Cooking Without Fuel!

Pat filling a cooking basket
with local grasses.

Some time back I read an article in a newspaper about a woman who was making and selling cooking baskets in Kampala. The basic bamboo baskets resembling those traditionally used to store grain, but when lined with plastic and filled with local grasses and/or other such insulating materials, they supposedly not only cook food but also keep it hot for hours. Food is initially pre-cooked before it is placed in the cooking basket. After being placed in the basket the original heat continues to cook the food as it remains in the basket. Although some initial heat is needed, no more heat is needed to complete the cooking. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, but wasn’t sure how effective a basket could be at cooking food without fuel. I saved the article thinking that I might revisit the idea at another time.

Finished cooking baskets.

Recently, I was visiting with my friend Lillian, a single mom and a primary school teacher. She was sharing with me about the rising cost of using charcoal and the difficulty of gathering firewood in the swamp behind the place she is staying for cooking their daily meals. Our conversation brought to mind the article about the cooking baskets. Soon after my conversation with Lillian, I ran into my friend Pat who is another missionary reaching out to the women here in Ft. Portal. I was telling her about my idea to make one of the cooking baskets to see how it works. Pat shared with me that she knew how to make the baskets and in fact had used them during her time living in Bundibugyo. She and I agreed to get together and make a few of the baskets to give to Lillian to try out.

Emma sewing heavy plastic
liner into sample basket.

Lillian agreed to use the baskets to cook the local foods and document the results. We wanted to see for ourselves how well the baskets worked. Both of us were a little skeptical at first, but if the basket performed up to even a fraction of what was reported it would be well worth our time and efforts. After using the baskets for over a month, we were both surprised and very happy with the result. Lillian helped me to develop a menu with the pre-cook preparation time needed for the various local foods before placing them in the basket and the time it takes in the basket to finish cooking. We also made some minor changes to the basket to better improve it’s performance. Lillian continues to use the basket for cooking food as well as keeping left overs hot for her children as they return home from school each day for lunch.

Lillian showing how the
saucepan nests in the basket

This past month, Pat invited Lillian and I to share how to make the baskets and how to use them with the leaders of various women’s groups that she works with. We knew the women would be a bit skeptical and that a demonstration would be needed to convince the women of its performance and benefits. All of their doubts vanished when we opened our cooking basket. Lillian had prepared dry beans in a saucepan before we left in the morning. She boiled the dry beans over a fire for about 40 minutes before placing them in the basket. We opened up the basket after lunch and the saucepan with beans in it was still too hot to touch. The beans were steaming hot and perfectly cooked! Dry beans normally take at least 2- 3 hours to cook over a continuous fire. When using the basket only 30 to 45 minutes are needed over a fire. No more heat is needed as the beans continue to cook in the basket for 3 to 4 hours before they are ready to eat. Although it takes a little longer for the beans to be ready to eat when using the basket the saving are well worth it.

Curiosity of the women peaked as we teach them how
to make the baskets.

Lillian explains to the women how to use the cooking
basket to prepare each of the local foods.

The cooking baskets can be a tremendous benefit to the women and their families. A cooking basket is very simple to make and is made out of locally available and inexpensive materials. A basket can be made for less than 15,000 Uganda shillings, which is equivalent to about six dollars. The cost of making one can be significantly reduced if the ladies know how to weave their own baskets out of bamboo or papyrus that is available locally. The benefits are extraordinary. The cost of making the basket is quickly returned in the savings gained by the reduced amount time it takes to cook the foods over an open fire, resulting in much less firewood or charcoal used and significantly less time spent tending fires to cook the local foods, freeing up the women to get other things done instead of spending all their time cooking or reheating left over food. Children’s risk of being burned by fire is also minimized as the time of preparing food over the fire is significantly reduced.

Women tasting the finished beans cooked in the basket.

Please pray for more opportunities to share the cooking baskets with more women and for those women who have learned about the cooking baskets to apply what they have learned by making their own baskets and to freely train others how to make and use them.

In His Grip,

Luan