{"id":344,"date":"2012-05-16T05:20:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T05:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/?p=344"},"modified":"2012-05-18T20:01:20","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T20:01:20","slug":"my-emergency-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2012\/05\/my-emergency-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"My Emergency Shelf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Chef James Beard is a hero of mine. His prose is clean, content-rich, and full of wry opinion. He honored history and tried to be an Everyman. Beard\u2019s manifesto in favor of ham as party food changed me forever.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine my pleasure, then, when I learned he\u2019d written a cookbook entitled, How to Eat Better for Less Money<\/em>. I opened the book to discover an entire chapter devoted to the concept of an \u201cEmergency Shelf.\u201d[ii]<\/p>\n

Culinary preparation for an emergency is a central part of my heritage. From the time the Latter-day Saint (LDS) pioneers first successfully harvested their crops in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young encouraged them to store up the excess for future times of famine. In 1876, Young asked Woman\u2019s Exponent <\/em>newspaper editor Emmeline B. Wells to publish editorials with an appeal to women to save wheat. A few weeks later Eliza R. Snow, the leader of the Relief Society (the LDS Church\u2019s women\u2019s organization), organized a Central Grain Committee with Wells as chairman. [iii] The committee coordinated grain-saving activities throughout the Relief Society for the next several decades. Saving wheat became so synonymous with Relief Society work that artist Jack Sears added sheaves of wheat to his redesign of the Relief Society seal in 1941. [iv]<\/p>\n

In 1940, the General Relief Society President, Amy Lyman Brown, the Presiding Bishop, Joseph L. Wirthlin, and head of the welfare system, Harold B. Lee, formed a wheat committee as part of the larger Church Welfare Program. The Relief Society would provide wheat, the welfare system would provide storage facilities, and the Church would pay to store and care for the wheat. By 1943, Church grain storage elevators in Salt Lake City and Sharp, Utah, and McCannon, Idaho, held nearly 300,000 bushels of wheat.[v]<\/p>\n

Today we are taught<\/a>, \u201c[Heavenly Father] has lovingly commanded us to \u2018prepare every needful thing\u2019 (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors and support bishops as they care for others. We encourage members worldwide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings.\u201d[vi]<\/p>\n

In minds with imaginative tendencies, such teachings can flourish. Growing up, my family consisted of three members: Mom, Grandma, and me. In my late teens, I was so appalled by what I perceived to be our inadequate emergency preparedness that I pursued one of my lifetime\u2019s top five well-intentioned but most-insensitive acts. I bought an emergency preparedness book (one not published by the Church). It featured a shiny black cover strikingly emblazoned with an apocalpytic lightning bolt.<\/p>\n

Carefully studying the charts and recommendations therein, I developed a program detailing what we should buy each month over the course of two years so that we would eventually have a complete, shelf-stable, one-year supply of food. It was the kind of food my mother and grandmother never, ever ate: barley, lentils, powdered milk. I gave them my plan, and the shiny black book, for Christmas. They did not attempt to follow my plan. Not even for a month.<\/p>\n

I gradually moved toward adulthood, still nervous about my lack of food storage. After marriage, I found myself haunted by the specter once more. Eventually, I settled on a food storage plan somewhat like current official suggestions.<\/a> In addition to items intended for long-term storage (of which we still don\u2019t have enough), my family now boasts a three-month supply of everyday items that we rotate, like pasta and black beans. I\u2019ve learned to bottle peaches, tomatoes, quince, jams, chutneys, and beets for our supply. An earthquake would destroy all of my bottled labors, but in the meantime, they nourish us well.<\/p>\n

When I came across Beard\u2019s book, I still felt engaged in the search for an ideal food storage plan. I knew that Beard would have good answers. I trusted that his emergency shelf would harbor delicious options for times of stress. Looking up his \u201cEmergency Shelf\u201d chapter felt like the cusp of resolution for my food storage difficulties.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Beard\u2019s conception of emergency was different than mine. I wanted to prepare for unemployment, power outages, and earthquakes. Salt Lake City sits atop the Wasatch Fault; what would be salvageable from my octogenarian brick bungalow? But instead of teaching me the safest areas to preserve months of supply, Beard described his single shelf: canned tongue, caviar, gefilte fish, lobster, chutney, and liquors. Beard\u2019s idea of an emergency? Unexpected dinner guests.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to do about Beard\u2019s shelf. I feed my Jewish friends, but none of us likes gefilte fish. (One such friend brought us a pork tenderloin when my last child was born.) Still, having gefilte fish in the pantry might be an important gesture. Beard\u2019s shelf challenged me. I admired it. Beard\u2019s shelf was a reminder to be inclusive. Beard\u2019s shelf focused on the other, on the idea of providing spontaneous pleasure for other people. His shelf was celebratory.<\/p>\n

My shelf, on the other hand, reflects a struggle between holding on and letting go. Knowing all the work invested in each bottle, I sometimes feel reluctant to open them too often. Will tonight\u2019s guests realize how hard we worked to forage these elderberries? But lately, I\u2019ve been sharing the contents of our emergency shelf with unusual abandon, something my generous husband is always willing to do. This freer approach to pantry outflows makes me feel a little closer to Beard\u2019s goodness and capacity for celebration.<\/p>\n

In general, though, my shelf has provided pleasure of a different sort. My shelf displays the satisfaction of work, what Elaine Jack (General President of Relief Society when she said this in 1993<\/a>) described as, \u201cmagic in getting into a task so thoroughly that you relish the process itself. Maybe that\u2019s why some of us get so much satisfaction from full jars of fruit in a storage room.\u201d[vii] My shelf speaks of security and careful planning. List-keeping. Emergency preparedness. I suspect Beard was better company at dinner parties than I am, but as I am, this is the shelf I have made.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

[i] James Beard, James Beard\u2019s Simple Foods<\/em> (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 201\u2013202.<\/p>\n

[ii] James Beard, How to Eat Better For Less Money<\/em> (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954).<\/p>\n

[iii] \u201cStore up Grain,\u201d Woman\u2019s Exponent<\/em> 5:12 [Nov. 15, 1876]:92<\/p>\n

[iv] Improvement Era<\/em>, September 1941, 542.<\/p>\n

[v] Jessie L. Embry, \u201cRelief Society Grain Storage Program, 1876-1940\u201d (Master\u2019s Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974), 67\u201369.<\/p>\n

[vi] http:\/\/www.lds.org\/family\/family-well-being\/home-storage?lang=eng<\/p>\n

[vii] Elaine L. Jack, \u201cGet a Life\u201d, January 3, 1993, http:\/\/speeches.byu.edu\/reader\/reader.php?id=7097.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chef James Beard is a hero of mine. His prose is clean, content-rich, and full of wry opinion. He honored history and tried to be an Everyman. Beard\u2019s manifesto in favor of ham as party food changed me forever.[i]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":909,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[14,11,12,13],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormonism","tag-canning","tag-food-storage","tag-james-beard","tag-mormon-food"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Emergency Shelf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chef James Beard is a hero of mine. His prose is clean, content-rich, and full of wry opinion. He honored history and tried to be an Everyman. 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