SC - cooking times

[Par Leijonhufvud]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

> Well, how about this? Assuming you're going to take the trouble to build
> a fire, set up a pot, etc., how much time is really saved by Ramen or
> Minute Rice? (Ramen, BTW, is a perfectly legitimate food in Japan, often
> made by hand by skilled cooks, but I know the stuff you're talking
> about.) 

I know that Good Things can be done with them, but it is the 3 for a
dollar ones we are talking about here. Purina Student Chow, as I saw
them refered to somewhere. 

> I don't know what kind of numbers you're going to throw at me,
> but does the extra 7 minutes (average) it takes to cook real pasta over
> ramen justify the decrease in quality _and_ perodicity? Nineteen minutes
> for real rice versus that horrible extruded fake rice-flour pasta? 

I know, I argue for it, but they want warm lunches in case of inclement
weather, and Voices Was Heard. I basically want ammo in case a
figh^Wdebate ensues about what is reasoanable.

> You
> still have the same pot to wash, the same fire to deal with, but you've
> traded a few minutes out of a process requiring considerably more time
> overall, no matter which way you go, and eaten a significantly better or
> worse meal. The few minutes' difference seems not very significant.

Yep, and even if I cheat due to climatic factors and do it on a
(backpacking) stove, the cooking/prep times are, as you point out,
insignificantly longer.

> BTW, some of the English recipes, as well as several Italian ones and
> the various depictions in Tacuinum Sanitatis, suggest pasta was often
> dried, which means there ought to be no problem with either carrying
> pre-made dried pasta or with using a commercial product. Other possible
> timesavers might be to carry pre-made flatbreads, cheeses, various
> pickles, smoked and dried meats, fish, etc.

That's what I plan if the weather is ok (I had no time to find a whole
dried ling while they were commonly available over X-mas, nominally for
the lutfisk DIY crowd, so dried fish might be hard to come by. Smoked is
no problem, of course). It's for the days with cold & wet were the
Voices (not the ones in my head, they are much more reasonable) made
their objections.

> But you know, you might consider a
> cook-off. The detractors of your methods can cook their minute rice, and
> you can make some sawgeat (scrambled eggs with sage and sliced, probably
> smoked, sausage). Whoever is finished first really ought to get to eat
> the sawgeat, don't you think? Loser eats the minute rice? 

Recipie? Source? Sounds yummy. 

> Adamantius, who turns out an omelette in about _half_ a minute...

Usually takes me a bit longer than that, even starting with a hot pan.
How?

/UlfR

- -- 
Par Leijonhufvud                                      parlei at algonet.se
"Trying to fit reality to that statement is like
trying to write a natural history of leprechauns"
		-- Ian York