How would you cook if you had no electric at all for a month?

Here at home, our stove uses propane, not electricity. Not much with electricity actually used when cooking. At any rate, if we can't use either electricity or propane to cook our meals, my mother would usually go at our back yard, place some bricks where the pot is placed and have some burning wood underneath. When I wasn young, I really felt nice when it was dark and only the flames made light as my mom cooked rice. I wasn't wondering why my mom wasn't using the stove since I was overwhelmed with the glee of the unusual. I just later on realized that our propane tank, during those time when my mom cooked our meals at our backyard, was empty and we couldn't purchase a refilled one.

I was in the Boy Scouts for several years when I was a kid. We learned how to camp and how to survive in the woods with literally nothing but what we had in our pockets and what we could scavenge off the land. I have a gas grill, so I could cook on that. I also have so oak wood behind my house and plenty of forest within walking distance where I could go to gather some more firewood if needed. My friend and I actually build small fires in his yard sometimes and cook on them, so it really wouldn't be anything new for me to cook without electricity. It is sad that people here in America have become so dependent on luxuries such as cars and electricity and running water. Things like this are taken for granted in our country, but other people in the world have to survive from day-to-day without these items. I responded to another discussion yesterday asking what we would do if we were only allowed to use water for three hours per day. I sat for a moment and thought about the children in countries around the world that drink from the same water where animals are swimming. We never know how good we have it until these things are taken away. Thinking about not having any electricity or water makes me think about the times after Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis when we were without power and water (in some places) for weeks. I will say that it wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad for me as it was for others who were not accustomed to going through their day without power and other things. It was actually kind-of nice at times, especially at night when things settled down. No televisions or other distractions blaring out a bunch of noise. Other than the constant drone of generators and sirens from law enforcement and other officials, it was rather relaxing. It kind-of reminded me of a camping trip in a weird sort of way. So, as long as my family is safe and our home is in tact. I won't fret. As long as we have food, I can cook it. I can get water out of the river, and boil it to purify it. We can go to the river to bathe and do some laundry if we absolutely have to. We could get by until the power was restored...

Simple, for me if i had no electricity for cooking i would do exactly what we do when we go camping. Cook on an open fire. Its convient and the food just has so much flavor to it.

That is a really good question! It really got me to thinking. I dug a little bit and ran across this little pot that resembles an electric griddle, but it runs off of a tea candle. It'd definitely be something to have around in case of a power outage.

I would either use the gas grill or the gas stove in the basement that my mother used to do her canning with (cooler in basement during summer before she got central air). Just stock up on several tanks of gas and it's off to the races. In winter, food storage wouldn't be an issue, but in summer, we'd have to either stick to canned items or by meat fresh every day. It could be workable in a pinch. City water would keep the toilet working and the shower and sink for dish washing, coal oil lamps for light, etc. But, we'd have to take the clothes to a laundry to wash since we don't even have a tub to wash by hand. But, we could do it. I don't think it would be impossible at all.

I suppose a grill would work or you could just eat things that dont need cooking and keep them in a ice cooler .

We don't depend much on electricity here when cooking, propane is what we use when cooking and sometimes kerosene stoves. We also use charcoal or chopped woods, we have lots of ways to cook and serve food. If everything else is not available anymore, we could preserve food so we don't have to worry about fire and cooking..

Hi there. Assuming we had no gas or electricity, My family would cook the traditional way and that is, by using the earth oven or "hangi pit" as we call it. Where we would dig a hole, or earth pit, heat certain stones in a blazing fire, get them out and drop them in the pit, we would put our meats, veges, steam puddings and stuffings in separate steel racks, to be placed on top of the hot hot stones, in the meantime we would get our water soaked material sacks and place them over the food baskets, making sure for no steam to escape and then cover the lot with dirt, so that it cooks in the steam trapped in the ground I suppose, or in some areas in my country, they would cook certain things in the natural hot water springs. These methods of cooking are used often with my culture and very tasty to eat, I always look forward to a hangi, everyone I know does haha. Have a great day...

kaysue this is a great discussion. I am thinking. we have a gas stove with electic starters so suppose we could use matches to start it so we may have to cook' by candle light but we could cook. I was going to say oh microwave okay duh. we get so used to having' all these great facilities then when some natural 'disaster strikes we have to scurry around trying to figure out how to live without electricity, and for' a month wow.

we bought a camping stove with the propane or whatever you need to use for just such an emergency situation. we also keep extra batteries and flashlighs and candles and matches on hand. it better economic times we used to keep bottled water stocked too but we do not have extra money for such things at this time. we have several hand can openers and a stock of canned goods and non perishable items. i keep extra meds, band aids and such on hand as well. you just never know when something like this can happen and it is better to prepared as witnessed by what happened in new orleans. no one is coming to help if things are really bad and we have to try to help ourselves if we can.

on my grill

hmmmmm...thats a tough one. I would have to say that, since I can't cook, I will have to eat cereal for a month. Cereal requires no cooking but a use of microwave.....dang no electricity. I guess I will eat cold cereal lol. no big deal. Or I can just go to Burger King and let them cook for me.

We had no electricity for almost a week after Hurricane Wilma passed by and we cooked on the grill. We always keep two full tanks of propane along with the one we're currently using. If we had ran out of propane there was plenty of wood laying around everywhere and we have an outside firplace with a grate on top so we would have cooked on that.

My stove runs on gas and not electricity. I like the idea that even if there is a power outage I will be able to at least boil some water to make a hot drink. If I didn't have that then I'd opt for one of those propane camping stoves. Then all you have to do is replace the little propane bottle. You'd need to have plenty in stock though.

That's not much of an issue for us here, cause we use non electrical stove for cooking. We use wood for fuel and it's very easy to cook using wood as fuel. Try it, it's very easy.

I have a grill and a barbecue, so those would do for awhile. After that I would have to get inventive. Of course with no electricity, you wouldn't be able to keep food cold either. For earthquake or emrgency prepearedness, it might be a good idea to have a generator. Then there is the fireplace and wood.

Our town was devastated by Typhoon Cosme two weeks ago (Sison, Pangasinan, Philippines) and they don't have electricity too. They were using LPG but it is very expensive so my grandmom would probably resort to charcoal and wood since most of the fruit bearing trees around our house were all uprooted. I am glad the typhoon did not reach us here in Laguna or else, I would have harder time doing things for my baby (sterilizing bottles, cooking her food, etc).

Here in the Philippines, most of us use Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) which is bought by tanks of 11kilos...so, if ever there is no electricity we can still cook.

I have had to cook in my woodstove before. When u are hungry u figure it out.

I would get take away.... Sorry.Just kidding. Here where I live in Kenya there are poor people...and there are rich people. Here in the capital cit Nairobi we have families who live on less than a dollar a day. This guys cook using firewood because electricity is unheard off where they live and fuel is too expensive. One families may wait for each other so as to cook at the same time using the same firewood. Its economical that way. its a pity But annoying to know there are some rich people in this country who have never gone to bed hungry even once.