Emergency Food Storage Cooking

by Linda Dixon
(Clovis, Ca,)

Our story about emergency food storage cooking.

It is very interesting how sometimes we are moved upon to do things. We never know what might happen: natural disaster, national crisis, or maybe just not being able to pay the bills because of a job loss. My husband and I really got to thinking about this, and how we need to be prepared; so that is how it all started.

My husband Archie had been thinking about emergency cooking when all of a sudden he said, “We need to write a book about cooking food storage in a Dutch oven. How will all those thousands of people who have food storage cook it when there is no gas or electricity?"

Here is Archie in the backyard
cooking food storage in the Dutch ovens.

Years ago most people cut, stacked, and stored wood for their cook stoves. Archie can remember his mother telling him stories about how she and her sisters had to cut the wood for the stove in the kitchen. If you look around us today, you can see that we have evolved into a society that has advanced way past the need to have wood stoves. This is more than likely a good thing, right? I can only imagine what the air would look like if all of us used wood for cooking and heat. With electricity and gas we have things so much easier.

There is one major problem with our dependency on gas and electricity. If the supply is interrupted for any reason what will you do to cook your food? We looked around our home and thought; maybe we could burn the fence? If you pause for a moment, just think about it, what would you do with no power to cook your food? You may have food stored, maybe a lot of it, but how are you going to cook it?

Archie and I have always enjoyed Dutch oven cooking when we go camping. There is always plenty of firewood around and there is not a problem having fuel to cook with, but most of the time we take some charcoal with us for the Dutch ovens. The food tastes great and it is fun to cook.

Here is a picture of our four Dutch ovens stacked up
to show some of the different sizes that are available.

So that’s when it hit him, we need to store charcoal to have for cooking when the power is off. We contacted the Kingsford Charcoal Company and they told us charcoal lasts forever. It is safe to store (no fear of it exploding, like propane tanks). If it gets wet, just dry it out and use it. And it is fairly inexpensive.

We recommend you get a 12” Dutch oven since it is the most versatile size, and start learning how to use it. Get a plastic garbage can and fill it up with charcoal. Be sure you get one that has a nice secure lid.



Have fun learning to use a Dutch oven for your emergency cooking.

Linda Dixon, Clovis, California

P.S.

You are welcome to "check-out" our book at JustDutchIt.com.