Pantry DNA

Ruth Ann Zimmerman, whom I follow on Instagram, about having food preservation in her DNA.  And later she shared a brief post about having anxiety this time of year.  She felt it was because she came from a long line of hunters/gatherers who produced, harvested, preserved, and stored food for the year ahead.  

I can so identify with that attitude of feeling you must create food storage.  

I learned pantry principles from my mother who kept a good supply of food in the house, as did my grandmothers.  I wish I could tell you that Big Mama and Grandmother Stewart did, too but I never saw their pantries.  Big Mama had a proper pantry closet, but I was never once allowed to walk into that closet.  Granny had limited space and used to store her canning jars outdoors in Grandaddy's work shed.  Grandmother kept a deep freezer.  None of them had a kitchen with much storage but they all believed in the principles of putting food up.  

In my first marriage I learned pretty quickly that food was not my husband's priority.  If we had a little extra, he might allot me $10 for food but he might expect it to last a month before he thought to set aside more.  This was in 1980 when the economy crashed and while prices were lower than they are now, it was pretty hard to figure out how to feed two on $10!  

I grabbed my cookbooks and learned quickly how to make meals that used 1/2 cup of meat and still give us two meals.  I learned to forage for what I could and to graciously and gratefully take whatever anyone cared to send our way.  If my mother-in-law offered us a bag of fresh peas from the garden, I took them and put them in the freezer.  If Granny asked if I wanted to go to the woods to pick blueberries, I went and picked blueberries.  If a co-worked said, "I have extra tomatoes.  Would you like a half dozen?"  I said, "Yes thank you!"  and I'd dice those up and put those in the freezer, too.  

I finally convinced my husband at the time of the need to have a deep freezer.  He knew someone who was wanting to give one away and I happily accepted it.  And I filled that freezer the same way I'd been feeding us all along, with little bits here and there of whatever I could get my hands on.  Whether we produced it in the tiny garden next to our clothesline (and taking up only about as much space), or from hunters who had a wild boar or deer meat they didn't want, or a food plant sending out a message that we could cull a field they'd finished picking, I canned, I froze, I baked, I fed.

And it has just remained a habit over the years.

I recall an afternoon when I'd come in from a long day of shopping, back when I used to shop multiples of stores at one time when I went shopping.  Katie was home from school when I returned, and she'd offered to put away the foods going into the (then) main food cupboard.  She sat down on the floor, surrounded by boxes and cans.  As she put them away in the cupboard she said, "You must find it very comforting to have this food ahead for us."  

Katie had never known those days when we had only a fridge freezer and a tiny set of cabinets for food storage.  She'd never known the days when I cried on my way home from the grocery because I'd had to figure out if I should buy an extra can of baby formula or an extra pound of ground beef.  Either way, we were going to come up short before the next pay period arrived.  I swear every grocery shopping was an exercise in faith, because I knew I had to trust that God would provide what we couldn't.  She'd not been old enough to know the meals that were far more rice, pasta or potatoes than protein, nor the days I'd stretched a chicken to feed our family of seven not just one meal but four.  I doubt she remembered the nights we sat down, and neighbors or friends had come to join us for the meal that got stretched a bit further with each additional plate we fit on our crowded table.

But she was very accurate when she stated that I must feel 'comforted' knowing I had food ahead for our home.   As the years went on and Katie grew up and moved out, we expanded the pantry to include a closet in what had become the guest room.  We bought a larger freezer and filled it.  And in the years that followed we furnished Katie and Sam with multiples of pantries when they were setting up their own households, at least enough of a pantry to give them a hard start.  

Neither of them kept a real pantry in those early years but I've noted that they both tend to stock far more food now than ever in the past.  Katie used to have months of formula and baby food ahead for her babies, but for herself things often looked pretty scarce.  Now that she has a larger family of her own, she stocks more heavily on good basic foods that will feed her family.  Sam keeps expanding his food storage. It's on top of cabinets and on the extra shelves he's crammed into available spaces in the laundry.  They have both come to appreciate the pantry principle of life.

Like Ruthann, I can sincerely say, "It's in my DNA."

If studying genealogy has given me back a sense of family, of being rooted in the time and space where I find myself at this time, I can say that this year's #everybitcounts challenge has reminded me of other things that are in my DNA makeup.  The need and want to provide for my family, the desire to be prepared for what I can, and the deep satisfaction that comes from seeing a well-stocked pantry and freezer, knowing that we can face the winter months ahead.

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