To prepare for major disasters, downtown offices now stock water, food, blankets, and more so employees can live at the office for three days if they cannot get home. Water comes in PET bottles; food varies.
Classics include hardtack and cup noodles. Instant rice and onigiri have also become much more widely available.
Poor taste is old news, but many cup noodles and retort foods still need hot water.
So here is curry that heats easily — precisely "Pinic Cook Beef Curry (medium hot)." I had a chance to try it, so here is a report. Can you see the steam in the photo above? First, open the top of the pouch containing one serving (200 g each of curry and rice) and add 150 milliliters of water= photo upper right, then close the opening= photo upper center. The water inside soon starts to boil, and in 20 minutes it is ready. Open the pack and plate it
andphoto lower it looks delicious (the photo shows leftovers from a tasting portion; normally it fills the tray). It tasted like ordinary retort curry — and it was good.
The "fireless heater" — literally a heater without fire — works because quicklime reacts with water and gives off heat. A little aluminum is added for efficient heating. Since the water is only for warming, unless it smells bad, river or seawater can be used too —
OK. It keeps for three years and costs around 1,000 yen per meal at home centers and online shops. Apparently it is favored by the Self-Defense Forces.
In elementary school, when emergency hardtack neared its best-by date, it was handed out to students to take home. That was decades ago, and even dry biscuits were welcome — but hardtack was not tasty. Compared with that, how blessed our times are. Part of me wants children to experience life before the "age of abundance" — or is that just an old person's gripe?