Cooking with the Heat
of the Sun
September 08, 2005 — By Kate Lohnes, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas
For some people, the concept called
solar cooking is a hobby. For others, it's a lifestyle change.
Solar cooking uses sunlight-generated heat to prepare food. Many solar
cookers are made from household materials, such as cardboard and
aluminum foil. Most are fairly inexpensive and can be made at home.
When the solar cooker is placed around a dark-colored pot, sunlight
reflects off the foil and concentrates on the pot. The light is then
absorbed and converted into heat, which cooks the food within the pot.
There are three basic models of solar cookers: box cookers, panel
cookers (which look like the reflectors you put in car windshields), and
parabolic cookers (a large reflective dish with a pot in the center).
Depending on the model, solar cookers can reach 300 degrees Fahrenheit
or higher.
While largely unknown in the culinary arts, solar cooking is not a new
trend. Beverly Blum, director and founding member of Sacramento-based
Solar Cookers International, said U.S. interest in solar cooking first
developed in the mid-1970s. In countries such as China and India,
interest in solar cooking began due to wood and fossil fuel shortages.
According to Blum, SCI formed to spread enthusiasm for solar cooking as
well as the idea of free energy.
"What motivated us [to start SCI] was the realization that there are
many parts of the world which were already facing severe fuel
shortages," she said. "Our purpose was and is to see if we couldn't
spread access to solar cooking and water pasteurization, and to benefit
people whom it would help the most."
Blum, who has traveled to refugee camps in Kenya and other countries,
said solar cooking is helpful for Third World residents because women
are not required to hunt for cooking resources.
"It's wonderful for people in fuel-scarce areas," she said. "Finding
wood and fuel to burn is a terrible burden for women and girls in these
countries. A third of the world still cooks over fires. It's tedious and
hazardous to gather wood, and then these women get home and have to cook
over smoky fires. It's kind of an invisible problem." Solar cooking is
also convenient, Blum said, because the cooker needs no extra attention.
Food goes into the cooker in the morning and is left to cook all day in
its own juices. By evening, dinner is ready, with no stirring and no
burning.
Not only is solar cooking easy, Blum said, but building or buying a
cooker is inexpensive. SCI's easiest model, the CooKit, was designed
with impoverished families in mind, and can be purchased for $25 or
less. Instructions for building homemade solar cookers are also
available on the Internet, as are Web sites to purchase manufactured
cookers.
Solar cooking has also caught the eye of environmentalists in the United
States.
San Antonio native Monica Salyer started her own group, Texas Solar
Cookers, after she first researched the concept three years ago. The
12-member group meets once a month at a San Antonio-area park to discuss
solar cooking promotions, swap recipes and cook together.
Salyer said she owns several solar cookers, including the SCI CooKit,
which she said works well when fixing Texas cuisine.
"It's a blast," she said. "For Texas cooking, fajitas and ribs comes out
just absolutely fantastic." In addition to starting Texas Solar Cookers,
Salyer gives demonstrations around the state at fairs and festivals,
including impromptu sessions at South Padre Island.
"I went to the beach with my sister and pulled [the cooker] out," she
said. "People were gathering around want to know about it. What changes
their disbelief into wonder is when you open the cooking vessel and
steam comes out. People can smell the food cooking and that's when they
get interested."
Tom and Nancy Vineski of Livingston, Texas said solar cooking is a
useful addition to their lifestyle. The Vineskis are self-described
"solar nomads," who travel the United States in a solar-paneled mobile
home. They have three solar cookers they use daily for everything from
bread-baking to fixing Cuban black bean soup.
"You can cook almost anything, except deep fry, which is probably better
for you anyway," Tom Vineski said. "Most any favorite recipe can be
adapted readily to the solar cooker, and because the food tends to steam
and not burn, foods can cook longer and deeper for some incredibly rich
flavors."
In spite of the benefits of solar cooking, Blum said there are
disadvantages. Weather plays a huge part in determining whether or not a
solar cooker works. Solar cooking can be time consuming as well, usually
taking twice as long to cook than the average recipe.
Because solar cooking is still "under the radar," Blum said it's taking
longer to change people's minds.
"This is still the introduction of a new product in many areas, and that
takes time," she said. "Most of us are not risk takers, and the poorest
people are the least able to take risks with precious food or anything
else. They have no spare resources, so they have to see community
leaders using these new ideas before they themselves will dare to try."
Vineski said solar cookers and sun ovens could help reduce energy
consumption in the United States, but not enough people are interested.
"We scratch our heads wondering all the time why people don't take
advantage of it," he said. "In the southwest, we could easily turn
around and use the heat, but there appears to be inertia there, and
people don't make that change."
Salyer said the use of solar cooking signifies a paradigm shift in
cooking, and that as time passes, more people will be interested.
"I don't think it will ever replace cooking indoors," she said. "It's a
trade off between convenience and saving the environment and money. It's
a tool in food preparation, a novelty. It's something new, and what's
new takes a while to catch on."
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News |