Primitive/Survival Cooking Techniques

[noobiechickenlady]

Baking in clay
Fish is shown, but also works on fowl, small game and cuts of larger game. Wrap food in non-toxic leaves (wild mustard, cabbage, garlic leaves & other wild edible greens lend a nice flavor to the food). Cover the leaves with a thick layer of wet clay. Bury in coals. Essentially this creates a small oven that seals in the juices of the food.
http://survivaltek.com/?p=1351

Underground oven
Dig pit, line with stones, build fire. When the fire begins to die, scrape the coals out, sweep or cover the ashes with non-toxic greenery. Wrap food in leaves as for clay cooking above, place on stones & bury. Great way to slowcook dinner at camp while you trek for firewood, more food or what-have-you.
http://www.primitiveways.com/Imu1.html

Direct coal roasting
Lay your food (steaks, fish) direct on a bed of prepared coals. Check the underside regularly to make sure the coals have not completely died. The food will cut off a bit of the oxygen and the embers will die back. When you turn the food, lay it on a new area, as the coals will be cooler where it was laying before.
Poke holes in your tubers (potatoes & the like) and bury them into a deepish bed of coals. The outside will be charred, but the inside will be perfect.
Tap or poke a few small holes into the narrow end of an egg and place upright near the edge of your coals. Turn frequently.
Make a somewhat stiff dough from cornmeal, nut meal or other floury type items, water & some sort of edible grease or oil. Form into 1/2-3/4" thick cakes & lay on the coals. Again, the outside will char, but the innards will be cooked & tasty.

Hot rock grilling
A better way to cook eggs & cakes/breads. Set a flat rock on your coals, let it heat & use just like a skillet. Make sure not to use wet rocks.

Parching
In a heavy wooden or metal bowl, put nuts, berries, seeds, small tubers & the like along with live embers. Toss & shake gently. Gives a nice toasted flavor.

Smoke rack
Lash together sticks to form a stand (tripod works, quad is more stable & easier to make a platform on). The legs should be far enough apart so the base is not in the fire. To the legs, lash sticks at right angles, so they are parallel to the ground. Lay other sticks on these braces to form a platform.
Build a smokey fire in your pit. Set stand over the fire. Place items to be smoked on the platform. You can wrap large leaves (make sure they are non-toxic!) around the upper portion of the stand to help trap the smoke.

Dakota Fire hole
Essentially an underground hand-dug rocket stove.
Dig one hole about 1' deep & 1' diameter. On the windward side of the hole, dig a smaller tunnel from the bottom of the pit to the surface about 1' away. From this tunnel, dig a small channel down the center of your pit to help air go under your fuel. Lay green sticks over the pit hole for a grill or pot support.
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/the-dakota-fire-hole/

 

[miss_thenorth]

Underground oven
Dig pit, line with stones, build fire. When the fire begins to die, scrape the coals out, sweep or cover the ashes with non-toxic greenery. Wrap food in leaves as for clay cooking above, place on stones & bury. Great way to slowcook dinner at camp while you trek for firewood, more food or what-have-you.

When we lived up north, we used to go to a remote lake and camp. WE did this, but we wrapped the meat in tin foil.

 

[k0xxx]

Brings back my days in the Boy Scouts and Explorers. Neat stuff. Of course, we did do some interesting non-primitive cooking, like frying eggs and bacon in a paper bag and boiling eggs in a paper cup.

It's amazing what options are out there that most people have forgotten, or have never learned.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Frying in a paper bag? Tell me more
I can see that boiling in a cup would work, just keep the fire far enough away so the paper doesn't catch on fire, but still heats. I want to say we boiled water in a paper dixie cup in jr. high science, but my memory isn't working right now

Yes, ma'am MTN, lots of people use a pit oven even today. I just wanted to reference what if there wasn't any tin foil
They cook wonderfully, don't they?

