Did anyone hear CarTalk this past weekend with the woman who was cooking on her car's engine?

[vicki-in-tucson]

I only caught part of her phone call, but it sounded like she was on a road trip and her husband wanted to save money by cooking their meals on the car's engine.

It wasn't working too well because they were driving a Subaru and (here's where my info gets sketchy) the hot part of the engine (the manifold?) is under the engine, not on top as in most cars. She said it took four hours to cook their enchiladas. So the CarTalk guys recommended they find a wire basket or grill, put the food in it, and attach it to the manifold to cook the food. Although it sounded like there needed to be something between the food and the manifold, otherwise the food would get way too hot. The guys also recommended buying a meat thermometer to avoid food poisoning!

Unreal. That sounds like waaayyyy too much work! I'm all for saving money when necessary, but this sounds really insane. Although I guess you'd get some great stories.

 

[nan]

My goodness, there was a lot of talk about this going around in the 60's and 70's, I had

forgot about it. It was on the exhaust manifold and there was temps and other information out there.
When I worked in logging camps, some of the guys who ran the big machines took stuff in foil and said they had a hot lunch.
I'm thinking with modern cars, there is so much stuff under the hood, it might be hard to find a spot?
Fun idea though,
Nan

 

[dawn_mo]

Amanda her is the website for Car Talk on NPR.

You can download the podcasts to your iPod or listen to it online. I think the most recent one posted is Nov. 10th.

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=9911203

 

[music-city-missy]

The conversation was about the meatloaf she was fixing that night.....

now if it took 4 hours to cook enchiladas, do you really think that of all the things I would try next it would be a meatloaf? She better find a good way to get it down there and get it hot quickly!

What is easily cooked on an 18 wheeler doesn't work as well on cars. They wanted to save money - well buy a little burner and cook practical camp food lady!

 

[vicki-in-tucson]

Yeah, I was thinking it would be easier to camp and cook over a little stove.

I've done that many, many times.

 

[vicki-in-tucson]

Thanks, Dawn. I'll have to listen to the whole call.

 

[mistral]

wasn't there a book called Manifold Destiny, about cooking. . .

On a car's exhaust manifold?

This method of cooking may sound weird but think of the savings over buying fast food or cheapazoid sit-down restaurant food on a long trip. A hot meal is ready when you stop--sounds good to me!

Of course the wrong car would not be any good for cooking. You gotta get stuff hot and relatively hot pronto.