Thoughts on preparedness

When we first got to georgia, we had no food. I have no idea what Paul was subsisting on for the three weeks before we got here. And since we live up a huge hill and have to carry everything we buy up with us, I had to gradually stock the pantry.



(Aren't these beans pretty? It's the most widely available bean here.)

First we got staples. Noodles. Flour. Rice. Beans. Oil. Sugar. Sound familiar to any of you Mormons out there? These are the foods we are advised to store, so we can be prepared for any disruption in our normal food supply, be it personal economic hardship or worldwide fuel shortage or crop failure or disease pandemic or...well, so we are prepared and can live through anything that might happen.


So these staples were all that was looking at me every time one of my boys said, I'm hungry--and let me tell you, they did not want anything from said cupboard. Even adding meat--chicken or ground beef--did not do much for anyone. I couldn't help but think of the many people around the world who would consider this a lot of food, a well stocked pantry. But honestly, when you are ripped from your comfortable life, as my kids I'm sure felt that they were, these staples make pretty bleak meals. And it is very stressful for the mom when all you can think about is what to feed your family, where your next meal is going to come from.

I should also point out that it was march and nothing was growing yet. We could get last year's potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage and beets. Lots of fresh greens tho. Some mealy imported tomatoes, pretty decent apples, and bananas at a shocking $.75 apiece. If it weren't for these, we would not have had any fiber or vitamins at all.

The next items i added were only slightly more helpful in creating meals. Yeast. Eggs. Bouillon. Tomato paste. A few Georgian spice blends. oregano was especially hard to find, and you just can't do pizza without it. I had the hardest time finding anything that would taste good to the boys. And i found out that really, if it doesn't taste good to your kids, they would rather be hungry than eat it.

I know these basic foods will keep someone alive. But not my family. Gotta have spices. Gotta have familiar flavors. Gotta have some "home treats" stored away so there can be some semblance of normalcy while struggling to rebuild your worldview according to the your new situation or circumstances.

I was delighted to find many of some old standbys from my days in Russia: buckwheat, known as grechka here, cream of wheat, a certain brand of oatmeal...but the menfolk around here were not impressed. And as I tried to remember what we ate as missionaries, i came to the conclusion that we did not eat very well at all. Noodles, rice pilaf, and soup. Salami/sausage type deli meat. Oatmeal. White bread with nutella...snickers...Finnish chocolate...mmmm fazer mints....I just found out you can buy these on amazon. Oh yum. But I digress...


Currently Liam is subsisting on the following:

cereal (a German brand of frosted cornflakes called snowies)


freshly baked georgian bread (it is the best bread ever, baked in a clay oven and costs like $.50. I think I will have eaten my weight in Georgian bread by the time we leave)


Georgian cheese bread--khachapuri. Also delicious and cheap. Unfortunately I can't
partake of the goodness. But the boys eat it every time we are out. It's sold in corner bread stores and on every restaurant menu. Thank goodness. Many a whiny afternoon has been saved by the procurement of khachapuri.


and pelmeni. These are little meat filled dumplings, boiled like potstickers or in a brothy soup. With fresh dill. Oh so good. And if it weren't for these, Liam would have no meat at all. This what they had for their first meal in the house here.



I make them from scratch in the states, but lucky for me, they are sold frozen everywhere here. One good legacy from soviet times.


So. The lesson learned from all this? If things fall apart in the world, we need a cow for dairy and a wheat field to survive. Chickens. We need to grow vegetables and fruits and preserve them to last through the winter. We need a root cellar. We need a good source of sugar. Kids need some familiar things to help them feel like life is good. If all we have is buckets of where and beans, we are not going to be very happy.

And beyond food:

A couple of weeks ago, our water was shut off for a while. I had been filling all our empty 8L water bottles back up with tap water, just in case of, you know, whatever. Because this is Georgia, and "whatever" seems to happen frequently here. So, yeah, the water gets shut off for several hours. The neighbors came over to see if our water was off too. I asked if they had any water stored, and they said they didn't even have any in the teapot. Their water had never been shut off before in the 50 years they'd been living there. We had plenty to spare (we have bought a lot of water over the last 2 months) so i gave them a couple of bottles so they could at least have something. It was great to be able to share. And my bottle filling mania was justified. You just never know when you're going to need vats of water.

Besides cleaning and homeschooling, this has been the main occupation of my time here--feed the family. Meet their basic needs. Life is distilled to basic needs pretty quickly when everything familiar is gone. It's been on my mind a lot.

And I'd like to just add that in the absence of familiar food, familiar toys go a looooong way toward making kids happy. My children could win a Lego marathon.

So. This ended up being a longer post than i thought it would be. What are your thoughts? What would you buy if you were me? What can you make from staples? Do you have enough for yourselves? Do you have enough to help a neighbor out?


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Location:Bilisi