 

[Emerald]

LOL you missed hot rock boiling! They used to use small rocks(to medium sized depending on the vessel size) bring water or soup to a boil. They would take good clean rocks and heat them in the fire and drop them into vessels that don't do well in fire like animal skin bags or hollowed out wooden bowls or even birch bark containers. The hot rock would transfer the heat to the liquid and once a rock cooled off they took it out and put in another one(or more at a time). This method really does work and works fast.
I have seen it done on tv by Les Stroud and on one of those traveling chef shows(if I remember I will put it up).
have not tried it myself, but I do remember the bacon and eggs in the brown paper bag from Girl Scouts!

 

[Emerald]

Frying in a paper bag? Tell me more
I can see that boiling in a cup would work, just keep the fire far enough away so the paper doesn't catch on fire, but still heats. I want to say we boiled water in a paper dixie cup in jr. high science, but my memory isn't working right now

Yes, ma'am MTN, lots of people use a pit oven even today. I just wanted to reference what if there wasn't any tin foil
They cook wonderfully, don't they?

Burdock leaves will sub well for tinfoil! just wrap more around than one layer!

 

[k0xxx]

Frying in a paper bag? Tell me more
I can see that boiling in a cup would work, just keep the fire far enough away so the paper doesn't catch on fire, but still heats. I want to say we boiled water in a paper dixie cup in jr. high science, but my memory isn't working right now

Yes, ma'am MTN, lots of people use a pit oven even today. I just wanted to reference what if there wasn't any tin foil
They cook wonderfully, don't they?

We used heavy brown paper bags with a stick through two sides near the top. Then the bag was held over coals. It was a delicate balance to keep the bag close enough to fry, but not close enough to catch fire.

The cups were easy. Put an egg in the cup and then fill to near the top with water. Then you actually set the cup down into the coals. The cup would catch fire at the top and then burn down to the waterline. As the water evaporated, more of the top would burn, but the boiling water would keep the rest of the cup from burning. Usually, by the time the water evaporated down to the top of the egg, the egg was hard boiled.

 

[woodwzrd]

Brings back my days in the Boy Scouts and Explorers. Neat stuff. Of course, we did do some interesting non-primitive cooking, like frying eggs and bacon in a paper bag and boiling eggs in a paper cup.

It's amazing what options are out there that most people have forgotten, or have never learned.

I am and Eagle Scout (18 years ago) and an Assistant Scout Master and like kOxxx learned alot of that type of stuff back in the day.

We are having a camp-out the end of this month. All of our camps have a meal theme and this time it is utinsel-less cooking. We will often times cook eggs in an orange peel or a onion shell. You core out half of the orange or onion and just like the paper cup put it right in the coals.

For this camp we only need to cook a breakfast and lunch and my menu will be
-breakfast- foil wrapped baked apple, eggs in an onion, and cinnamon bread baked on a stick
-lunch- a foil wrapped meatloaf stuffed baked potatoe and more cinnamon bread

I am pretty sure a good share of the scouts due to lack of imagination will revert to the old stand by of hot dog on a stick. That is why our Scout Master and I are going to each make sure to do something different so they have some examples.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

LOL you missed hot rock boiling! They used to use small rocks(to medium sized depending on the vessel size) bring water or soup to a boil. They would take good clean rocks and heat them in the fire and drop them into vessels that don't do well in fire like animal skin bags or hollowed out wooden bowls or even birch bark containers. The hot rock would transfer the heat to the liquid and once a rock cooled off they took it out and put in another one(or more at a time). This method really does work and works fast.
I have seen it done on tv by Les Stroud and on one of those traveling chef shows(if I remember I will put it up).
have not tried it myself, but I do remember the bacon and eggs in the brown paper bag from Girl Scouts!

I thought about adding that one, but it can be a little more dangerous. Some rocks have damp, interior fissures and can explode when heated! Here's a good link on the subject . The author did an experiment with commonly found rocks.

I HATE that I didn't get into Scouts. Oh well, the FFA served me well, too. I believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words, but of deeds...!