fd-transport-msg - 3/16/08
Transporting cooked and prepared food. Keeping it hot or cold.
NOTE: See also the files: headcooks-msg, pot-luck-fsts-msg, Run-a-Feast-art, warming-ovens-msg, feast-serving-msg, feast-ideas-msg, dayboards-msg.
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NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
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Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:35:29 -0400
From: grizly at mindspring.com
Subject: Re: Re: SC - NEED AN OPINION
> Seton1355 at aol.com wrote:
> ><<<< If I pack hot boneless chicken cutlets in foil and then wrap in newspaper and then store them in a picnic cooler. Will they go bad in 4 hours? Or do you think they will still be OK to eat? >>>>>>
Adamantius added:
><<SNIP>>> Ultimately, the question is, for how much of that four hours will your chicken be under 140 degrees Fahrenheit? >>>>
A terribly simple solution that I have found to boost the duration of heated food in coolers is an item often used for arthritis. Take an impeccably clean sock (or terricloth towel folded in half and sides sewn closed) and put within 1 pound of rice. Tie end in a knot (or sew the edge closed). This item is now ready to use. Heat on high in a microwave oven for 2 minutes. It will be VERY hot when you remove it, so use pads. Put immediately in the cooler and close the lid (if you use over the size that will hold 16 drinks, you'll need more of these jewels). It will now heat the cooler for you. You may now put your hot food into it without having the heat sucked out to heat the environment around it. Reheat your rice bag again, and return to the cooler with the food, and close up. I have found that this adds from 60 to 90 minutes to the holding time for food in insulated containers.*** For use on sore/arthritic joints, only heat about 30 to 45 seconds. Make sure it doesnąt burn to hold it when squishing the rice. It will hold therapeutic temperature for over an hour. If it start holding temps for too short a time, then mist the sack a LITTLE with water before heating it or change the rice. It will last for years before completely wearing out. Pretty good for about a $1.00 investment in materials!!
niccolo difrancesco
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:24:37 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
Subject: Re: SC - NEED AN OPINION
Another thing we did at a feast to keep soup hot in a cooler was to make sure that we filled the cooler with very hot water and let it sit for about 15 minutes. This heats up the cooler, making it keep thing hot longer.
Then of course there are those devices that plug into your cigarette lighter in your car which will keep food either hot or cold.
Kiri
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 23:58:35 -0400
From: kattratt <kattratt at charter.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] great tips
A "Cooler" also works as a "heater"!!! Put newspaper in the bottom
(sections at a time) then whatever you want kept hot!!! Then another
layer of newspaper sections. (Cardboard also works just as well)
Rice, Meat Pies, 2 hours
Chicken 1 hour
Bread 30 ish minutes
ALL Served Piping hot!
Nichola
From: Weaver8002 at aol.com
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 18:31:25 EST
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Info on holding cabinets and portable hotboxes?
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
doc at medievalcookery.com writes:
> Do any of the pro and semi-pro chefs on the list have recommendations
> for holding cabinets/hotboxes/carriers? I'm going to be cooking a good
> sized feast in a place that has almost no kitchen and am considering
> purchasing some major equipment to make my life a little easier.
>
> Ideally I'd want something reasonably portable (given a big enough
> van), that can keep hot foods at safe serving temperature (possibly
> with the addition of sterno cans or something), and of course
> inexpensive as well (a couple of hundred bucks in my dreams - a couple
> of thousand in my nightmares).
>
> - Doc
While I'm no where near even a simi-professional, Alton Brown of "Good Eats"
fame mentioned on one of his shows that a cooler could also be used as a hot
box. As I recall, he lined the bottom with newspaper, heated bricks in the
oven, covered them with more newspaper and the put the carefully sealed food
on top and covered with more newspapers before closing. I've never tried it,
but it sounds reasonable and would be cheep.
Margherita the Weaver
From: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Info on holding cabinets and portable hotboxes?
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 20:32:05 -0500
> Do any of the pro and semi-pro chefs on the list have recommendations
> for holding cabinets/hotboxes/carriers?
While not a chef of any description ;-) I tend to agree with the suggestions of using coolers, for a combination of convenience, versatility, safety and pirice.
