Food
Camp & Off-Grid Cooking
Cooking over open fires, in Dutch ovens, with rocket stoves, haybox (fireless) cookers and solar ovens.
Field notes
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Haybox Cooking: Retained-Heat Cooking That Saves Fuel
Boil a pot, then seal it in an insulated box and let stored heat finish the cooking over hours. Cuts fuel use dramatically when fuel is scarce.
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How to Build a Fire That Actually Lights
Fires fail for lack of small fuel, not big logs. Gather tinder, pencil-thin kindling and split dry wood first, then build up from the smallest pieces.
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The Food Danger Zone: 40°F to 140°F
Bacteria multiply fast between 40°F and 140°F. Never leave perishable food out more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90°F. It matters most when the power is out.
In the library
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Camp Fires and Camp Cooking
An 1862 Army of the Potomac pamphlet teaching Union soldiers to cook rations over camp fires: soups, stews, bread and field ovens.
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The Book of Camp-Lore and Woodcraft
Dan Beard's 1920 handbook on fire by friction and flint, cooking fires, camp kitchens, packing horses and dogs, and axe and saw work.
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The Fireless Cook Book
How to build and use a retained-heat (haybox) cooker, with 250 recipes that cook with a fraction of the fuel (1909).
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Woodcraft
Nessmuk's classic 1884 pocket guide to traveling light in the woods: camps, campfires, cooking, and getting lost and found again.