Post by jghb1962 on Apr 5, 2015 0:26:28 GMT
Hello Folks,
I came to this forum through an old interest as a civil defence volunteer in the 80s UK (England). I was trained to construct improvised field cooking stoves, using both solid fuels & recovered fluid fuels (engine sump oil, basically). I was also aware of how easily it was, using basic crude masonry/brick laying technics to construct some rather useful stoves, ovens & hot plates, using much recovered materials from bombed out &/or partially demolished buildings. My training ran to the extent, of being able (with a team of helpers) to build an improvised field kitchen & serve a cooked meal (hot soup & a roll of bread) to around 2,000 people at a single go. Part of the initiative behind being trained for this, would be in a genuine crisis, one could arrange something for receiving & feeding refugees (displaced persons) & then give them the chance to help out for the next cooking session & learn how such equipment could be easily made & they could feed a lot more DPs in another location some miles away, after being ordered to move out. (That final part, would be hard for many to accept, but would prove necessary in said crisis to function efficiently for the next wave of DPs to arrive).
Nevertheless, I did much of my own research including finding out that charcoal is perhaps the strongest source of heat, being the nearest obtainable fuel to pure carbon. But then making it, requires a degree of skill, some large kilns that can "cook" the wood used & a long period of patients to produce each production run.
But that said, only recently did I find myself teaching a local hotel management about the benefits of splitting fuel wood (safely) with less effort than they needed to use, but how to get the best from the limited supply they had bought with scarce money. There is always something homely about using wood & perhaps more organic to our nature to use wood for cooking and baking.
BTW did anyone know, that Napoleon, when he came to power, gave the French Gendamerie Nationale one specific duty in Paris (& nationally also). That was every bakery in the nation was to be licenced by them, so that in an emergency the people could eat bread to keep them alive (I suppose one better than previous rulers telling the peasants to "eat cake!"). Until recently, you would only see Gendames in Paris, either for ceremonial duties, administrative duties & licencing bakeries in the city.
Well folks, it must be an original introduction for you to read - feedback welcomed.
Yours,
JGHB1962.
I came to this forum through an old interest as a civil defence volunteer in the 80s UK (England). I was trained to construct improvised field cooking stoves, using both solid fuels & recovered fluid fuels (engine sump oil, basically). I was also aware of how easily it was, using basic crude masonry/brick laying technics to construct some rather useful stoves, ovens & hot plates, using much recovered materials from bombed out &/or partially demolished buildings. My training ran to the extent, of being able (with a team of helpers) to build an improvised field kitchen & serve a cooked meal (hot soup & a roll of bread) to around 2,000 people at a single go. Part of the initiative behind being trained for this, would be in a genuine crisis, one could arrange something for receiving & feeding refugees (displaced persons) & then give them the chance to help out for the next cooking session & learn how such equipment could be easily made & they could feed a lot more DPs in another location some miles away, after being ordered to move out. (That final part, would be hard for many to accept, but would prove necessary in said crisis to function efficiently for the next wave of DPs to arrive).
Nevertheless, I did much of my own research including finding out that charcoal is perhaps the strongest source of heat, being the nearest obtainable fuel to pure carbon. But then making it, requires a degree of skill, some large kilns that can "cook" the wood used & a long period of patients to produce each production run.
But that said, only recently did I find myself teaching a local hotel management about the benefits of splitting fuel wood (safely) with less effort than they needed to use, but how to get the best from the limited supply they had bought with scarce money. There is always something homely about using wood & perhaps more organic to our nature to use wood for cooking and baking.
BTW did anyone know, that Napoleon, when he came to power, gave the French Gendamerie Nationale one specific duty in Paris (& nationally also). That was every bakery in the nation was to be licenced by them, so that in an emergency the people could eat bread to keep them alive (I suppose one better than previous rulers telling the peasants to "eat cake!"). Until recently, you would only see Gendames in Paris, either for ceremonial duties, administrative duties & licencing bakeries in the city.
Well folks, it must be an original introduction for you to read - feedback welcomed.
Yours,
JGHB1962.