Amid food shortages at stores shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, many people survived through making do with what they had on hand to create a wealth of innovative dishes.
Amid food shortages at stores shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, many people survived through making do with what they had on hand to create a wealth of innovative dishes.
A collection of experiences and recipes by earthquake and tsunami survivors in Miyagi Prefecture is selling well.
The booklet, “Watashi wa Koshite Shinoida--Shoku no Chie-bukuro” (This is how I survived--Pearls of wisdom on food), was compiled by eight members of the public interest foundation Sendai Hito-Machi Koryu Zaidan.
The foundation members sought recipes and anecdotes from survivors to write about their experiences and what they ate after the disaster, thinking that “food plays an important role in living and restoring everyday life,” they said.
The Asahi Shimbun asked six people about what they ate and what ingredients they found useful. They cited “hakusai” Chinese cabbage and potatoes, which can be stored for long periods; “itakasu” sake leeks in a block for a drink with sugar; powdered cheese and milk (to replace dairy products); powdered “okara” bean curd refuse; flour; dried foods (which increase in volume and are nutritious); and canned foods, including tuna and tomato sauce.
Jin Hashimoto, 75, a resident in Sendai’s Taihaku Ward, cooked curry on the night of March 12, using “hakusai” cabbage, which he had kept on the veranda for consumption in the event of an earthquake, and canned beef boiled with soy sauce and sugar. He served it with “suiton” flour dumplings instead of rice.
The former commissioned welfare volunteer thought of three bedridden women who lived alone in the same city-run residential complex where he lived. He wanted to fix “something hot” for them, even though he rarely cooked. They cried with pleasure at the treat.
Masae Sugai, 72, a resident in Natori, suffered from the disruption of electricity and water service due to the earthquake. Her relatives living near the coast went missing. Since she was using propane gas at home, she was able to cook rice and boiled dishes using leftover vegetables and dry food.
However, all she could get at a supermarket after standing in line for several hours was candy.
When she felt like eating vegetables, all she had were two mikan oranges.
“Mikan peels are used for herbal medicine. I can use them in another dish,” she thought.
Even though they tasted slightly bitter, they enlivened the table, she said.
Around the fifth day following the earthquake, the family of Kayo Tamagawa, a 47-year-old company worker, suffered from a shortage of ingredients. So, she cooked a pizza-like dish on a portable stove, using potatoes that had been sent from her husband’s parents.
Her three fast-growing children enjoyed the pizza immensely.
“We cooked changing toppings and noisily chatting. We needed a break like this at least when we were dining,” she said.
The electricity and water had been out for four to five days at the home of Akiko Yamada, a 42-year-old homemaker who lives in Sendai's Taihaku Ward.
“I was so exhausted with fetching water and collecting information that I had no energy to cook in the beginning,” she said.
Yamada used ready-to-serve foods and thawed foods in the first days, but gradually came to use canned goods.
“Canned foods, which I just stored, were very useful,” she said.
Another contributor, homemaker Kazuko Shoji, 54, had a stock of dry goods and rice flour.
“Dry goods were boiled. We baked bread using rice flour,” said Shoji, a resident in Sendai’s Taihaku Ward who loves to cook.
She and her family had to sleep wearing their daily clothing with aftershocks repeatedly occurring in the first days following the earthquake.
To cheer her daughter’s heart, she cooked “butasan dango” (piggy dumplings), a dish she often prepared for cooking contests.
“As I decorated a pig face, I found myself smiling too,” she said.
While she was in the kitchen, she felt relieved, thinking of her normal life before the earthquake, she recalled.
Keiko Takahashi, a foundation member who compiled the booklet, cooked at evacuation centers.
The members cooked stew using vegetables provided by local residents, adding powdered milk sent as relief supplies as a stew base.
The stew delighted evacuees, who had grown tired of eating instant foods as the days passed, Takahashi, 57, said.
“One is heartened when served food prepared carefully with extra effort,” she said.
The compilers recommend that one has a stock of ingredients on hand that can be applied to prepare a variety of dishes. When the sell-by date nears, they can be used in a simulation, as if a disaster had occurred.
“Why don’t you hold a potluck party with your neighbors and hold a competition?” Takahashi suggests.
The booklet is priced at 300 yen ($3).
(This article was written by Hikari Maruyama and Kanako Nakabayashi.)