Fireless Cooker

By Sara:

The other night, we had a fun extra educational opportunity for the students, some staff, and some friends from Berea Farm.  Anthony shared some helpful websites that the students could use as resources in their theological studies and as pastors.  Then, I shared with them about the fireless cooker.  (Oh, also our friend Emily was visiting at the time in case you're wondering who that other white person is!)

A fireless cooker isn't literally "fireless" - it just allows you to cook things that usually take a long time (like beans) with much, much less fuel.  It takes longer for the food to be ready, but you don't have to be present, except at the beginning, and it reduces the amount of fuel needed, therefore saving money (and the environment!).

I talked about how you can use different kinds of containers - a basket, a box, a big plastic basin - and then fill it with insulating material to keep your food hot so it continues cooking even after you take it off the stove.

One thing you can use for insulation is old clothes - these were Anthony's holey shorts that got sacrificed to the fireless cooker while we were in Uganda.

You can see that I also had a pot with me.  I had dry beans and maize (to make a dish called githeri) in it, which I covered with water while everyone watched so that they could soak overnight.  The next morning, I boiled those very beans and maize for ten minutes, took them off the stove, put the cover on the pot, and put it into the fireless cooker.  I left that in the cafeteria all morning and at lunchtime, we opened it up and everyone got to taste the completed githeri.  They were impressed that it was still hot and tasted just right after only 10 minutes of cooking, rather than the 2-3+ hours that it would usually take. 

Lots of students said that they wanted to try making a fireless cooker when they went home.  We asked them to bring us a picture or tell stories of whether it works for them or not, so hopefully we'll have more to share about that later.

I also gave time for questions during the session; here's a short video to show you what the discussion was like: