Food Not Bombs and Andrew Zimmern tonite on Travel Channel

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sharpandsafe

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Hi Folks,

I just wanted to make sure everyone knows about the episode of Bizarre Foods tonight on the Travel Channel in which Andrew scours the streets of San Francisco for cast-off food. I know wilderness survival is the major interest here, but I often think about all the resources that are wasted in the urban environment. Food Not Bombs is often seen as a political lefty organization, and there probably isn't a lot of lefty sentiment on these forums, but the issues they raise about resource use I think can bridge the gap (just ignore the social ideology). I think it could be very interesting to watch. I don't have cable television, but I would love to hear impressions of the show from anyone that sees it, and perhaps spur a discussion about urban survival scenarios. I am hoping I will eventually be able to download the episode somewhere.

I don't currently have the luxury of living in a rural setting. Perhaps I am paranoid, but I can imagine the possibility of being thrust into an urban survival scenario. Knowing how to capture, kill, and process game, build a shelter from saplings, and forage for edible wild plants are great and important skills to learn, I think urban survival strategies are also important (and interesting to me, at least). A friend of mine calls pigeons "little chickens" and claims they will be a great untapped source of quality protein after a future nuclear armageddon ;)

Cheers!
 
I have no idea if it's still in print but there was a book about "surviving" on cast offs called possum living by Dolly Freed that covered that subject.
 
I agree, we waste alot of food is this country, we could probably feed all the hungry small countries with what we as a nation waste. I think as time goes on food management will be a major topic in this country.
 
RickJ said:
I agree, we waste alot of food is this country, we could probably feed all the hungry small countries with what we as a nation waste. I think as time goes on food management will be a major topic in this country.
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So many Americans are obese or over weight.
I think the "supersize everything" makes us feel
guilty if we leave anything on the plate.
"We paid good money for all those fries,you better eat them all" syndrome.
We need to learn that a serving for 1 really is a serving for 2.

Im gonna watch that show tonight.
thanks for the heads up.
 
Cool. I'll have to check that out.
 
Ugh, Bizarre Foods is not on iTunes, so I guess I'll have to wait a while to download this from another source. I can't wait to hear your comments, and if anyone has a DVR and a DVD burner and wants to send me a DVD copy, I'll give you 10 bucks (though I doubt that's a very appealing offer).
 
The Wild Within had an episode where he gathered food around San Francisco for a dinner party. Gathered greens, tried to fish and even collected road kill. I would rather watch him hunt moose in Canada.
 
Watched the show and thought it was pretty good. It is amazing how much food goes to waste. If everything goes to hell and you are in an urban enviroment there were some useful tips for eating fairly well.
 
I will watch the show it airs here in 20 min, I have a hard time watching Mr. Zimmern cause he is a very noisy lip smacking eater... I sound like my mom!
 
will62 said:
Watched the show and thought it was pretty good. It is amazing how much food goes to waste. If everything goes to hell and you are in an urban enviroment there were some useful tips for eating fairly well.
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Thanks! It's sounds good. I hope I can see it soon. There certainly are a lot of resources available in an urban survival scenario if you know where to look. A homeless guy that was visiting my church once gave me a fire lens, basically a large, glass condenser lens scavenged from a cast-off rear-projection screen TV. He used it to light his weed, but I can tell you, it works great for starting campfires too! Another dumpster-diving friend of mine once told me that the best place to scavenge food is the Trader Joe's dumpster because so much of TJ's food comes in packaging, so there is no risk that it touched something nasty in the dumpster. She told me she once (before I knew her) made gourmet chocolate truffles with chocolate she found in TJ's dumpster. Dumpster food or not, I don't think I could have refused to eat that! I may hang around some strange folks from time to time, but they can be a source of some cool knowledge.
 
I forgot to watch it. Darn it.
I enjoy Zimmern's program. The only things I have to change the channel on are things like like slug entrails or some such. Other than that: maggots, worms, grasshoppers, suckling pig, stinky tofu, whatever -- I'm usually in for the duration.
 
