[Stoves] Engine Cooking

[Jeff Davis]

Dear List,

Some information regarding engine cooking:

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/06/FD129871.DTL
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In California, it's illegal to watch television and drive at the same time. 
But it isn't illegal to cook. In fact, about a decade ago, Campbell's Soup 
Co. predicted we'd all be driving with microwave ovens by the turn of the 
century.

The century turned, and automobile microwaves didn't. Too bad, since PG&E lets 
the blackouts roll right about supper time, when it says computers are still 
on at work while appliances are kicking in at home.

Don't let a blackout foil you. And don't buy stock in propane or charcoal. 
Supper can be ready when you pull into the driveway. Just reach under the 
hood,

and din-din is served.

All you need to fix a drive-around meal are a destination and a car or pickup 
truck with an engine that has space enough next to the manifold - the hot 
part - to hold the food you want to cook. You'll also need some practice, 
because each engine cooks differently.

I've cooked for years on my Nissan Z24. It's a four-cylinder model installed 
in a 1986 pickup truck. It has given me ham steak and sweet potatoes in the 
Arizona wilderness, peppery shrimp at the beach in Southern California.

Why cook on an engine? Because.

Because it saves time.

Because as long as you're paying more than $2 a gallon for gas, you might as 
well harness that engine heat.

Because nobody believes it's possible.

But it is indeed possible, in fact probable, if you start with prepared foods.

I started with a breakfast sandwich from the supermarket's frozen-food 
section, carefully double-wrapping it in foil the way I imagined Wayne 
Gretzky tucking away a hockey puck after a game. As the truck zig-zagged down 
a curvy mountain road, I imagined what it would be like to unwrap my special 
morsel at my desk and tell my desk mate, "I cooked this on the way to work."

When I got to the parking lot and opened the hood, there was no morsel. It 
apparently had escaped, perhaps jarred loose by a pothole.

The next time, I wrapped up two breakfast sandwiches. I snuggled each one 
against the manifold under some little black hoses that seemed to hold them 
in place.

I drove. I drove until, about halfway to the office, traffic stopped for a 
wreck to clear. Soon, the air vents pulled in the faint aroma of burned 
English muffin.

Those trials taught me two fine points of engine cooking: Fasten down the 
food, and shorten your cooking mileage if you get stuck in traffic.

Soon my luck changed. I treated my desk mate to shrimp with hot pepper sauce, 
a 35-mile recipe from one of the few engine-cuisine cookbooks, "Manifold 
Destiny," now in a revised edition (Random House, 1998).

A cookbook turns up a cook's inventiveness. Not that I'm a big cook, but I was 
valedictorian of my class at McDonald's Hamburger High.

On a springtime trip to Albuquerque, I hankered for ham. It had been an all- 
day drive, wobbling over back roads from Peach Springs, Ariz., to the Grand 
Canyon. Was I sure hungry!

In Williams, Ariz., I pulled over for some ham, sweet potatoes and foil. With 
the food wrapped in small packages, I wandered to a campsite near Cottonwood.

Boy, did the engine smell good when I got there. A dog at another campsite 
howled as the truck passed. I pulled into my site, and - horrors! - there 
were other campers next door.

Would it gross out my neighbors if I took the oven mitt and tongs from the 
toolbox and plucked out the little foil packages under the hood? I waited for 
them to leave. I waited and waited.

Unable to wait longer, I lifted the hood and took out the bundles, unwrapping 
that delicious-smelling ham and sweet potatoes onto a metal camp plate. It 
was almost sundown. A fox trotted down the non-neighbor side of the campsite. 
It was followed by a neighbor, who never even noticed I was dining on hot 
food without benefit of campfire or stove.

Which just goes to show you people won't bat an eye, so don't be shy. As Yogi 
Berra said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."
Tips for engine cooking

Here are some hints for turning out top-notch road food.

-- Use good-quality heavy-duty aluminum foil. The regular thinner kind tends 
to tear when it touches screws, hoses and wires.

-- For best results, cook fish or chicken. Other meats tend to toughen.

-- Small pieces cook faster than large pieces.

-- To wrap food, use the Big-Mac method. Pull up two opposite sides of the 
foil square, capturing the food between them. Bring the edges together and 
fold over about 1/2 inch. Continue folding down for a tight seal. Fold the 
ends of the foil packet as if wrapping a boxed gift; then tuck the mitered 
corners under the packet.

(Food is wrapped for cleanliness - the food's and the engine's - not because 
of engine fumes. The exhaust system releases fumes from the tailpipe, not 
under the hood.)

-- Don't expect the food to brown. Engine cooking essentially steams food. An 
engine cannot bake, broil or fry.

-- Seasonings become intense because food cooks more slowly than at home, so 
throttle back a little.

-- Be sure to outfit your toolbox with an oven mitt and tongs for retrieving 
hot food from the engine, and a roll of wire for securing food packets 
against the manifold.

-- Be sure to place food on the hot part of the engine. Some would-be cooks 
are tempted to take the little accordion-folded gizmo out of the air filter 
housing and put the food there. Stop!

That's not a hot place. Neither is a water hose. Look for metal parts, 
especially those with grainy surfaces that came from a forge.

-- Beware of traffic jams, and shorten your cooking mileage accordingly. Food 
burns just as surely at 5 mph as it does at 65 mph.

-- When removing food from the engine, watch out for screws that could tear 
the foil. You don't want your mechanic asking about that stuff dripped on the 
engine block.

-- Engine cooking is inexact. A dish cooked at a certain distance on one car 
may need to stay a few miles longer on the engine of another car, even of the 
same model. That's because all engines perform differently. 

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Balls to the wall,


Jeff






-- 
Jeff Davis
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124