T2K Cuisine - Food in the aftermath

[Mock26]

Another way to cook is to make a hobo stove out of a #10 or similar size can.

http://blog.outdoorzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/hobo-stove.jpg

The hobo stove is the can on the bottom. Campfires are great as they provide heat and you can cook over them, but they are a big waste of fuel. Small homemade stoves like this are much more efficient for cooking. Of course, in a fantasy world lack of firewood might not be a problem, but depending on where your game takes place, it could be.

[Mock26]

Yes, there are several ways. One can use a "dutch over" or similiar cast iron vessels, this is also done with hot coals. Some scout masters with a troop i work with can even bake with this method.

A person can also use crockery for cooking.

And of course using tin foil which is common, wet burlap or banana leaves.

And then of course you calso use flat stones to cook on as well.

I have had pig, fish, clams, oysters, chicken, potatoes, onions, carrots and corn cooked in this manner.

My grandfather also had a method of cooking birds, wrap them in mud/clay and cook until it drys and wait then serve. I think he picked it up durring his travels in China in the 30s.

Really alot of it is like cooking in a slow cooker, long slow low heat.

When I was a Scout Master I did a lot of cooking of various items packed in clay. There really is not much that you cannot cook in this way. It is especially great for baked potatoes.

[WallShadow]

I was wondering if anyone on the boards had tried to cookin a pit - a hole lined with stones that you fire with wood for a few hours ,and then place a parcel of meat etc in and cover with dirt to cook on the residual heat .

I hear some also place pots with lids secured inside and dig over with dirt .

Other ways of cooking outdoors or with archaic methods are also of interest.

Any information would be useful to me - I actually want to try it out for fun .

Look for a book called "Jack-knife Cookery" by James Austin Wilder, written by a "white kanaka" who grew up in Hawaii, was a Sea Scout, travelled the world on merchant ships, learned umpteen different ways to cook with little or no cookware--often just a knife, the food and whatever else nature had provided--leaves, sticks, seaweed, hot stones, tree bark, whatever.

My wife and I used several of the concepts cooking during various time periods of reenactments we've attended. Our favorite method was a "keyhole firepit". This is a rectangular shallow trench for the crossbar/spit, with an extension of the pit from one end where a cylindrical hole, just a bit larger than the diameter of our 6-quart cast iron 3-legged kettle. Make a good bed of coals while you're cooking on the spit or hanging pots from the bar, then scrape some coals into the hole, insert the covered kettle (filled with whatever you were going to cook), scrape some more coals on top, reinsert sod plug over the kettle. My wife made some killer potatoes (with onions and turmeric) overnight that were perfect for breakfast the next morning. You'll always find new "friends" on hand when your food starts perfuming the campsite.

We've cooked bread on sticks, baked potatoes in hot ashes, made apple cobbler out of dry stores and dehydrated apples. I've made impromptu cookpots out of coffee cans and heavy iron wire for bails. I love cooking over a campfire! It's a great way to teach kids about responsibility and economy--when you're hauling and cutting your own firewood that has to last for your entire stay, you learn not to waste it with huge conflagrations, and you learn that the fire gets taken care of before anyone goes off to play.

[Targan]

I was wondering if anyone on the boards had tried to cookin a pit - a hole lined with stones that you fire with wood for a few hours ,and then place a parcel of meat etc in and cover with dirt to cook on the residual heat.

Absolutely I have! I'm a New Zealander. The Maori people of New Zealand cook using a method known as the Hangi. Rather than try to describe how it is done I'll direct you to this site: http://www.wikihow.com/Put-Down-a-Hangi . It has a pretty good description of how it is done. Take it from me, food cooked this way tastes great!

[headquarters]

great info !

thanks guys - I am going to try some of these out when we go up north in September for our "week of manly living outdoors and acting like we dont sit in front of computers for a living -week".

Cant wait to go .

[HorseSoldier]

You could check the various Bushcrafting web sites and web forums. Most of them have information about various forms of low tech/low equipment demand sorts of cooking.

[Mock26]

thanks guys - I am going to try some of these out when we go up north in September for our "week of manly living outdoors and acting like we dont sit in front of computers for a living -week".

Cant wait to go .

