[Sca-cooks] Sixteen Steps to Build an SCA Cooks Campfire

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Three things to avoid when lighting fires:
>  Lighting fires while being watched
>  Lighting fires with the local idiot
>  Lighting fires without checking the local fire department.
>
> 1. The more people watching the more often your attempts will fail. This
is
> usually followed by Light match light. #$%#@ light $%^%(*&&_*(*& matches.
> Along with varying degrees of proper pronouns expressing individual tastes
> and points of argument.
>  2. Idiots are people who think gasoline soaked wood is a good standard
fire
> starter. Exciting maybe, desirable by the majority of campers not. Tents
are
> flammable to, and the fire ball has to land some where.
> 3. Having the fire department show up at your event is most
disconcerting.
> As you watch the supper you have been working on getting covered in fluids
> best suited to the job of extinguishing your hard won victory over
Murphy's
> laws.
>  Da

Actually, as a blacksmith, I light quite a number of fires while being
watched, with or without local idiots involved, and generally with the
approval of the fire dept- had more than one fire chief watching me, or
inspecting my set up, including within a couple feet of school buildings.

The trick with any fire is to
1. Be prepared to start a fire.
2. Pay attention to the fire.

I'm a lazy git by nature. Being lazy, I bring charcoal lighter fluid,
because I'm lighting, guess what, charcoal ;-) Coal/coke fires are a pain to
try to light, but they're easy if you start with charcoal. I just don't use
the coal or coke any more, because it isn't period, although charcoal is.

To start the fire, pile your charcoal in a compact pile, soak with lighter
fluid, and leave it alone for a while- go fill your coffee pot, or your
slack buckets, arrange your tools, or whatever, but just let the fluid soak
in for about 5 minutes. Then, flick your Bic, or light your match, or apply
flame however you intend to in 3-4 places, and let the fluid start to burn
off. When that starts to settle, crank your blower, and let the coals get
going.

What, you don't have charcoal lighter fluid, or a Bic, or a blower? See rule
number 1 ;-)

I usually have my coffee pot on my forge while I'm working, and generally
later in the day, I cook over the fire. I use enough charcoal during the day
that all the lighter fluid has evaporated by the time I do my cooking, so
you don't get that nasty taste. And, I keep a very controlled fire- it sits
in a brake drum on a metal table, and I can run it from about 1500 degrees
to about 3000 degrees, simply by controlling the fuel and the air.

SCAdian bonfires aren't that controlled. There's usually no real thought to
controlling the air flow, other than fanning it with whatever is handy, and
for all the fire bugs we have, very few of them understand how to PROPERLY
use a liquid accellerant- that's why they're banned at Pennsic. And, many
people do not realize that most cooking needs coals, not flames.

Managing a fire to produce coals is easy. You have your basic pretty
campfire, and you keep adding wood to it, while using a shovel or, if you
have it set up in a trench, a rake, to move the coals to the cooking area.
That's really all there is to it.

I used my Soup Pot this year at the Chirurgeon's Party to steam the lobster
(at that stage of the Pennsic water supply, I was damned if I was actually
going to immerse food in Pennsic water) over our campfire. It was a bit
slow, because my S-hook wasn't really long enough to get the pot low enough
to boils quickly, but the lobsters came out just fine. Probably should have
forgotten the S-hook and used the wrought iron chain to hold the pot, but it
worked.



Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....