Boiling With Hot Stones
by storm
From microwaving popcorn to roasting potatoes around a cars hot exhaust pipe, humans have developed a variety of cooking methods by which we render food safer, more digestible, and more palatable. Stone-boiling is one of my favorite Stone Age (pardon the pun) methods. Some alternatives for boiling food are energy intensive and more difficult to prepare (rawhide bags, pottery). Stone boiling requires a fire, some rocks, and a coal-burned container.
I started experimenting with stone-boiling while living in Olympic National Park (WA State). I had heard that some types of rocks were better to use than others, but I couldnt locate any information regarding which tended to crack (or explode!) and which are keepers for a lifetime. So here are the results of my very limited exploration on the subject at hand.
Lets begin with the contestants. From the nearest extinct volcanic pluton, lets welcome Granite! Granite is relatively large-grained, which we think doesnt bode well for this igneous rock.
Although most of this melange of cobbles started out as lowly depositional sand, these glassy rocks endured sweltering heat and enormous pressures in order to metamorphose into the beautiful Quartzites you see before you today! On a more serious note, there is some Quartz and other igneous rocks in here as well.
And coming all the way from the spreading Pacific Oceanic Ridge, taking 200 million years to get here, its Basalt! Fine-grained basalt has a good reputation for withstanding rapid heating and cooling amongst abos in the field. Good luck to all of you!
Ahem. Now that I have that out of my system...
Heating up the rocks...
Got my coal-burned Western Red Cedar cooking vessel ready, in which Ill test the hot rocks.
on to Part 2...
by storm
From microwaving popcorn to roasting potatoes around a cars hot exhaust pipe, humans have developed a variety of cooking methods by which we render food safer, more digestible, and more palatable. Stone-boiling is one of my favorite Stone Age (pardon the pun) methods. Some alternatives for boiling food are energy intensive and more difficult to prepare (rawhide bags, pottery). Stone boiling requires a fire, some rocks, and a coal-burned container.
I started experimenting with stone-boiling while living in Olympic National Park (WA State). I had heard that some types of rocks were better to use than others, but I couldnt locate any information regarding which tended to crack (or explode!) and which are keepers for a lifetime. So here are the results of my very limited exploration on the subject at hand.
Lets begin with the contestants. From the nearest extinct volcanic pluton, lets welcome Granite! Granite is relatively large-grained, which we think doesnt bode well for this igneous rock.
Although most of this melange of cobbles started out as lowly depositional sand, these glassy rocks endured sweltering heat and enormous pressures in order to metamorphose into the beautiful Quartzites you see before you today! On a more serious note, there is some Quartz and other igneous rocks in here as well.
And coming all the way from the spreading Pacific Oceanic Ridge, taking 200 million years to get here, its Basalt! Fine-grained basalt has a good reputation for withstanding rapid heating and cooling amongst abos in the field. Good luck to all of you!
Ahem. Now that I have that out of my system...
Heating up the rocks...
Got my coal-burned Western Red Cedar cooking vessel ready, in which Ill test the hot rocks.
on to Part 2...