TINDER PARMIGIANO

Have you ever been to a fancy Italian restaurant where the waiter/waitress offers to grate fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on your piping-hot dish of pasta? Believe it or not, that cheese grater they are using is also really good at producing fire tinder from dry wood. Softwood shavings from trees such as willow, cottonwood, and tulip poplar make excellent fire tinder for the beginning stages of a fire, just after your tinder bundle catches to flame. A steel cheese grater can make a quick pile of tinder shavings that’s very similar in effectiveness to a traditional feather stick. The best use of this tool isn’t in the field but rather in advance when preparing for an adventure. I like to fill small reusable bags of fine wood shavings and throw a few in my pack before I head out for an overnight camp. You never know when dry wood tinder may be difficult to secure.

Chapter 4

Food Hacks

STOVE AND COOKING HACKS

Ramen Noodle Stove

Cardboard Fire Roll

Brick Stack Cooking Spit

Wok Solar Cooker

Satellite Solar Cooker

Pop Can Alcohol Stove

Egg Carton BBQ

Toilet Paper Stove

Tuna Can Burner

Junk Stove

Newspaper Oven

Inverted Can Oven

Improvised Swedish Torch

Shelf Bracket Stove

Brick Rocket Stove

Make a Walking Oven

FISHING HACKS

The Fisherman’s Bracelet

Credit Card Lure

Pop Can Fishing Kit

Spider Web Net

5-Gallon Bucket Aqua Lens

Paracord Fishing Fly

An Energetic Fishing Hook

Use Walnuts to Get Fishing Bait

HUNTING AND FORAGING HACKS

Pallet Bow

Figure-8 Sling Bow

Spoon Broadhead

From Toy to Takedown

Loads of Larvae

Orange Sack Ghillie Hood

Bicycle-Powered Slingshot

Cross-Country Takedown Bow

Nickel for Your Dinner

8" Pipe Bow

Tweezers Gig

Slingshot Whisker Biscuit

David’s Sling from Your Shoes

Improvised Arrow Fletching

Key to Eating Wild Game

Carpet Quiver

Balloon Bottle Sling

TRAPPING HACKS

A Better Mousetrap

25-Cent Mousetrap

Deadfall Trigger

Toilet Lid Live Bird Capture

Build a Bird Bottle Noose-apult

POTS, PANS, AND UTENSIL HACKS

The 2-Liter Spoon

Loop Stick Pot Hanger

Shovel It In

A New “Rind” of Cooking

Natural Alternative to Aluminum Foil

Fork Handle Hack

Bottle Cap Scaler

Pot Hangers

PRESERVATION HACKS

Dashboard Dehydrator

Clay Pot Cooler

Mini Solar Dehydrator

In extreme conditions, humans can survive for as long as 3 weeks without food. While food may be on the bottom of the survival priority list, it can bring a survivor or group of survivors much joy. A meal in the wilderness not only provides needed calories and energy, but it can uplift spirits and boost morale. Just one meal may provide the hope necessary to make it through a difficult situation. Remember, survival is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. A full belly has just as much impact on attitude as it does on energy levels.

From cooking and preparation to hunting, fishing, and trapping, this chapter covers all kinds of incredible food- and eating-related hacks. These hacks may use random everyday objects, but they are based soundly on field- and time-tested survival principles. Many of the items used can be easily found or sourced in a sudden and unexpected survival scenario, often in the form of trash.

Securing food is usually the most time-consuming and difficult aspect of survival. Trying to outsmart animals while using improvised tools is not easy. Having a vast arsenal of options is a huge bonus. I hope this chapter provides you with a few more options to add to your existing list.

STOVE AND COOKING HACKS

RAMEN NOODLE STOVE

I love items that do double duty. Ramen noodles are not only a lightweight pack food, but they can also serve as a great little cooking stove in a pinch. All you have to do is saturate the dried brick of ramen with a flammable liquid such as alcohol or HEET brand gas-line antifreeze (yellow bottle) and it will burn like a solid fuel puck for up to 20 minutes per side. The dried ramen noodles help to control the rate of fuel vaporization. It helps to soak the ramen brick in one of the fuels mentioned above for a while before use, but it isn’t necessary. Build a makeshift frame to balance a pot and cook away! Hint: A standard yellow kitchen sponge also works the same way and makes a handy little impromptu stove when soaked with alcohol or HEET.

CARDBOARD FIRE ROLL

If you’re looking for a quick and dirty way to cook a meal using a pan or skillet, the cardboard fire roll could be just what you need to get the job done. Roll pieces of cardboard into a tight log-like shape that is approximately 2' × 8' in diameter. Twist scrap wire around the cardboard log in 2 places to hold it together (old clothing hangers work great for this). Stand the roll upright atop 2 bricks spaced 6" apart so that air can draw through the hole up the center of the rolled log. Stuff the bottom interior of the roll with dry, combustible tinder such as leaves, grasses, newspaper, wood shavings, and twigs. Once ignited, the cardboard will continue to burn like a rocket stove until gone.

BRICK STACK COOKING SPIT

Two stacks of bricks, each on opposite sides of the fire, make an excellent frame for a cooking spit. Stack the bricks directly on one another with the holes aligned up and down. Once stacked to your preferred cooking height, insert 2 sticks into the holes of each stack of bricks. These sticks create a frame on top of each stack of bricks where a rotating cooking spit can be securely placed. Skewer your meat or vegetables on the spit and lay across the bricks in between the 2 stick guides on each stack. This stacked-brick technique works really well on extremely hard surfaces (like concrete) where forked supports cannot be hammered into the dirt. In cold weather, you can place the fire-heated bricks inside a shelter or under a raised bed to radiate heat throughout the night.

WOK SOLAR COOKER

A wok can be used to cook food in more ways than one if you understand how to harness the power of the sun. A wok, unlike most other pots and pans, has a consistent parabolic shape. When covered in a reflective material, this parabolic shape can be used to focus the sun’s rays. A television satellite dish works in much the same way to converge electromagnetic signals into a receiver. You can use reflective aluminum tape, available at most hardware stores, to cover the wok’s surface. Aim it at the sun and position it so as to cast a very hot focal point of light on a hanging pot or pan. The heat from this light will be enough to cook food and boil water. You can use this same setup to start a fire by placing tinder material at the focal point of light.

SATELLITE SOLAR COOKER

Small parabolic satellite dishes can be found anywhere there are houses. Their shape enables them to converge and concentrate the television signal into a receiver. They are also perfect tools for converging and concentrating the sun’s rays for solar cooking. The inside of the dish must be covered with a reflective material. Reflective aluminum tape, available at most hardware stores, works best. However, you can adhere a Mylar blanket to the surface if you coat the satellite with petroleum jelly, lard, butter, or something similar first. Be careful because the focal point produced from this lens is incredibly powerful and can cause third-degree burns on human skin in just a few seconds. When ready to cook, suspend a pot (with the bottom spray-painted black to absorb heat) directly in the focal point. The dish must be facing directly toward the sun.