Some ideas about cooking in the rain

[Delmonico]

I have cooked in the rain before, but this Saturday was a whole new adveture, see any thime I've cooked in the rain before, I have had things already going and then the rain has come, it takes a pretty long and heavy rain to shut you down, it will slow things up, but that is about all. 
when I got to the Felley barn this weekend it had rained about 1 1/2 inches in the night and we had a few showers after I got there, things looked like this.



This is after I had the fire first lit, but shows the puddles very nicely.  One can see the pile of cobs and the wood pile are both very wet.  The nice thing about a cob pile is like a hay stack, one only needs to dig down to find dry material.  The bad thing is, cob piles are not common in this day and age, except at old time harvest events like this.  But in areas with trees, esp. pines and cedars, you can find dry material under the branches.  Another hint, not period, but could be used to save the day is a bag of match light charcoal in the gear bag for such bad times.  Not truly period, but I guess no different really that driving a pick-up there.

I dug down into the pile and got dry cobs and soakek them up with coal oil, I had added a bottle of it on the way, it said Kingsford one it, but is very similar to kerosene and was a lot easier to find at 7 am on a Sat. Morning.  However the wind did keep me from keeping kitchen matches lit even when I used 2 or three at a time.  In the 19th Century, I would have kneeeled down in the mud and used my hat as a wind shield and got it going, but I added a bit of 20th Century tech to my kit, seeings how 50 people were expectings supper.  A small amout of kitchen matches on top made it a bit easier. 



BTW in 10 years of historical cooking demos this is the first time I myself have cheated this way, with the gas powered match.  Has been permantly added to the emergency gear.

In this next picture you can see the larger chunks of wood that have been added upwind from the fire, to both block the wind and to help dry the wood out, notice how wet the wood is.



As this wood gets dried and starts to burn, it can be pushed on into the fire and more large wet wood added to the upwind side.  Also splitting to wood will expose the drier center, although this was mostly Chinese Elm, it does not split well when wet and often has a lot of branching in it.  Other types of wood will spit well.  Smaller pieces has been added above the cobs and the heat is starting to get them going and cobs have been added above the wood.

In this picture the wind break has been widened and more cobs and wood have been added.



There is a lot of heat building up below, both drying and warming the ground, this will keep it from sucking out all the heat in the coals when I start to cook, since I am going to move the fire back and cook where this fire has been.

This next picture shows the fire moved back and some of the coals used to heat 4 ovens to sear pot roast and get it cooking, this was the item that in this meal would take the most time to cook.



The coals that were not needed were moved to the new wind break and fire. The roast was cooking about an hour after I started the fire, this gave the ground plenty of time to heat up and coals to build up, plus for me to get coffee made in the white pot and some water heating in the green one.

In this next picture you can see I've built another wind break off to the side of the second fire and just filled it with cobs and wood, the fire to the side will start the next section on fire in just a short time.



One can see a 5th dutch oven, with chicken has been added to allow it to cook and be de-boned for a chicken rice dish.

In this next picture you can see that the next fire is now about burned to coals and the one to the left is ready to be broke up and either used for more ovens or added to the coal supply in the never, fresh fire.




The last picture shows the roast and the chicken moved to where the second fire was burning, because the ground is not as hot as where I have been cooking for 2-3 hours.



The bottom two ovens in the original place are bread, and the ones stacked on top are peach cobbler,  the bread has been moved back a bit from the original site to slow down the cooking on the bottom. 

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Great run-down on building the fire and cooking with it, Del. Outstanding job. That shows the true spirit of what you do with these cookouts.

[Modoc]

Del,

This is also not necessarily PC either, but having worked in EMS, I have a good supply of Magic Super Matches (aka Road Flares ).  These really help getting wet wood to start in inclement weather.  When you have 150+ waiting on a Santa Maria Style supper, you take drastic measures.

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[Marshal Will Wingam]

This is also not necessarily PC either, but having worked in EMS, I have a good supply of Magic Super Matches (aka Road Flares ).  These really help getting wet wood to start in inclement weather.  When you have 150+ waiting on a Santa Maria Style supper, you take drastic measures.

When camping with an airplane, I found that avgas was the best kindling. One cup and you can torch off a wet log.

[Travis Morgan]

They say a good indian always carries a can of gas! (Baxter Black)

[Delmonico]

Modoc, I've used those in the past for fires when I was not trying to look correct, but just wanting to get a fire to warm ourselves on when hunting and needing a fire to warm around.  I should get some again and put them in the tool box.

One would also notice I left the pick-up right there also, that was to leave the few spots on the gravel for the folks who came to see us.  If htere would have been any tourist types watching at the time I would have just used one of my lard bombs, a sheet of heavy typing paper I keep on a clipboard behind the seat of the pick-up.  1/4 to 1/2 cup of lard on the sheet, ball the sheet around it, hunker down behind the cupboard out of the windm light er up and toss it on, almost as good as the road flare.

[Wishbone]

At the last Chuckwagon Cookoff I helped at it rained a heavey mist all Friday night. The ground was muddy & ugly Saturday.  The Promoter solved this problem with pine sawdust shavings he got at feed store. The kind they put in horse stalls.  2 bags scattered around back of Chuckwagon & fire pit worked real well. Worked better than Straw I used several years back in the rain. Wishbone

[Wishbone]

I just got this mail the other day. A friend was at the World Champonship Chuckwagon Cookoff in Ruidosa,NM last weekend. Mark helped a DO Cook named Cee Dub do Demos. Cee Dub has DO Cooking shows on PBS & now on The RFD TV Channel on Dish Network & Direct TV.   Wishbone

We just returned from this years Ruidoso cookoff, and I gotta hand it to all the cooks there this weekend. The winds were blowing 30-40mph and it was in a word: HORRIBLE conditions to cook & serve in, but everyone kept the cowboy spirit and never quit! Soon as you could pour a cup of water, it had "essense of corral" floating in it before you could suck it down. CeeDub's eyes were SO red after our demo on Saturday morning from the blowing dust, you almost wanted to hand him a tissue to wipe the blood. As we ate Milk Jug Stew for dinner inside CeeDub's wall tent last evening and shared some stories, the winds continued to blow late into the night. Last year was heavy rains during the event. These are some well qualified cooks that can turn out such great grub under the worst conditions possible, and still smile through it all ! FoodTV network didn't show up this year either, so guess we'll have to see more of reruns from the 2005 event.