# Food Prep Considerations for Apartment / Subdivision Dwellers



## pawpaw (Dec 21, 2011)

I've stored bulk items alright, as best one can in a 4-plex, but WOW- I'd never given any thought to CRE's (Canned, ready-to-eat). How in God's name would I cook a pot of beans & rice after SHTF without attracting lots of smellers?
As it is, when I go on my evening walks, many times I can smell dinner cooking in any given subdivision, and even identify what's cooking from house to house.
Living in a complex only enhances this 'Supper Syndrome', and I can only imagine the intensity if one was a passer-by who hadn't eaten in a week.
New plan: Iv'e begun buying cans of everything I know we'll eat; chicken & dumplins', mini ravioli, spanish rice, fruit cocktail, etc. The wife's told me to go very light on the pork & beans, though- from a gastrointestinal standpoint, it's a SMALL apartment! I figure I'll eat cold or nothing in a pinch. Don't know how this escaped me beforehand, maybe this revelation will help others who don't have 5 to 50 acres. Just sayin'....


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*time to evaluate with our noses*

I have long thought this. Cook almost anything, and you will have company in a future era where potentially many people are starving.

When I took a food storage class more than 30 years ago at an LDS church, the mainstay was wheat, which can be used for many things, but my thought always was to make a loaf of bread as often as needed, and in some families that would be one or two a day. Even when I am not hungry, let alone not having eaten in a day or two, or even worse, starving, there is nothing like the smell of fresh bread coming out of the oven. I can't imagine.

What can you cook that doesn't really smell? Beans, rice and oatmeal are not as strong smelling, but I think when you are hungry, you will smell it.

I read that in Vietnam, in the tunnels where the native people lived, they vented their cooking to the roots of trees. I am not sure how this worked, and we all know we are not living underground.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

This is an excellent topic. I live on five acres, and most around us have more than that - so we're not apartment dwellers by any means. But I definitely don't trust the nut jobs that live on one side of us, and have big concerns about them when the SHTF. Thanks for bringing this up - foods that don't smell (or methods for cooking foods that do) is something we should all think about...

Oh, for a loaf of fresh baked bread...!


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## tac803 (Nov 21, 2010)

That is a valid point, and one of the benefits of foods like Wise or Mountain House is that they don't require cooking. Merely pour hot water into the pouch and reseal them. The other option is eating food cold, and that's just an adjustment as long as they don't require cooking to make them safe. Nutrition is paramount, but keeping things close to the vest is good at times.


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## pawpaw (Dec 21, 2011)

I'm going to boil some water & pour it over a can of something, let it sit a spell, and see how 'Odiferous' it is when opened. Probably not the Sourkraut, though........... It's going to be an experiment in "To warm or not?" ahead of time, instead of learning something the hard way.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

pawpaw said:


> I'm going to boil some water & pour it over a can of something, let it sit a spell, and see how 'Odiferous' it is when opened. Probably not the Sourkraut, though........... It's going to be an experiment in "To warm or not?" ahead of time, instead of learning something the hard way.


I don't believe cooking smells will get outside if you have your windows shut. It would be interesting to see if cooking smells reach ground level if you have just your upstairs windows open.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*Maybe not where you live*



BillS said:


> I don't believe cooking smells will get outside if you have your windows shut. It would be interesting to see if cooking smells reach ground level if you have just your upstairs windows open.


I often smell my neighbor's food, in the middle of the winter, when the doors and windows are closed. Yes, I live in an old drafty house, but if I can smell it, they can too!

I have a smoker that I use sometimes for cooking on my deck. I have a very nosy and gossipy neighbor, who more than once I have seen come over and look through the very narrow space between the boards in my privacy fence to see what I was cooking. And she is not starving. I would like an automatic water spray that is motion sensored when she or anyone else comes snooping or snoopervising!


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

weedygarden said:


> I often smell my neighbor's food, in the middle of the winter, when the doors and windows are closed. Yes, I live in an old drafty house, but if I can smell it, they can too!
> 
> I have a smoker that I use sometimes for cooking on my deck. I have a very nosy and gossipy neighbor, who more than once I have seen come over and look through the very narrow space between the boards in my privacy fence to see what I was cooking. And she is not starving. I would like an automatic water spray that is motion sensored when she or anyone else comes snooping or snoopervising!


Most of my neighbors have to "wander by" when I have either the smoker or the wood fired pizza oven fired up. I take it as a compliment. 
I often compliment the neighbors if they are cooking stuff that smells good. P/S most of my neighbors are at least 300 yards apart from one another. :2thumb:

But when there is little to no food this could become a very very big problem. even wood smoke would be a sign of possible food.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Food smells drifting out so that "passers by" can smell it, thats what guns and ammo are for.

I dont mean to sound unsociable but I am skimping and scraping now preparing while they are out driving their new 1 ton trucks pulling their boats to the lakes on the weekends or taking off for who knows where in their RV's. 

I spend my days bent over in a garden growing things we will need and am up till, lets see what time it is - oh its 03:40(am) and I just finished putting up todays produce. My weekend relaxation may be spraying the grandson with the water hose for an hour or so then its back to work.

Let them smell the dinner cooking when I put a meal on the table for my family, I worked and sweated for it and will defend it by whatever means it takes.

Rememer the "Ant and Grasshopper"?


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