When All Hell Breaks Loose (77 page)

Making a Hay Box

Quickie hay boxes can be made by wrapping up a cook pot with extra blankets, pillows, or sleeping bags. However, as the pot will be very hot, there are a few rules to follow when making or improving your heat-retaining cooker. Essentially, a hay box is any heat-safe insulating material that can be safely wrapped around a pot. Four to six inches of insulation is best, although it depends on the type of insulation, as not all are created equal. Several kinds of insulation have been used such as straw, hay, wool, feathers, cotton, rice hulls, cardboard, Styrofoam peanuts, newspaper, fiberglass, fur, papercrete, rigid foam, and others. Whatever insulation is used should fit as closely as possible to the pot for maximum efficiency. Using aluminum foil or a reflective space blanket against the pot will not only protect the insulation from some of the pot's heat but will reflect the long-wave radiation (heat) back to the pot. Heat-safe insulation can be placed directly around the pot after putting the pot in a cardboard box or it can be stuffed between two boxes and the pot placed inside the smaller box, among numerous other variations. Some people create an insulated kitchen drawer as a hay-box cooker. After simmering on the stove, they simply pop the pot into the drawer, fold the insulation down around the top, and shut the drawer while dinner cooks.

Rules for Optimal Insulation

You can get away with a lot and still have a heat-retaining cooker work well but, by adhering to the following points, your hay-box cooker will be superefficient at maximizing trapped heat. The insulation for your hay-box cooker should have the following characteristics:

It must be heat resistant and withstand cooking temperatures of up to 212 degrees F (100 degrees C), the boiling temperature for water at sea level.

It should maintain an adequate loft. Even the best insulation can be compromised by squishing it up tightly or spreading it out too thin.

It must be pliable or custom-fit to the cooking pot itself in order for it to fit around the pot as closely as possible to minimize heat loss.

It should not release any toxic fumes when heated. Some foams will need to be protected and should not be used directly against the pot.

It must be kept dry. Rising steam from the pot will dampen insulation, thus causing it to lose some of its insulating properties. Mylar space blankets or aluminum foil can pull double duty as a reflective and moisture-proof barrier.

All cooking containers should have tight-fitting lids to prevent the escape of heat and moisture. The larger the cook pot, the more thermal mass it will have, thus it will store a greater amount of heat to cook food after being removed from the heat source.

Other Hay-Box Advantages

Conserving fuel is not the only gift a hay box can give. Preparing multiple meals can be a hassle with a single or even a two-burner camping stove. Hay boxes allow you to simmer items for a few minutes and then stash them away to cook further, thus freeing up the burner to heat other dishes for the meal. Since water won't be simmering away, you'll require less stored water to cook grains and legumes. Because of this, reduce added water to foods by one quarter. If dried beans require two cups of water for cooking, try using one and a half cups instead. Hay boxes cook food using reduced temperatures, thereby preserving more of the food's original nutrition and flavor.

The Survival Kitchen

Survival kitchen: anyplace you happen to be that is used to prepare food after a catastrophe
.

The following tidbits can make life a lot easier when needing to feed the herd. No doubt trial and error will go a long way in your learning curve toward doing more with less under very great stress.

Kitchen Control

In the outdoors, there is nothing worse than a student haphazardly walking over prepared food, especially in sandy conditions. The "sand sandwich" leaves much to be desired. After emergencies, when kitchens must be created in unconventional areas, it may be necessary to set up boundaries to keep things sanitary and prevent kids and pets from knocking things over or creating major first-aid episodes.

Kitchen boundaries can be objects on the ground, such as coolers and tables, or consist of string or surveyor's tape stretched out around the kitchen perimeter, similar to a crime scene. String or rope can also be used for hanging towels or other implements to dry and sanitize in the sun.

The Deluxe Dishwashing Station

After the paper plates run out, washing the dishes for a large family without modern conveniences can be interesting. You will want to stay on top of dishes or they will attract unwanted critters. Dirty dishes lying around are a morale killer in general. I have seen the following method used to service hundreds of people at a time in the outdoors. The more people, the more the water, soap, and chlorine will need to be changed.

Get four containers that hold enough water to fit your dishes into. If nothing else, five-gallon buckets work great. Some folks add one more container at the beginning of the line that serves as a receptacle for uneaten food and table scraps. (If you're not eating what's on your plate during a survival situation, close this book immediately and go watch TV.)

The buckets or containers function as follows:

1
The prerinse
. This one is filled with water and takes the major goop off the plate to extend the life of the next container.

2
The washer
. This one is filled with hot potable water, soap, and a pot scrubber if you have one.

3
The rinser
. Yep, filled with plain potable water.

4
The disinfector
. This container is filled with potable water to which a couple of capfuls of chlorine bleach are added. Depending on how much water you have, use about one part chlorine bleach to ten parts water. The disinfectant rinse should smell like chlorine and be prepared fresh before each use after mealtime. If it doesn't smell like chlorine, add more. A bleach water rinse followed by air drying is the simplest way to effectively sanitize pots, pans, and utensils. Boiling water is another option but much more fuel consumptive and liable to cause accidental burns.

Change the water as needed depending on the number of people using the dishwashing station. Get the buckets off the ground to keep animals and small kids out of them. If the rinse water starts to get sudsy early, knock back on the soap in the washing container so the rinse water will last longer. Too much soap residue left on washed dishes can also cause diarrhea. You may want to prepare your wash station before preparing the food. This allows you to wash kitchen utensils as you go and the containers can be refreshed quickly when needed.