[Stoves] engine cooking / engine warm shower

[Boll, Martin Dr.]

Dear Jeff,
Thanks of reporting about your engine-cooking experiences.
Here under a website address about a car water-heat-exchanger and
pump-system for outdoor showers, mad by an Australian company. 
This is possibly the more sophisticated solution with some tubes, as Frans
Peeters earlier to me proposed, -to cook inside the car without using wire
and alu-wrapping to fix cooking-dish under the hood-.
I was showed this shower-device some weeks ago from an Australian-British
camper in France, "singing the highest tunes" (=word by word from German)
about that. 
(Let's gather some more UHO =undefined heating objects :-)  )

Heat-exchanger and water-pump to build into a car, for outdoor
warm-water-shower:
http://www.glind.com.au/htm/product.asp

Drive your meat well done, if you want!
(And tell me if you can brew your tea or coffee by that way!)

Martin


> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:09:13 -0500
> From: Jeff Davis <jeff0124 at velocity.net>
> Subject: [Stoves] Engine Cooking
> To: stoves at listserv.repp.org
> Message-ID: <200611102009.13461.jeff0124 at velocity.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Dear List,
> 
> Some information regarding engine cooking:
> 
> *****************************
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/06/FD129871.DTL
> *****************************
> 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.
> 
> *******************************************************
> 
> 
> Balls to the wall,
> 
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Jeff Davis
> Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
> http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124
> 
*************************************