cooking over fire with primitive containers

[Rick]

Hey YCC - Neat looking plate. Did you pull the clay locally to make that? If so, did you use the malleable test by rolling it in your hand? Have you tried the taste test yet? It's my day for questions. (shrug)

[Beans]

I was being tongue in cheek. Sorry. The turtle shell was a joke with the turtles being upset.

Gee Rick
and to think that I believed you too

[Rick]

Well, uh, yeah. Turtle shells, sure. But not just any turtle shell. It has to be the, uh, rare, ummm, soup bowl turtle. Now if you spot one of them fellas, you got yourself a pot.

[kyratshooter]

The earliest ceramics we have date to 40,000bc in europe. They are the oldest artifacts ever recovered from an archiological site. Of course ceramics will last forever, so they would be. Earliest pottery in orth america comes from a site in South Carolina if my memory serves me. The skill seems to have been brough to that area from Mexico because the styles are nearly the same in both places. The Membres Apache made some of the finest pottery in the world, some of their pieces sell for several MILLION $$$. It is decorated with some of the finest porn ever found. Membres women were fine artists. (they don't teach you that in the history books)

They can be placed directly over the fire for boiling or frying. You cure them in a kiln at several thousand degrees so a fire is not going to phase them. Primitive people stacked them up and built a fire on them to temper them. If they crack in tempering they are thrown away. Heat is not going to hurt them.

Cooking in birch bark, sure, it works. I have also boiled water in a paper sack and boiled an egg in a Dixie Cup. I boiled water in a plastic 2 liter bottle once, just to prove it could be done, but that is not quite primitive. I fried an egg on a flat rock once too. That was nasty!

One of the strange things about cooking with the hot rocks is the fast cook time. You heat a rock up in a fire and release several thousand BTUs of heat in five or ten seconds and stuff cooks real fast.

So the early guys were not just hanging meat over ther fire on a stick, or throwing the whole kangaroo in the middle of the brush pile like I saw in a film at school once.

[your_comforting_company]

Hey YCC - Neat looking plate. Did you pull the clay locally to make that? If so, did you use the malleable test by rolling it in your hand? Have you tried the taste test yet? It's my day for questions. (shrug)

The clay for that dish came from the boat landing where we hunt. It was full of pebbles and quartz so it had to be cleaned.
To see if it's pliable enough, I rolled it into a coil and tied it in a knot. It did crack but held together so I gave it a shot.
I have not yet tried the taste test, but I have about 5 lbs of clay aging in the shed. I'll give it a taste before making the new cooking dish. Bitter is better, right?

I've also tried some clay from the creek where I grew up. It's white source clay from under a tree on a high bank. Before the landowner closed the place off we used to swim there almost every day and swing from a rope tied in the tree.
That clay mostly blew in firing but I managed to get a little frog and a ceramic spearhead out of it. It needs more temper. The frog also got my first glaze test, borax and fine sand (or extra slippy clay). I did a reduction firing which allowed ashes and trash to contact the glaze that was on the outside of the frog, but the inside is sort of glassy. Needs more experimentation. Next glaze test will be with wood ash for flux.

[The Crimson Ghost]

Thats crazy....you would have to be so delicate and careful not too set it on fire.

Vessels containing water mostly will not go up in flames. Plastic cups, foam cups, work the same way. Filled with water and put in the fire, they only melt/burn from the top down as the water evaporates.

[Justin Case]

Vessels containing water mostly will not go up in flames. Plastic cups, foam cups, work the same way. Filled with water and put in the fire, they only melt/burn from the top down as the water evaporates.

Are you sure ??

[Rick]

Actually, he's correct. If you fill up a plastic bottle with water, leaving no air, you can cap it and toss it into the fire. The water will purify and the bottle will not melt. I don't know about cups or anything made of foam.

This vid has been posted on here before.

http://www.yikers.com/video_how_to_b...ic_bottle.html

[Justin Case]

Actually, he's correct. If you fill up a plastic bottle with water, leaving no air, you can cap it and toss it into the fire. The water will purify and the bottle will not melt. I don't know about cups or anything made of foam.

This vid has been posted on here before.

http://www.yikers.com/video_how_to_b...ic_bottle.html

That was my point, how would you seal air out of a Foam Cup ? besides, the foam itself is mostly little air bubbles ? I could be wrong, That why I simply asked him if he was sure . I have seen the water bottle trick many times

[crashdive123]

You raise an interesting point JIC. I've tried plastic cups and bags, but not a styrofoam cup. I guess a test is in the future plans.

[Justin Case]

You raise an interesting point JIC. I've tried plastic cups and bags, but not a styrofoam cup. I guess a test is in the future plans.

Let us know,, also , how would you seal the top of the cup and make it air tight ?

[Ken]

I'll tell you one thing I already know for a fact.

If you take a styrofoam cup FILLED with coffee (cream and sugar Crash ) and covered with a lid, it will melt in a microwave oven if you press 10:00 by accident instead of 1:00 before you press the "start" button.

[Camp10]

I did a quick sweep of the place looking for a styrofoam cup to try it with but came up empty. I guess I will have to wait for someone else to try it and post their results.

[crashdive123]

Let us know,, also , how would you seal the top of the cup and make it air tight ?

You don't. I've also done it in a paper (hot drink) cup. Everyting above the liquid burned away. The liquid in the cup kept the rest from burning.

[Justin Case]

I still have my doubts about Styrofoam , but we'll see

[crashdive123]

I do as well.

[rwc1969]

Wouldn't using plastics and such leach toxic chemicals into the water?

[gryffynklm]

Ya, I don't know about styrofoam, logic says no. I have boiled water in a plastic bottle suspended from a string above a fire. The bottle distorted but didn't melt or burn. As far as plastic and toxins getting into the water, that is a long term exposure health concern (long term not defined). I wouldn't worry about it in a survival situation.

[crashdive123]

Wouldn't using plastics and such leach toxic chemicals into the water?

It may, but if it does, it will not be an acute toxicity and would take doing it continually, over a long period of time to have any ill effects. I would consider this method for emergencies and not a normal practice. We all know that there is usually some trash lying around that can be used to help us out of a tight spot. This is just one of those examples.

[Aurelius95]

If I remember from chemistry in high school, the reason the paper cup won't burn is that the heat transfer to the water is almost immediate (From the flame). It will boil the water, it will burn the edges of the cup that don't have water next to it, but the majority of the cup will remain intact. I guess it would work with styrofoam as well.

Yahooanswers.com says it will work, but I have not tested it myself.
http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question...5054140AAhJK0R