March 18, 2025
TOKYO – A group of nine parents and children cooked up a storm in late November in central Masuda, Shimane Prefecture, making hot meals that could be easily prepared even in the wake of a major disaster.
The menu, which featured dishes including a “pizza potato omelet” made with potato chips and eggs, and chawanmushi (savory steamed egg custard) that was made using powered instant soup, was devised by the group’s instructor, Mizuho Akita. Using pots and a portable gas stove, participants put the ingredients in heat-resistant cooking bags and warmed them for about 15 minutes to complete the dishes.
Akita, 51, runs a restaurant in Masuda. After graduating from a high school in the city, she attended a culinary school in Osaka. When the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck in 1995, it was Akita’s second year as a teacher at the culinary school.
School employees tried to travel to the disaster-hit area, but they were forced to turn back amid the chaos and lack of vehicle access due to the collapse of a section of the Hanshin Expressway.
After Akita had her third child, she returned to Masuda, where she worked at a clothing chain store. After the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in 2011, she was sent to Miyagi Prefecture, which was hit hard by the quake, to gauge the disaster victims’ needs.
However, she was only requested to do physically demanding work such as removing mud-covered household belongings and clearing sediment that had been deposited inside houses.
About four years ago, her mind began drifting toward emergency provision preparation after attending a course on the topic. The course, which was run by a friend who had moved from Miyagi Prefecture, stirred up the feeling of helplessness she had in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin and Great East Japan earthquakes.
“I thought food, which I’d prepared and handled for many years, could be my way to help disaster victims,” Akita said.
She started thinking of dishes that anybody could easily make.
Akita joined a nonprofit organization based in western Shimane Prefecture that was involved in disaster prevention and mitigation activities. In April 2024, about three months after the devastating Noto Peninsula Earthquake, four members of the NPO headed to the town of Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, to help prepare and distribute food to residents there.
When she arrived in the disaster-hit region, she saw destroyed buildings, piles of debris and houses leaning at unsafe angles. Many of the people sheltering at the evacuation center Akita visited were elderly.
Akita grabbed a nearby cardboard box, tore off a piece and began writing down a menu. It featured local dishes of Shimane Prefecture, such as uzume-meshi, a bowl of rice with sea bream and vegetables popular in the town of Tsuwano, and a hot pot long famed as a meal of choice by sumo wrestlers in Oki region in the prefecture.
These dishes were unfamiliar to many people in Shika.
“What’s uzume-meshi?” asked one person.
This helped to spark conversations and brought smiles to the faces of the disaster victims.
“People were delighted when we served warm meals,” Akita recalled. “I sensed that eating food gave them hope to keep living.”
Back in Masuda with the cooking group, children’s laughter echoed around the room.
“Cooking the food was fun,” said one child after finishing their meal. “The omelet with potato chips was really good.”
Akita said, “The memory of eating a meal they cooked themselves might remain in the back of their mind, and perhaps they’ll make it again if the need arises in an extreme situation.”
Akita hopes that making warm emergency meals that offer victims some comfort after a disaster will become more widespread.
Using items round the house
Sakiko Sonoyama, a registered dietitian from Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, also teaches people how to make emergency meals using items from around the house.
In December, she taught six Izumo residents how to make a custard pudding with an empty milk carton. She also taught them how to make a dried daikon radish salad, as well as how to prepare canned mackerel cooked in miso using a heat-resistant cooking bag.
Sonoyama, 41, was inspired to come up with the custard pudding recipe after hearing from friends, who had helped out in disaster-hit areas, that many people craved “something sweet.” Her recipe involves putting eggs, milk, fresh cream and sugar in the carton, mixing these ingredients, covering the top of the carton with aluminum foil and then boiling the whole thing.
“These ingredients all provide protein, vitamins and minerals that people tend to lack after a disaster,” Sonoyama said. “I urge people to stock up on these foods. When their expiration dates get close, they should eat them, but then restock them.”
Enough for 1 week
The government recommends that each household stockpiles at least three days’ worth of food and water, preferably one week’s worth, if possible, to prepare for an emergency. For one adult, three days’ worth of food includes three liters of drinking water, seven packets of packaged cooked rice and five cans of meat and fish.