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A haybox, straw box, fireless cooker, insulation cooker, wonder oven, self-cooking apparatus, norwegian cooker or retained-heat cooker is a cooker that utilizes the heat of the food being cooked to complete the cooking process. Food items to be cooked are heated to
boiling point The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid changes into a vapor. The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding env ...
, and then insulated. Over a period of time, the food items cook by the heat captured in the insulated container. Generally, it takes three times the normal cooking time to cook food in a haybox.


History

Hayboxes are so called because hay or straw were the commonly used insulators. Pots of food would be brought to a boil and then placed in a box filled with hay or straw. Additional hay or straw would be added around and on top of the pot. The inventor Karl von Drais developed a novel form of haybox in the first part of the 19th century. During World War II, hayboxes were used as a way of conserving rationed cooking fuel. Campers and hikers have used variations of hayboxes for years, heating their food in the morning and then storing the heated pot in a
sleeping bag A sleeping bag is an insulated covering for a person, essentially a lightweight quilt that can be closed with a zipper or similar means to form a tube, which functions as lightweight, portable bedding in situations where a person is sleeping ...
or
backpack A backpack—also called knapsack, schoolbag, rucksack, rucksac, pack, sackpack, booksack, bookbag or backsack—is, in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders ...
. In this way a hot meal is available for eating at the end of the day. Commercial designs based on this principle differed only in details of construction, and the kind of insulating material used. Some types were provided with
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or iron plates which were heated during the preliminary cooking on the stove and then placed in the fireless cooker either over or under the cooking pot. In these types, a non-flammable insulating material was used. A successful home-made strategy was to take a box so large that the cooking pot when placed in it could be surrounded by a thick layer of non-conducting material, such as hay,
excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...
or crumpled paper. A cushion was placed over the pot and a tight-fitting lid was placed over all. Versions of hayboxes that use wool as the insulator have been used as a cost-saving measure in the face of rising fuel prices caused by the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...
.


Advantages and disadvantages

Haybox cooking can save vast amounts of
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy b ...
, but there is a risk of
bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...
l growth if the food items are allowed to remain in the danger zone (41−140 °F or 5−60 °C) for one or more hours. In order to reduce the risk, food cooked in hayboxes can be reheated to boiling before eating, or a food thermometer can be used.


See also

*
Carryover cooking Carryover cooking (sometimes referred to as resting) is when foods are halted from actively cooking and allowed to equilibrate under their own retained heat. Because foods such as meats are typically measured for cooking temperature near the cent ...
*
Thermal cooking A thermal cooker, or a vacuum flask cooker, is a cooking device that uses thermal insulation to retain heat and cook food without the continuous use of fuel or other heat source. It is a modern implementation of a haybox, which uses hay or straw t ...
*
Slow cooker A slow cooker, also known as a crock-pot (after a trademark owned by Sunbeam Products but sometimes used generically in the English-speaking world), is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used to simmer at a lower temperature than o ...
*
AGA cooker The AGA cooker oven is a Swedish oven and cooker. Invented and initially produced in Sweden, since 1957 all production has been located in the UK. History Originally developed to burn coal or anthracite, the Aga cooker was invented in 1922 by ...
*
Chambers stove The Chambers stove is a generic name for several different kitchen cooking appliances sold under the Chambers brand name from 1912 to approximately 1988. Their ranges and stand-alone ovens were known for their patented insulation methods, which ena ...
*
Wonderbag Wonderbag is a stand-alone, non-electric insulated bag designed to reduce the amount of fuel required in the cooking of food in developing countries. Instead of being placed on a stove for the duration of the cooking period, food is instead heated t ...


Further reading

* Davis and Wood, ''Illustrated Lecture on the Home-made Fireless Cooker'' (United States Department of Agriculture, Syllabus 15, Washington 1914) * Huntington, E. H., ''Fireless Cooker'' (University of Wisconsin Bulletin 217, Madison 1908) * Lovewell, Whittemore and Lyon, ''The Fireless Cooker'' (Topeka 1908) * Mitchell, M. J., ''The Fireless Cook Book'' (New York 1909) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60598/60598-h/60598-h.htm * Still, Dean and Ness, Jim, "Capturing Heat:Five Earth-Friendly Cooking Technologies and How to Build Them (36 pages), Aprochevo Research Center publication, 2nd Edition—Newly revised and updated. * Jane & Seggy Segaran ''Haybox Cooking - Save Energy with Thermal Cooking'' (Ohm Books Publishing, 2020)


References

{{reflist Simple living Cooking appliances Ovens