Selfsufficientish.com

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090409/twl ... d0ae9.html
Erm hasn't this been done for ages?

Mr Bøhmer, a Norwegian, set up Kyoto Energy with his Kenyan wife Neema, and has used his own money to fund the project.

All £3.50 of it?

Yup! Thats what I thought! And to have the audacity to say it was his brain child!

I think I'v seen this before somewhere

Bloody cheeky!

I put one together but the idea pre-dates me by a considerable number of years. Yeah put all of jis money into it alright! Obviously they have never been to www.solacooking.org or maybe they have........

Nev

Here's something that I've been reading this morning...... I'll tell all at the end of the post - can you guess when THIS was written?????

Quote:
HAYBOX OR FUELLESS COOKERY.
Fuelless cookery has undergone a revival, and it has become general practice in some households, the revival having no doubt been influenced by the increased cost of fuel, the simplicity of the process, and the motives of general economy.
The title 'fuelless cookery' is rather misleading, since fuel is necessary in the preliminary stages.
Much fuel is however saved, a half at least, and often more than half, that required in other cookery methods.
Many fuelless cookers are on the market, all operating on the same principle; detailed instructions are issued with each cooker.
The simple haybox is more particularly applicable to all kinds of stews, which, however, are first partially cooked upon a coal-range or an electric or gas-stove, and then put into a suitable pot or vessel, which is closely covered, and then placed, with the contents still at the boil, in the prepared haybox.
This last forms a perfect heat insulator, the result being that not only is the stew kept in a heated condition, but it's cooking continues slowly. The food, on an average, takes four times as long to cook in a haybox as it would by the ordinary method. A quarter of the time is taken up by the preliminary stage on the stove, and the latter three-quarters is spent actually in the haybox.
No great harm will come to the food if left in the haybox for a longer period. All kinds of dishes, such as meat, fish, fruit or vegetables can be cooked in this manner, but it is not suitable for roast joints or for actual boiling.
The food, of course, usually requires re-heating before it can be served.
The haybox is quite easy to devise, though home-made appliances are not, as a rule, so satisfactory as some of those on the market.

And the source of this little snippet??
Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book - Written around 1862!!

Someone has sent me the 'New & Revised Edition' although it's VERY fragile, it's very much welcomed in this household, I can tell you - what a little work of art it is... I'm going to be very busy reading & making notes to myself over the next couple of weeks!

**Edited to say: This version of the book looks as though it was printed around the 1890's - as far as I can make out, anyway.

I have a children's novel which I read in 1968 - which details exactly how to make a haybox too! - not quite the 1890s - but not new either.
Also got a just postwar cookbook - which was my Mum's - great ideas there too - very good for preserves recipes!

& I was taught how in the Girl Guides...now I know I'm old but that wasn't quite 1862 either, just the 1970s

MW