have a quite a bit of snow over the last couple of days, but then it's supposed to warm up to somewhere in the 40's (F) next week.

[DeltaSierra]

I grew up in a valley - when the blizzards would hit, there would be no way in or out except via snowmobile. We'd cook outside on bbq's and camp-stoves, and my parents had a wood-fueled cast iron fireplace insert, so we would cook inside on that - boiled, soups, stews, mac & cheese, spaghetti & sauce - it was easy.

[Pagan]

For grains; other than rolled and steel-cut oats, none are in common use in unground form. (My store carries a few others, but it's a really nice grocery store; your typical US store would not carry them, except for maybe barley.)

Vast snippages.

Wow. I would consider that a severe paucity of necessary and/or sensible groceries, especially in an area which is prone to bad weather. Being unable to get five kinds of dehydrated grains and seven of legumes at my local grocery store - not to mention the specialty deli which handles dried stuff, nuts, etc - would confuse me.

I don't know what his stores are like, but I have no problem finding dried legumes/grains. Even at Wal-Mart.

Shoot, the grocery store across the store from me has all kinds of dried legumes/grains. In bulk. As a matter of fact, I need to go get some quinoa for a salad I'm making. But not until tomorrow, not really a fan of walking in 30mph wind (That's sustained, we've been getting gusts to 50mph today. Ah, the coming of Spring!).

Even though it's not a legume/grain, they even have regular couscous and Israeli couscous!

Ah yes, for a good chunk of the US 20-40 centimeters of snow in February means the world is going to end and it's time to stock up for the long haul should emergency rescue dogs not get to them before they freeze to death.

For me it means the sun rose so I could see the shit I have to shovel.

Well, the 2 feet we got at the end of December 2006 did shut down ABQ, including the Sunport. But then, that snowfall also broke 50 year records. That's the most snow I've ever seen and ever want to see. I'm a born-and-bred, cold-blooded, southern NM variety desert rat. I don't do snow or cold.

[PastryGal]

I'm so glad I was off this weekend and got to stay in. We're still expecting a blizzard tonight tho supposedly. It's been nuts at work with people getting propane/butane cook tops, heaters and such. I was telling people that they are for outdoor use only but gave up after a while because people didn't care. "Oh I'll just open the window". One woman had the good sense to not buy the buddy heaters when she saw that it said outside use only. She was going to buy them for her elderly parents but didn't want them to possibly burn the house down.

Patiokitty you must live in the same neighbourhood as I, seeing as how my local grocery store is also under renos, lol. They got some nice spiffy new cash's going in now that I've only ever seen at the Elizabeth Ave location. I'll be quite happy when it's all done tho.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I never would have guessed that New England gets snow in February! Ever! No, sir. Not even after both trips I took up to Boston to visit my girlfriend for Valentine's Day ended up getting a bit fouled by travel hiccups due to blizzards and ice storms and snow and other weather phenomena! Nope, never would have guessed!

[Ironclad Alibi]

Snow in New England in February? Inconceivable! The next thing you know they'll be telling us it gets hot in Key West in August.

[sirwired]

Vast snippages.

Wow. I would consider that a severe paucity of necessary and/or sensible groceries, especially in an area which is prone to bad weather. Being unable to get five kinds of dehydrated grains and seven of legumes at my local grocery store - not to mention the specialty deli which handles dried stuff, nuts, etc - would confuse me.

Oh, certainly, any store here larger than a quickie-mart will have dried beans in vast variety; probably a dozen or so. (But are those edible without cooking? I can't say I've ever tried. I know one, Kidney Beans, are at least slightly toxic without cooking.)

And yes, we do have dry nuts available; again, in decent variety at anything larger than quickie-mart. (Although I can imagine getting tired of trail mix (fruit/nut blends) pretty quickly.)

And when I said "no grains" I was forgetting about rice of course, and the recent entry of Quinoa. Although, again, I wasn't aware you can eat either without cooking. The only grains I would eat without cooking are rolled grains, which are already pretty much pre-cooked.