Survival Cooking

[KIMBOKO]

I have volunteeered to help with a Survival Cooking base at our Scout and Guide Moot at the end of August, 15 scouts and guides for one and a half hours, one group in the morning one in the afternoon on both days.
I spoke to the leader of the base who expressed the idea that we would check out what we can find around the time and bring it in and cook it.
My thoughts were about displaying foods that were available at the time with static displays of firelighting techniques, fishing and hunting techniques
and demonstrate cooking without utensils. viz...
Fish/meat kebab style, spit roast style, plank style, pit cooking etc, "bannocks", boiling(cooking) in wooden vessel with hot stones, and demonstration of solar water purification and cooking.

Which brings me to the questions:-
1 Not much of this needs an active participation of the Scouts and Guides apart from tasting what can the the little dears do? or is it enough.

2 What plants do you think would be most usefully to demonstrate. Bearing in mind I wouldnt want them be too adventurous and start eating anything and everything.

 

[Ed]

Thats alot you are trying to cover in 1 and a half hours!!!! I'd cut that down and let them get more involved....I think they'll learn better that way by participation.

I've taught this and getting 15 people to get sticks (de-bark to wind bannock around), make bannock (and place around stick), cook it and eat it took around half an hour!!!! ..... While they were doing this I had trout cooking in foil.....

I'd suggest stick to basics, boiling, cooking in foil/ashes, and kebabs/bannock .... just explain how these can be adapted... ie instead of foil, use large leaves/clay...


Ed

 

[TheViking]

Thats alot you are trying to cover in 1 and a half hours!!!! I'd cut that down and let them get more involved....I think they'll learn better that way by participation

"Learning by doing" :biggthump
If they hear it, they'll forget. If they see it, they'll remember. If they try it... they'll master it.

 

[Scott]

My advice would be to keep it simple rather than lots of displays and get the scouts involved.

Trust me if you have lots of displays the scouts will eventually start to get bored whereas if you can keep them active they will enjoy things a lot more.

I don't know the facilities you have available but with 90 mins, lighting a small fire, making bannock or similar easy backwoods cooking technique and cleaning up should be feasible. Assuming they don't have to spend any time collecting wood.

I would opt for having a fairly handy supply of wood ready to go, get them to light a fire, cook and then clean down afterwards, including clearing up the fire.

Other suggestions you might want to consider are drop scones in a pan or cooking an egg in half an orange in the embers.

 

[KIMBOKO]

Thank you all for your guidance.

I expect that the scouts at least would have had a go at bannocks on sticks or at least heard of them and as this is a county event i would want to show them something beyond the normal. Perhaps something that in the future they could say i know how to do that, i saw at that scout camp. But you are all right they have to be involved so bannocks on sticks or drop scones on rocks and eggs for them to cook and something more adventurous to demonstrate.
I've already made malllow soup for tasters but we could cook some nettle soup on the day.
Thanks all for your input..

 

[jamesdevine]

Maybe a quick walk around the area pointing out some of the possibilities as well as a demo of how to gather nettles as well as the soupd taste might be good.

Please tell us how you got on and what you decided to do in the end as I at least would be interested in the success of it as we are planning some similar events here in the next while.

James

 

[jakunen]

Damn, he beat me to it!
Using the site as a lecture room and seeing what is avaible on the day is THE best idea.
Plus the kids will get to knwo the habitat the plants grow in.

Look forward to hearing how it goes...

 

[Womble]

On the other hand, and as is said above, a lecture might not necessarily grab their interest. the fish in foil is a good idea, one they can do themselves, and possibly getting the older ones to make a simple griddle and broiling fillits of the fish on an open fire?

One thing about the "seeing what's available on the day" thing that worries me is that it might encourage the kids to start looking for and eating the stuff themselves. Without the knowledge of exactly what to look for this might get dangerous - in the case of fungi tragically so. If you do this please ensure that they are aware that they should never eat a plant or fungi unless they can ABSOLUTELY AND POSITIVELY identify it as edible.

 

[jakunen]

One thing about the "seeing what's available on the day" thing that worries me is that it might encourage the kids to start looking for and eating the stuff themselves. Without the knowledge of exactly what to look for this might get dangerous - in the case of fungi tragically so. If you do this please ensure that they are aware that they should never eat a plant or fungi unless they can ABSOLUTELY AND POSITIVELY identify it as edible.

That of course should be stated from the first and goes without saying...

And I think its better to show them the right plant in its correct habitat than just show them a few leaves and they go and try to find it themselves and eat water droplet hemlock rather than watercress.
And unless you REALLY know your fungi, I'd personally would leave them well enough alone. I won't teach them until I've found a course and ID them 1000%.

 

[Keith_Beef]

In the cubs and scouts, we always used to make twist. Flour, water, a little salt, kneaded to an elastic batter twisted round a green stick adn held near a fire to cook it. Invariably, we put in too much salt, put too much on the stick, and held it too near the fire so it was burned on the outside and raw inside. But we ate it, and pretended we liked it.

Gathering wood is easy, so it's not so important to make it part of the class. As others posted, provide the firewood, and concentrate on the important stuff: lighting, foraging and cooking.

Foraging, for me, is better done in autumn, when there is plenty of fruit (I include nuts in that). Hazlenuts and chestnuts can replace wheat flour for making dough.