Essentially, all you need is an insulated containment method, and coolers will provide that, while still being food safe and reasonably portable. They have some fairly large ones on the market now- I've seen them at Sam's Club- and lining them with newspaper and storing hot food in them works very nicely. If you want to for even less expensive, the plastic tubs, if properly lined with insulation such as newspaper, would work as well. I used two of them filled with ice cubes to haul the veal calf I butchered for Iasmine's Coronation Feast all over Ohio, as well as storing it for a couple of days at Duke Andrew's. They worked very well. The trick is the keep them full so that the hot or cold foods help keep each other hot or cold. The addition of ice or wrapped hot bricks just keeps things at your preferred temperature longer.
Phlip
From: Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Info on holding cabinets and portable hotboxes?
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 13:49:04 +1100
Investing in a few in-oven thermometers might be a worthwhile thing for portable newspaper lined hotboxes, so you can easily tell what temperature things are at when you open the box.
Kiriel
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 07:42:36 -0500
From: "Nick Sasso" <NJSasso at msplaw.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Info on holding cabinets and portable
hotboxes?
From: <Weaver8002 at aol.com>
> While I'm no where near even a simi-professional, Alton Brown of "Good Eats"
> fame mentioned on one of his shows that a cooler could also be used as a hot
> box. As I recall, he lined the bottom with newspaper, heated bricks in the
> oven, covered them with more newspaper and the put the carefully sealed food
> on top and covered with more newspapers before closing. I've never tried it,
> but it sounds reasonable and would be cheep. Margherita the Weaver
I have wrapped 2 bricks in heavy duty foil, heated them in oven at 300F
for about 15 minutes, then placed [them] in cooler for heating. 6 hours later,
there was no appreciable drop in brick temp. Granted, these bricks are
circa 1920 solid, and have no holes in them. It's the same theory as
thermal mass ovens. I don't know if it will last days . . . gotta try
that this weekend.
pacem et bonum,
niccolo difrancesco
From: Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Info on holding cabinets and portable hotboxes?
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 14:27:35 +1100
>From "Hard times handbook" by Keith and Irene Smith
Fireless cookers
The simple haybox and the more elaborate hotbox are fireless cookers. They work in the same way as a vaccuum flask, retaining heat by insulation.
Once a pot of soup or stew has been brought to the boil, it is placed inside the insulated box, where it continues cooking for several hours without using any further energy. This slow cooking method is ideal for dishes like soups, stews, porridge, rice, grains and casseroles. You can use it to keep water or cooked food warm and to make yoghurt.
The hotbox gives slow even cooking which will make even cheaper cuts of meat and tough old fowls tender and palatable. Using this method you can't overcook, food can't boil over, burn or dry up so there are no scorched pans to scrape and clean. Food is cooked in the saucepan or casserole dish on your stove till it boils, or between one-third to one half the usual cooking time, then transferred to the hotbox with the lid still sealed. The hotbox is closed and the food is left for roughly three times as long to complete cooking.
Porridge for early breakfast should be put into the hotbox overnight. Oatmeal, rice, cracked wheat and other grains swell to the utmost when cooked this way, but dried beans should first be soaked overnight before cooking. Put the evening meal in the hotbox during the day, go out, and enjoy it when you return at night, tired and hungry."
"For bigger meals I have a haybox cooker in a tea chest. it is half packed with dry grass, with some more in an old pillow case. Make a nest in the ahy to fit the chosen saucepan (or even better, pressure cooker), wrap it in newspaper after boiling, put it to bed and tuck it in well. "
"a styrofoam picnic box or moulded plastic "esky" would make an ideal container for an efficient hotbox It already has a degree of insultation in-built which can be further improved by adding insulation tightly packed around the cavity where the cooking pot will sit."
"the simple haybox is made by burying a pot with a tight fitting lid (used as a food container) inside a wooden box in uncut hay. a pillow or cushion on the top makes an insulated cover. There should be at least 10cm of tightly packed insulation around the billy, and 15cm of insulation material above and below it. The outside may be a metal or plastic garbage tin, a drum, bucket or kerosine tin. Insulation may be shredded newspapers, polystyrene packing, cotton, sawdust, steel wool, dried seaweed or an old woollen blanket, as long as the material is dry and clean".
I hope this is of some help.
Kiriel
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 11:45:40 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Kerri Martinsen <kerrimart at mindspring.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] transporting hot food WAS: Veggie suggestions
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
From: Ysabeau <ysabeau at mail.ev1.net>
> I'm hoping that if I bake the Hungarian tarts and pop them into an insulated
> cooler straight from the oven they should stay warm enough to serve for at
> least an hour. I can cook the sausages on the grill on site.
