American hobos developed this fine cooking stove
(near right). This one is made from a 3-liter olive
oil can. There are air intake doors at the bottom
on three sides. I kept cutting and folding down the
intake door flaps until there was no charcoal in the
ashes. The top is cut with an X and the flaps folded
up with a vertical crease to support the pot. The
pressure cooker uses very little fuel. It makes it
hard to burn food because the bottom doesn’t dry
out. I’d boil a dozen eggs and steam-bake bread in These are South American “sucker fish” kept in
a bowl atop them at the same time. Seawater has aquariums to clean the glass. When they escape,
the perfect salt content for making bread dough. I they thrive in the wild, breed, and get quite large.
carry an aluminum license plate to put under the They can’t be caught on bait because they feed
stove when I’m worried about killing the grass. I so low on the food chain. They’re not a mercury
looked forward to distilling drinking water like the hazard for the same reason. I removed its tiny
old-time gladesmen did, but I never got thirsty entrails full of algae and cooked it over the hobo
enough to get around to it. stove in a pressure cooker.

FOOD ISSUES

A simple method made possible by plastic is to run For vegetables, I sprouted lentils or mung beans
the steam into a plastic bag for a condenser. (above, (above right) in a quart yogurt tub with vent flaps
bottom right). I tried it with a rice cooker and it cut in the lid. Soak two cups of dry beans for a day,
worked great. All the salt stayed in the cooker and discard the water, and rinse the sprouts every day.
the fresh water collected in the bag in the tub. The Eat as many as you want, and the next morning
bag was such an effective condenser that the steam the tub will be overflowing again. Sprouts are very
hardly puffed it up at all. important to yachties, Mormons, and anyone who
wants to live well on stored food. The book Sailing

I caught a Brown Hoplo armored catfish with my the Farm (out of print, Google for a used copy) is cast net. Delicious flaky yellow meat, simple bone full of sprouting tips and other ingenious methods structure, but it’s got plenty of bones on the outside. for living well on a boat with very limited resources.

The book Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers ( upf.com/Spring1998/ simmons.html) explains how Everglade frontiersmen distilled swamp water. They used a 5-gallon can for a boiler and a coil of 2" copper tubing for a condenser. The condenser coil was cooled in a second 5-gallon lard can full of water.

(ISBN: 0813015731) Glen Simmons and Laura Ogden. $24.95 Cloth. 5¾x8½. 224p. index illus.