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The Rock Boil, Keffiyeh or Shemagh
If you haven’t planned ahead to bring your GI canteen cup or other metal cooking pot, one of the best improvised cooking methods is the “rock boil.†Scrape a depression in the ground. Line it, flesh-up, with the hide of an animal you have snared and plan to eat.
Put your stew ingredients in the hide with water to cover. Carefully add one or two hot rocks you have heated in your came fire. As one rock cools down and stops simmering, fork it out with a stick, put it back in the fire, then replace it with another hot rock. Primitive peoples who do this a lot keep a dozen or so chicken egg-sized rocks for this purpose and use them in continuous rotation.
To poach small fish or boned fillets takes three to four egg or lemon-sized rocks to a quart of water in mild shirt-sleeve weather. Double that cooking time for chilly weather and for red meats. Cutting game meat into smaller bite-sized pieces speeds cooking time. Smash the bones and marrow into a paste and put that into your cooking skin too.
Punch holes at 2 inch intervals around the edges of the cooking skin, and thread with cordage, so that you can gather up any leftovers into the bag and hoist high enough into a tree to protect your stash from predators. If on the move this enables you to carry your food with you while evading.
An empty metal ammunition can, canteen cup or old-style GI steel helmet can also be used instead of digging a hole in the ground with the rock boil method.
Put your food in center of a loose-woven cloth such as the triangular bandage in your first aid kit, keffiyeh or shemagh or your bush hat. Lower the food in the cloth ball into the rock boil. As the water stops sputtering lift the cloth and food from the hot water while you change hot rocks as needed. This method transfers fewer ashes into the food.
The keffiyeh or shemagh is the traditional head wrap originating from the Arabic turban used for centuries. Next to his rifle, knife and boots, the shemagh, is one of the most useful pieces of kit the desert soldier can have. It is a square of loosely woven cotton fabric about 1 metre square. In Western military use its value as a a piece of survival equipment dates the North African campaign of WWII where the British Special Air Service discovered its potential. A desert scarf has been valuable piece of kit ever since and its use has spread to present day use in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The desert keffiyeh or shemagh was originally used for protection against hostile environmental conditions, providing protection against sun, wind, sandstorms and the cold at night. Intended primarily as a head wrap, shemaghs are have multiple other uses:
* dust mask and veil to keep sun, snow, wind, sand and dust out of the eyes,
face and from going down the neck
* sniper’s concealment – face veil – obscuring the shape of the face
* around neck to retain heat in cold or absorb sweat and protect the neck from
sunburn during heat of the day
* cravat, compression bandage or sling for wounded arm
* sun shade while resting
* blinders for pack horses, camels or mules
* improvised foot wrap replacing lost sock
* carrying bundle for when foraging food
* improvised tote for organizing loose gear in ruck
* towel, wash cloth
* improvised rope or equipment sling
* improvised sieve for cooking food using the "rock boil" method
73 de KE4SKY
In "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
USA
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