Being home with a somewhat limited food supply has me thinking about food a lot. I’m not exactly stuck on a desert island, yet, the situation makes me wonder what I’d do if I was.

Lockdown Prompt #2

Desert Island Foods

Name 3 unprocessed foods that you would be happy to eat for the rest of your life, if the rest of your life was lived on a desert island.

How would you prepare them to keep yourself from getting tired of them?

To clarify – wheat would be an unprocessed food, bread would be a processed food.

FREE PASS – if you have food sensitivities like I do, you get to throw them out the window. This is fantasy time, so you get to eat whatever you want. Also, you don’t have to worry about nutrition. Your desert island magically imbues you with all the nutrients you need. This fantasy is all about how to keep yourself from getting bored eating the same food every day.

As previously mentioned, since many people are confined to their homes at this time, I thought I would offer some prompts for those who find themselves with a bit of extra time on their hands. My hopes are that these exercises will help us take the focus off of  our anxieties.

Share your answers in the comments – or if you’re the shy and retiring type, note them down in your journal or a scrap of paper.

I’ll share my own answers here at the end of the week.

So, let’s hear it – what are your three desert island foods???

As promised… Here are my three desert island foods:

Sheep’s milk, avocado, and apricots.

I had to think hard about this – and while my first inclination was to pick wheat as one of the ingredients (since this is fantasy time, and in reality, I can’t eat it)… it turns out there are foods I love more than those made out of wheat.

Sheep’s Milk

While living in France, I fell in love with sheep’s milk yogurt. It has a different texture and flavor than yogurt made from cow milk, and doesn’t have any of the strong flavors that can show up in goat’s milk.

Cheeses made from sheep’s milk are also my favorites.

On my desert island, I think I could find someway to make both yogurt and feta cheese from this ingredient – satisfying my sweet tooth and my savory cravings.

I’m not eating any dairy at the moment as I try to narrow down which foods work the best for me, so this is an indulgence in fantasy – but I hope to reintegrate this food into my diet someday.

Avocado

You know how you meet a food and fall in love?

That was me and avocado. Probably you and avocado too.

Maybe not – though I have a hard time understanding how anyone could not love this luscious fruit.

I would eat avocado everyday if I could, so this choice was pretty obvious for me.

Apricots

Picking a fruit for this exercise was the hardest. How could I possibly have ruled out delicious green mangoes, ripe cherries, tart little passion fruits?

Last year Chad and I ate or preserved 500 pounds of apricots from a single tree – and I never got tired of eating them fresh.

If I didn’t get tired of eating fresh apricots after all that, I don’t think I ever will.

Combining My Three Ingredients

Sheep’s milk yogurt and apricots sounds like a lovely combo. I could handle that for breakfast several times a week. And I’m assuming this is a warm, tropical desert island where I don’t need to worry about eating warming foods.

Apricot and avocado salad would probably work too. I’m guessing I could find some native plants to season my savory dishes. Many plants have a citrusy flavor – sumac berries, needles from conifers. And I could harvest some salt from the sea to sprinkle on top of my salad.

And of course, avocado and sheep feta as a salad. Yum. EVERY DAY. Topped with vinegar made from apricots!

This is not my first choice in how to eat avocado – but if I could make myself a little fire, I could probably make avocado gratin baked with sheep’s milk.

I never thought of cooking avocado – until once in a restaurant in Paris, I saw avocado gratin on the menu, decided to try it, and was pleasantly surprised.

So there you go! Faced with the ridiculous limitation of only three foods, I did my best.

Share yours!