Eggs are good, and easy to cook, but it's not good to start taking the eggs of wild birds. For a start, you don't know how long ago the eggs were laid... Better take known eggs with you. You can get hold of goose and duck eggs, if you want a change from hens' eggs. But I find that the best way of cooking them without any sort of pan, it under hot ashes or inside a hollowed-out potato, so you might need to have a fire going for a while before you can cook.


Keith.

 

[KIMBOKO]

Survival cooking Post Mortem.
I should perhaps have emphasized that I was only a helper for the person running the event and as such I felt I had to fall in line with her wishes. Up until the event I was on holiday and telephoned her just before the event. She had searched for fungi and had found puff balls, giant puffballs, field mushrooms, horse mushrooms, parasols, slippery jack oyster and girols plus four kinds of poisonous fungi.
She had also picked comfrey leaves, wild apples, crab apples, sloes, blackberries, rowan, guelda rose, rosehips, hazel nuts, elderberries, hawthorn, chickweed, various mints, rosemary, soapwort, clover, nettles, dead nettles, She had also made various jams jellies and preserves. based on the berries and apples. There was more than this but I don’t remember everything (more kims game required).
However when I rung I said that I would bring what I could and took four types of seaweed plus seashore shells, mussels, whelks, oysters, limpets and I also took Greater Reedmace (complete plant) and burdock (complete) this years and last years. as well some mallow soup, watercress and shelled hazelnuts.
I did take my fire lighting display board and dried Munkjack skin with rabbit sticks, solar cooker and various wooden wares…. spoons bowls cups.
Now the lady running the event told me we now had three sessions in both the morning and afternoon each of 45 minutes.
The display of wild food was over three groundsheets and two tables and was very impressive
For my part I prepared various mushrooms and puffballs, cooked and served them, whilst she talked and showed the Scouts and Guides the fungi and explained the 10 poisonous fungi and the edible and inedible fungi. I then made comfrey fritters and elderberry pancakes, hazelnut brittle, whilst she talked about the leaves and nuts flowers and fruits. Each child had the chance of tasting everything that I had cooked including the mallow soup and then finished off with a chance to eat the cooked fruit, jam, jellies and the stwewed blackberry and apple.
The lady was an ex teacher and gave a great demonstration/lecture which I felt would have been very suitable for adults, at evening classes, WI or similar but I have the idea that the Scouts and Guides who attended thought very little about it. Most children it appears don’t like mushrooms let alone fungi.
The event was billed as survival cooking but ended as survival/wild food or perhaps should have been hedgerow harvest. As such it was good for an adult recipient as interested passing leaders would testify but not too good for the scouts and guides.
As regards the usefulness of the session in a survival situation the fungi and leaves are almost totally lacking in calories and protein. The only substantial sustenance to be got was from the hazelnuts provided and the oil, flour and sugar that was added .
I did have some interest shown in the fire lighting display board from an explorer leader who wanted to have a go at the hand drill and i did a demonstration and intruction of the bow drill for several scouts. Some leaders found the solar cooker interesting especially as i gave them the blackened pot and it was almost too hot to hold after 45 minutes. I also suggested that it is a legitimate cooking method for backwoods cooking.
I enjoyed what I did and I did learn a lot.
That's my report, if I were doing it I would have taken on some of the ideas expressed in this thread and made the scouts and guide more involved.
But were are all different and the differences makes life interesting.

 

[Paganwolf]

Egg Kebab, soak a wooden skewer in water and push it carefully through one end of the egg and out the other end without breaking it(mark the end of the egg with the tip of your knife is the trick)! place itover the fire and give it a turn now and then till done! try it :shock: it works......

 

[ScottC]

Simple! I've got to try that one.

 

[hobbitboy]

Twist!! I remember making that nearly 8 years ago in the cubs! I reckon it was twist, could have been a bannock cake actually but i very much doubt it! In fact searching for the recipe was how I found this website...... (incidently made a bannock the other day for the first time was lovely!) :super:

 

[Ed]

There are 2 meals that stick in my mind from my cub days. First one was sliced potatoes, onion and mince in layers, wrapped in tin foil and cooked in hot ashes.... the other was a cooked breakfast cooked in a brown paper bag over the fire.... my bag fell in the fire though :-( .... ummmm


Ed

 

[bothyman]

We used to call it damper ?? has the name changed or is it just me thats got it wrong?? :roll:

Flour, Water, bit of salt?? mix it up and wrap it round a stick.

I thought a bannock was a Scottish Breadcake??

 

[Womble]

Yep, that's a damper/twist. a nice variation is to add cinnamon, nugmeg and raisans to the flour mix - very nice!

I haven't tried it myself, but I quite like the idea of putting in some finely shredded apple in as well.

 

[miniac]

Hi guys, we called them twisters and when cooked we pulled the stick out and stuffed them with jam, chocolate, peanut butter or any thing that the kids fancy.

Back to cooking eggs, Chop to top 3rd off a orange, scoop out and use the innards, crack open the egg into the now empty orange skin, put the top back on and into the embers. Cooks a bit faster than in a spud and has an "interesting" taste!

 

[clownman]

if you do the twist around a sausage sized stick, then you can slip a sausage into it and hey presto, a hot dog

 

[Rothley Bill]

A favorite of our troop is to cut the top 1/3 off of an orange, eat the inside. Then fill with instant choc cake mix, put the top back on, wrap in foil and cook in embers for 15-20 mins.
The egg kebabs go down well and are a bit showy for the cubs/scouts