[Sca-cooks] cooking times over an open fire

[Ron Carnegie]

    You most certainly CAN boil water over coals, I have done it several
times.  Most cooking is in fact done over coals and not flame.  If you are
just boiling water flames are not a problem, but they sure can be with a
stew.

	I have done a good deal of cooking over coals.  On campfires and for two
years nearly daily in a down hearth 18th century kitchen.  Olwen was quite
correct in mentioning that in reality the original question is two parts.
The second part, the actual cooking, this is no different then today.  The
same temperture cooks the same regardless of how it is provided.  What takes
longer is getting the heat in the first place, and this is highly  variable.
To get a fire going enough to cook over flame is no great hardship and takes
only a few minutes as long as the wood is dry and seasoned. (Though that is
still longer than even most electric ranges). To cook over coals is the far
more variable extreme.  Still you should have a suitable bed of coals for
cooking within a half hour or so.  If I was boiling a stew and was on the
march, I would start over the fire to save time however.

Ranald de Balinhard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org
> [mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Betsy Marshall
> Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 3:23 PM
> To: 'Cooks within the SCA'
> Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] cooking times over an open fire
>
>
> I think this may be one of those "this can only be learnt by practice"
> topics- my sweetie (who taught boy scouts for years) claims you cannot
> boil water over just coals, you must have flames. Fortunately flames
> happen right after you light the fire and while you are making/prepping
> the coals to roast things over.
> Betsy (aka Pyro- two guesses why...)
>
>