[Stoves] Very small stoves and reheating food

Christina Espinosa c_espinosa1 at u.pacific.edu
Sat Oct 20 14:59:05 CDT 2012


Reheating food is very common in Guatemala. Familes always have something that needs a short cooking time (coffee, reheating tortillas, eggs, or generally reheating food). Many families that even have a fridge leave food out and reheat it the next couple of days such as refried beans, etc. 

I have lived in Guatemala the last two years.

Christina Espinosa

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 19, 2012, at 10:38 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:

> Stovers,
> 
> The need for very small stoves has at least three justifications. And both relate to small fire for small cooking tasks.
> 
> 1.  In the developing societies, are there examples of people who re-heat left-over food?   I know of none.   The situation relates to the lack of ways to safely save cooked food until later meals. Refrigerators are generally not available.   But maybe in cold climates, some people can save food for several hours or even for a day.
> 
> 2.  In developing societies, what are the SMALL (and short duration) cooking tasks?    We seldom mention a one or two person household. Many "singles" and elderly live with their family  members, so maybe there simply not many small households.   And maybe the foods lend themselves to being cooked in large-ish pots.   AND the people eat all that is prepared.    OR worse, any excess food gets thrown to the dogs, pigs, chickens, etc.
> 
> 3.  In affluent societies, re-heating left-overs and/or single or two-person households are common, so small cooking with biomass could be useful.
> 
> Who can cite examples of SMALL cooking?   Especially for developing societies.    How about :
> 
> a.  a quick couple of cooked eggs
> b.  hot water for tea or coffee for a few people
> c.  preparing special food for babies
> d.  the need to re-heat the food when someone arrives well after mealtime
> e.  other>>>>>>>>>>   please give examples
> 
> Note:   The above relates to the current practices of cooking, which include the following for developing societies:
> 
> A).  If a family has a small smoldering fire for many many hours (wasting fuel while making smoke), there already is a "small fire", but not a very good one.
> 
> B).  If the family is so poor (or without access to fuels), they simply cannot have a fire except once a day because they do not have a stove that makes a good small fire.
> 
> C).   Other practices.......    please give examples.
> 
> *************** So, why am I asking?? **********
> Because of my recent interest in Boy Scout individual cooking AND because at my house we do re-heat leaf-overs for just my wife and I, I am seeing some valid reasons to have some very small stoves.   For example, tonight I used a special small TLUD natural draft stove to re-heat some lentils (almost a soup).   I used 130 grams of wood (pellets, but wood chips would have done the job) to heat a small (5 inch diameter) pot for 10 minutes, and still had 12 more minutes of fire.   So I will try soon to do a similar task with 65 grams of fuel.
> 
> TLUD micro-gasifiers are especially well suited for these small cooking tasks.
> 
> 1))   They can be started quite quickly, so there is no delay waiting for the fire to build.
> 
> 2))  They can almost self-extinguish, with reduction down to only a small amount of glowing charcoal.   (20% of 130 g is only 26 g of char that is not a major loss if left to burn to ash, but I actually saved it.   And I hope to use only half the fuel (and char) next time.
> 
> 3))  By the way, my little TLUD is essentially "tincanium" and could be easily made wherever tin cans are found (including in Haiti where Food-Aid cooking oil comes in tins appropriate for the outer cylinder of the small TLUD.
> 
> Any comments will be appreciated.
> 
> Paul
> 
> -- 
> Paul S. Anderson, PhD  aka "Dr TLUD"
> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu   Skype: paultlud  Phone: +1-309-452-7072
> Website:  www.drtlud.com
> 
> 
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