Check out Wood Gasification Stoves. They are wood burning backpacking stoves. You can buy commercial ones like the Bush Buddy or make your own. I have the Bush Buddy and it is an absolutely fantastic little stove, and at 6 oz. in weight it is certainly something I can see a Twilight 2000 soldier carrying around in their pack.

[Graebarde]

rat...

I guess it would be a staple meat in some cases.

Actually 'field rats' are not any worse than squirrel or rabbit. Hey, once the meat is in the stew pot and falls off the bone, well.........

Have had the rat on several occassions.

[jturfitt]

When I was in the Philippines in 1977-78, they used to have rat drives in the fields. They would line up on all four sides of a field with sticks and clubs. One side would walk through the field making noise and drive the rats toward the edged of the field where the other people would club them. Field rat was considered a delicacy.

[headquarters]

Great kit

Check out Wood Gasification Stoves. They are wood burning backpacking stoves. You can buy commercial ones like the Bush Buddy or make your own. I have the Bush Buddy and it is an absolutely fantastic little stove, and at 6 oz. in weight it is certainly something I can see a Twilight 2000 soldier carrying around in their pack.

Love the look and tech of this one - I have like 7 stoves already , but not one that runs on plain wood .

Come pay day I am going to get one I think .

I have also ben considering a " Kelly Kettle"

http://www.kellykettle.com/

But my budget is already blown on boots,ventile smocks etc etc ( bit of a gear head ).

Cheers for the god tip.

[headquarters]

Nothing under the heavens..

Actually 'field rats' are not any worse than squirrel or rabbit. Hey, once the meat is in the stew pot and falls off the bone, well.........

Have had the rat on several occassions.

should be untried I say - I would no doubt try it if I could get it .And I do not believe that a little garbage in their diet is such a bad thing -look at hogs - some get the peelings,leftovers and whatnot every day before they grace our platters as bacon.

How did it taste ( like its seasoning maybe - but I gotta ask -is it like chicken )

[pmulcahy11b]

So, how long do you think it would take in T2K before some people resorted to the Soylent Green option

[HorseSoldier]

I'd guess cases of cannibalism start turning up during the winter of 97-98 after the nukes fly and tractor trailer loads of food stop turning up to replenish the local grocery store.

Probably more commonly its an issue of poorly armed, poorly equipped (both in terms of hardware as well as know how) civilians preying on other civilians in the Twilight game universe, where food is not wildly scarce and the population isn't falling down to the 90%+ death toll. People in military units, and even larger marauder bands, would be able to shake down somebody else for enough food to not have to resort to cannibalism.

Of course, there'd always be room for cannibal cult/armies like in Pournelle/Niven's Lucifer's Hammer as a possibly extra ugly opponent for PCs. Might not work that well in Poland/Germany, where surviving troop densities would make pretty short work of a big pack of ghouls, but back CONUS, or the uncontrolled parts of the UK, etc., they'd work.

[Targan]

I know not everyone here has access to the Challenge Magazine T2K mini modules but I consider them to be canon and the Rifle River mini module in Challenge issue #39 deals with events surrounding a death cult cannibal army fighting its way up the Connecticut River in October 2001 in an attempt to reach pre-war small arms factories including the Colt plant at Hartford. An excellent module IMO.

[Webstral]

For obvious reasons, I've taken the liberty of modifying the Rifle River cannibals. My ideas for a horde in northern New England turned out to be so close to the Rifle River villains that I've pretty much incorporated them into the Blood Cross horde. Off-canon Yes. Terribly off-canon Probably not. I think it's entirely possible to play the mini-module as listed with a few fairly modest variations. I don't deal New England quite the hammer blow that GDW did back in the day, but more than half of the population is dead. By early 2001, marauders are finding that the surviving Yankees have fortified their towns and that almost everyone left alive who isn't a marauder has retreated inside walls somewhere. Small bands of marauders are either combining forces or being eaten up by the larger bands--in some cases, quite literally. The horde of the Blood Cross has survived the winter of 2000-2001 by eating everything left in northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine--including the locals. Very ugly, but at least the surviving cantonments of New England have no illusions about the price of failing to deal with these guys.

Webstral