SHOVEL IT IN
Have you ever heard the phrase “shoveling it in” referring to someone who is eating ravenously? This hack gives a new meaning to that expression. In the absence of a good skillet or griddle to use for survival cooking, several farm tools will work quite nicely as substitutes. Many believe that the term “hoecake” got the name because workers baked little corn cakes on the blades of their hoes while on break from tending the fields. A metal shovel makes a fantastic cooking griddle for meats, vegetables, and breads. The long handle is also very convenient for maneuvering a meal in and around the fire. I’ve cooked many a meal in the bush on my foldable pack shovel. A rake and pitchfork also make excellent skewers for roasting meats.
A NEW “RIND” OF COOKING
If you’re lucky enough to find a pumpkin, squash, or edible gourd in a survival scenario, don’t slice it up to eat too fast. You can simmer a fine woodsman stew inside the hollowed cavity. Meats, root vegetables, greens, and of course the flesh inside the container itself can all be boiled and stewed inside the caldron rind. After you’ve eaten this fine stew and inner flesh, use the rind several more times to boil and purify water or to make additional wild stews. Note: Pumpkin seeds can be roasted on a hot rock and make a nutritious trail snack for a survivor on the move.
NATURAL ALTERNATIVE TO ALUMINUM FOIL
One of my favorite childhood meals was what my mom called a Hobo Dinner. It was hamburger, potatoes, carrots, and onions wrapped in aluminum foil and baked in the coals of a fire. Tin foil is a perfect medium for baking meats and root vegetables in a hot coal bed. This type of cooking also lends itself very well to a survival scenario because you can do other chores while the food cooks. A natural hack to replace aluminum foil is leaves. They have to be green and nonpoisonous. My favorites are basswood, burdock, cattail, and maple. Wrap your food in 3–4 layers of leaves and tie like a birthday package with strips of green willow, mulberry, or basswood bark. Your food will bake inside exactly like in aluminum foil.
FORK HANDLE HACK
From tuna cans to Christmas cookie tins, improvised cooking pans and pots can be made from all different shapes and sizes of metals tins. However, none of them come with convenient handles. You can make a quick and sturdy handle from a regular kitchen fork. Poke 4 holes in the top rim of the tin with your knife, insert the fork tines into those holes, and bend them in an alternating pattern. This provides a safe, sturdy handle for adjusting and lifting the pot in and out of the cooking area. Placing the tin over a stump or log end allows you to poke the holes through the tin and into the wood with ease.
BOTTLE CAP SCALER
When processing several fish for a large group of survivors, it’s always better to split the task up to save time and energy. If there’s only one knife available for gutting and cleaning, a team can save time by scaling the fish first using an improvised bottle cap scaler. The sharp, ribbed texture of the bottom of a bottle cap is the perfect tool for the job. Nail the cap (bottom out) to a stick or piece of wood and work it against the scales to quickly remove them. The first person in the processing line can scale, and the second can gut and clean. This makes for a very quick and efficient fish-cleaning arrangement.
POT HANGERS
Here’s a hack that requires almost no product modifications. If you’re an inexperienced camper and need to learn knife skills, it can be a little tricky to hang a pot of stew or water over the fire to boil without some carefully notched sticks. Sometimes, creativity can trump skill in survival, and this is a prime example. Hang a run-of-the-mill wire hanger upside down over a tripod with the hook wrapped around the pot bail. It may not be the bushcraftiest pot hanger in the world, but it sure is one of the fastest hacks I’ve ever used. In survival, it doesn’t matter how it looks; it only matters how it works.
PRESERVATION HACKS
DASHBOARD DEHYDRATOR
On sunny days, the dashboard beneath the big front windshield of a car can get seriously hot. In fact, it’s plenty hot enough to dehydrate meat and vegetables. Dehydrating anything requires some ventilation, so you’ll have to crack the windows a little bit. If flies are an issue, be sure to cover the cracked windows with some mesh or screen.
Cut meat, fruits, and vegetables in thin 1⁄4" strips and then place on the dash on raised drying racks that have at least 2" of clearance for airflow. Any type of mesh or grid trays will work when propped up on small blocks. On an average sunny day meat can be ready to eat in 6–8 hours. Fruits and vegetables can dehydrate even sooner. The addition of a solar-powered fan on the dash can expedite the process. Even when the outside temperature is in the sixties, vehicle interior temperatures can exceed 115°F.
CLAY POT COOLER
Although there is no hack substitute for a good refrigerator, I can show you how to make a very effective evaporative cooler that can extend the shelf life of fruits, vegetables, and other perishable foods. It all starts with 2 porous flower pots, one slightly larger than the other. Standard terra cotta pots work great. First, plug the hole at the bottom of the large pot and fill the bottom with enough sand to raise the top rim of the smaller pot level with the top rim of the larger pot. Second, fill the space in between the pots with sand, then pour in water so that the sand is completely saturated. The evaporation of the water through the outer pot draws heat from the inside of the smaller container, cooling whatever is inside. It helps to place the cooler in a breeze to increase convection. A damp towel over the top of the cooler serves as the perfect lid.
MINI SOLAR DEHYDRATOR
Dehydrating meat to make jerky is a preservation method that every outdoorsman or outdoorswoman should be familiar with. Meat can last for months when the moisture has been removed and the meat has been made into jerky. You can fashion a very simple mini dehydrator from an empty Pringles snack container. The inside of these cylindrical tubes is coated with a silver reflective foil, which is perfect for making a mini solar dehydrator. First, cut a section about 2" × 8" out of the side of the container. Cover the resulting hole with a section of mesh from an old screen window or door to prevent flies from coming inside. This also allows for good airflow, which is very important when making jerky. Put your meat on a skewer and suspend it from 2 holes punched in the lid and in the bottom of the Pringles tube. One day in full sun should be all you need to make a skewer of jerky. This hack solar dehydrator is capable of reaching the ideal dehydrating temperatures of 130°F–170°F. Your jerky is ready when it cracks when bent in half.
Chapter 5
Staying Healthy
FIRST-AID HACKS
Duct Tape Snow Goggles
Plastic Bottle Splint
Heel Driving—A Walking Hack
2-Jacket Stretcher
Hack Your Temperature with a Wet Bandana
Bra Cup Debris Mask
Charcoal Tummy Aid
Cotter Pin Tweezers
Orbit Goggles