Be sure you protect your plastic cooler from the hot dishes. Towels
would work. You can also put a brick in the oven while your dishes
are cooking and then transfer said brick to the cooler to help
maintain a higher temp. Again protecting cooler from hot brick (put
hot brick on cold brick).
Vitha
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 11:53:26 EDT
From: KristiWhyKelly at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] transporting hot food WAS: Veggie suggestions
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> if I bake the Hungarian tarts and pop them into an insulated cooler
> straight from the oven they should stay warm enough to serve for at least an
> hour. I can cook the sausages on the grill on site.
If you have those metal coolers that Coleman sells. They work very well for
keeping your hot foods hot. We use them all the time to pull meats from the
ovens when we are doing lots of roasts. In fact they are so good at keeping
temps, we've learned to under cook the meats by 5-8 degrees as they over
cooked in the cooler over a couple of hours.
Grace
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 13:31:55 -0400
From: "grizly" <grizly at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] transporting hot food WAS: Veggie suggestions
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Throw in some thoroughly cleaned, foil wrapped and oven heated bricks,
and you extend the holding time your insulated box can support.
niccolo
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 14:32:49 -0600
From: "Georgia Foster" <jo_foster81 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] transporting hot food
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Otherhill is a VERY large (land-mass wise) shire in Artemisia and it is not
unusual to cook feast and have to transport the whole mass an hour or more
away (like last Candlemass). I prepared feast for 40, in my own kitchen,
packed all into as many plastic coolers as I could lay hands on.
If you stuff the cooler as full as possible with hot stuff and any remaining
air space with towels ... it works even better.
I do an average of one such feast every other year.
Additionally
Coleman came out with a hot food keeper that plugs into the average vehicle
power port (formerly known as a cigarette lighter). I am told that it works
great for longer transports. I have a companion who got one free from
(gasp) Marlboro miles, and he totally loves it. It is on my list of things
to get and try between now and Uprising War (next month).
Malkin
Otherhill
Artemisia
Jo (Georgia L.) Foster
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 17:13:25 -0500
From: "Betsy Marshall" <betsy at softwareinnovation.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] transporting hot food WAS: Veggie suggestions
To: "'Kerri Martinsen'" <kerrimart at mindspring.com>, "'Cooks within the
SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Also pop a blanket over the top- Igloo(TM)type tubs are more insulated on
the bottom, (where the cold air pools) than on the top to prevent heat from
rising and escaping.
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:23:40 -0400
From: Cindy Renfrow <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Help!!! Camp Ovens
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Regarding pie shells able to resist transportation?
Elizabeth, have a look at: http://www.thousandeggs.com/gretepye.html
The dough I used is far heavier and stiffer than ordinary pie dough and
will hold up well to moulding around a cookie tin. Hint: wrap the
upside-down tin with greased foil before applying the dough to the
?outside* of the tin, and don't press it down too tightly. You will be
baking your "castle" upside down. Heavy cardboard mailing tubes work
fairly well if you want to make castle towers (if you don't mind the
smell of cooking cardboard).
After baking, let the dough cool completely before carefully unmolding
it. Then pop it back in a very slow oven with the door cracked open a
bit to dry the shell out completely. This may take several on/off
cycles. During this final phase, you may also glaze and decorate your
castle walls with seeds, egg yolks, etc.
The filling can be heated & the whole thing assembled on site at the
last minute. A chef's propane torch can be used to melt the final sugar
glaze, but be careful.
Regarding your oven dilemma, now is not the time to experiment! Find a
friend with a working oven or chat up your local pizzeria owner.
Also, if you haven't seen it already,
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/illusion-fds-msg.html is quite
interesting.
Cindy Renfrow
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:39:09 -0500
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <dailleurs at liripipe.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] medieval boil-in bag meals
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>, Susan Fox
<selene at earthlink.net>
for things in a crust, I found that wrapping them loosely in tin
foil, and THEN putting them in
ziplocks helped keep the crust from getting soggy, plus the extra
packaging that was slightly stiff meant they didnt get as smooshed!
of course the best way to transport tarts and such is in the muffin
pans (we sometimes do our handheld pies in texas muffin tins)
--AM
> What completely failed in seal-bags was hand-held pies. I tried to bag
> up Cornish pasties for war once and the vacuum-suck process broke up the
> crusts severely. Next time, I go with conventional zipper bags and
> store them on crushed ice, gently.
>
> Selene
<the end