We can surely agree that since time immemorial people have been resourceful and used only what nature provided them. Let's take a look together at cooking methods that were used in the past and can still help us today so that we don't stay hungry in unfavorable conditions...
We can surely agree that since time immemorial people have been resourceful and used only what nature provided them. They had no pans, pots or stoves and yet they survived and managed to prepare food. It all started with the discovery of fire and it has evolved to today's food preparation using tools such as knives, spoons, pots and even food processors, which make our work easier but also rob us of imagination when preparing food. However, this does not mean that we should accept this fact; on the contrary, we should constantly improve our cooking skills, because it can come in handy in unexpected situations that we think could "never" happen to us.
Whether you are camping or find yourself in a truly emergency situation, there are 5 primitive cooking methods, that you should learn about today.
1. Cooking on coals in large leaves
This is a very similar method to preparing food in aluminum foil, i.e. in aluminum foil. The difference, however, is that instead of aluminum foil, we will use edible leaves.
First, we need to prepare a slow fire and then extinguish it. This creates hot embers, onto which we place the coals. The coals should be hot, but should not be burning.
While the coals are heating up in the embers, we find several very large leaves that we can use to wrap the food. Remember that the leaves must be large enough to be wrapped around the food being prepared, but they must also be non-toxic, so we only choose leaves that we know.
A very common and good example are burdock leaves. These leaves are truly large and flexible, making them ideal for this method of preparing tasty and juicy food.
We recommend: after finding suitable leaves, we recommend looking around
for suitable flexible twigs or roots, which we can use to tie and better secure the food already wrapped in leaves.
Once the food is wrapped and the coals are already hot, we place the food on the coals. Using a stick, we place some of the hot coals directly on top of the food so that it can cook on both sides. Of course, we replace the top coals more often to prevent them from going out.
2. Grilling over a fire
As for grilling food over a fire, this method is not very different from grilling in a kitchen oven.
The only difference is that with an open fire you may not have a pan to place the food in, so you'll need to build something that can hold the food above the fire without it falling into the embers. Of course, we have a solution for this too, in the form of sturdy birch and willow sticks. They can be used for grilling over an open fire because they are flexible, and flexibility is key when looking for the right kind of wood for a so-called natural pan. How to do it? We start by making a „wreath“ by bending one longer piece of wood into an oval shape and then crossing the ends of the oval. We finish the oval by tying the bottom crossing point with flexible tree bark (the final oval will be shaped like a large letter D). Using small twigs, we weave through the oval with these sticks, letting the sticks stick out slightly for good flexibility. Then, if we want the natural pan to be even more stable, we add another so-called „stabilizing“ stick in a zigzag pattern across the sticks. This provides support for the food, and if you are skilled enough, it also allows you to move the wood up and down to fit specific pieces of food.
Once we have prepared the „natural pan“, all we need to do is place the food on it. When preparing fish, we can do this by placing two evenly cut halves of the fish on the piece of wood and gradually turning them. Throughout the cooking process, we hold the pan a few centimeters above the flame so as not to burn the food, and keep it level so the food doesn't fall off.
3. Cooking on a hot stone
Do you know what the natural alternative to cooking on a Teflon pan is? Yes, it's cooking on a hot stone.
If we use a flat surface, such as a piece of smaller rock, we simply heat it over the fire, place the food on it, and then let it warm up a bit. Make sure the stone is dry, as it will heat up faster, and that it has at least one flat side so the food doesn't fall off. We clean it by brushing it off or wiping it with a cloth, and make sure it is thicker than one inch so it doesn't crack when heated to a high temperature above 100 °C.
We can cook on a stone in two ways. We can either use a small stone to prepare a single portion of food, or we can place many smaller stones on a low and wide bed of embers, which will allow us to prepare a larger amount of food. If we want to use several smaller stones, we will need to let the stones heat up for at least an hour.
Once the stone is hot, we place the food on it and wait for it to cook – the cooking time will depend on what we are cooking and our requirements for the food's tenderness. When the food is cooked, we don't remove it from the stone but leave it there and use it as a bowl or plate. It will take at least half an hour for the stone to cool down, so during that time it will keep the food nice and warm.
4. Cooking in a steam pit
Cooking in a steam pit is a form of survival cooking in the wilderness, which has been used for centuries. We'll start with wrapping food in large leaves, just like when cooking on coals, with the difference that we need a place where we can dig a hole large enough to hold the coals and the food.
When digging the hole, we make sure that we dig it to a depth of at least 30–60 cm. That is enough to fit the food, but we need to make sure that no steam escapes during cooking. After digging the hole, we level its bottom with coals.
We heat up the coals, just like when cooking on coals, and wait until they are glowing, then extinguish them so that they only smolder. Then we place the food over the coals and cover it with the earth we dug out. We let the food simmer for at least a few hours and then dig it up!
5. Cooking on a spit
We can certainly agree that preparing food on a spit has its own charm. There are several variants of spits, both vertical and horizontal, with fine notches that help hold the meat, or a smooth spit fork. Since it is virtually impossible to bring a metal spit along on a longer camping trip, we have a guide for you on how to make your own spit using only a long and sturdy piece of wood.
While we might think that skewering a small amount of meat on a piece of wood and turning it over an open fire sounds easy, cooking on a spit in the wilderness brings with it several problems. First of all, any meat that is to be skewered on the spit must also be tied to the spit. This way, the meat stays firmly in place on the spit and tearing is prevented.
It is also important to remember that meat shrinks during cooking, so even if we think we've tied the meat firmly to the spit, that might not actually be the case. We also recommend tying the meat to the spit with wire, natural flexible and sturdy bark, or rope. If we are roasting a whole animal, we also must not forget to tie the limbs together. If we don't do this, the meat on the spit will be off balance, and there is a high chance of breaking the supporting sticks.
We also need to remember that the spit needs to be turned. In harsh wilderness conditions, we won't have some kind of rotisserie mechanism on hand to automatically turn the meat, so you'll have to sit by the fire and turn it by hand yourself.
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