RandomAyes said:
I really don't mean to offend anyone with this, but I feel thed term "Urban Survival" is something of an oxymoron. Many cities have just too many people and just not enough biomass to sustain the population for long. If the supply lines stopped delivering food and energy, big cities would turn unpleasant sooner than later. The northern cities could be depleted during the very first winter.

Keep in mind how crazy people get in a city during times of trouble. New Orleans went to hell in just a short time after Katrina. Parts of LA burned over a freaking court case. Imagine how the unprepared citizens would act during a year-long crisis!

If I lived in a big city I'd turn my car into a giant bug out bag. I'd be ready to leave on short notice. Pre-arrange some kind of agreement with a friend or relative who lives out in the "hinterlands" where livestock outnumber people.
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Oh, I couldn't agree more! It pretty much goes without saying that the more population density you have, the more resource stress there is going to be. I think the ideas you have are good ones, but that's not to say that everyone will have those kind of resources. Many who live in a big city don't have a car (I have been carless for long periods when living in a big city), or don't know anyone in the hinterlands. Also during Katrina and the LA riots the people you see on the news are the desperate, out-of-control ones that make for a flashier broadcast. You don't see the ones who are taking care of themselves, building shelters and finding food. I doubt anyone on this forum would make much news during those kind of situations - we are just too resourceful, and that would just be boring on the TV :)

The thing I would worry about if thrust into an urban survival scenario is sanitation and the possibility of disease (reference: Katrina). Ultimately, in any long-term survival scenario you want to be in a situation where you can get a bigger slice of the resource pie. That may mean moving to an area that allows each person to have more (i.e. a rural area), but it can also mean knowing how to find and use the resources that others can't (as in an urban setting).
 
KEmSAT-Survival said:
I forgot to watch it. Darn it.
I enjoy Zimmern's program. The only things I have to change the channel on are things like like slug entrails or some such. Other than that: maggots, worms, grasshoppers, suckling pig, stinky tofu, whatever -- I'm usually in for the duration.
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I used to enjoy the show too. The one takeaway that I have from it, after seeing it over and over on different episodes, is that, apparently, tarantulas taste like crab, only better. :)
 
dear old friend of mine had a grandmother(passed now...) who used to talk about eating pigeon. she told us numerous stories/recipes for pigeon stew, roasted pigeon etc etc. she grew up in an eastern city very poor. pigeon was on the table frequently.

yeah, urban survival does require some skill. and it might seem the best notion to bug out asap. i could imagine a scenario where that isnt feasible immediately. or that a motor vehicle simply wont be useful to get outta the city. depends on so many variables, but hunkering down might be the best strategy, at least short term.
 
Pigeon, from what I've been told, is actually quite good. I'd eat one in a heartbeat. They showed suckling pig being confit'd in duck fat. My mouth started watering. Being a whole-pig roast veteran and connoisseur I'd eat a confit'd suckling pig like it was going out of style. Add some macaroni salad, cornbread, and mashed potatoes...HONEY, HUSH!

I like it because it breaks down walls of social norms and shows what people all over the world consider to be food. It challenges the American mind to realize that food is more than just what looks like it might taste good. Except for possum. I hate possum. I'll never eat it again.
 
I find info from left wing liberal anti American sources such as "Food not Bombs", suspect.
 
Seems like a good crew based on what I saw. Regardless of their political ideology, feeding those who cannot feed themselves is a very Godly thing to do.
In a country as rich as ours, there shouldn't be anybody going to bed hungry. We've forgotten a huge chunk of one of America's core values: shepherding the weak. It's especially insulting when a person sees billions in aid going to countries that, otherwise, would knife us in the back the first chance they got -- yet, a homeless Viet Nam vet has to beg for scraps on a street corner.
It is true that food establishments have to throw out food that would otherwise be completely edible. I worked in a grocery store for years in highschool and through my first few semesters of college. We were made to destroy dented cans and cans without labels, cans that would have fed some hungry family.

I liked what I saw when I caught the re-run. Hippy or not, it's a good thing they're doing. We need more of it.
 
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