Cooking While Traveling: All about Carbeque

As many folks celebrate this Labor Day, I thought I’d share a handy tip for those who might be traveling long distances in their cars this weekend:  Carbeque. Yep. Carbecue. 

“Whassat?” you ask.  Carbeque, simply put, is food that is cooked by your car (well, you have to do a bit of work, too, but I’ll get to that). In its verb form “carbeque,” means to cook via the method of carbequing, which is to cook food on car parts.  Carbequing is typically done while the car is in motion, (you know, like when someone is driving it), but can also be done anytime key car parts are hot enough to meet carbequing requirements.

Apparently, there are some folks who avail themselves of this brilliant time, energy, and cost-saving method for cooking and warming. In the spirit of the Labor Day holiday, I thought you’d like to know about it, too.

To be a bit more specific about the method involved here, picture cooking on your engine block, or attaching food to any other parts of your car that get hot enough to burn your finger, such as your exhaust manifold system.  Using these various hot parts, you can cook whole dinners, warm foods, and perhaps even heat your cold coffee.

Wikihow provides great information on the subject, including suggested cooking times, which are usually provided in terms of miles, or number of miles at miles per hour rather than minutes.  (No worries here though --  happily, converting from the convention of minutes to miles or miles/mph is a heck of a lot easier than converting to metrics.)

Some sample cooking times Wikihow provides include: shrimp (30-50 miles); chicken breasts (60 miles at 65 mph); and pork tenderloin (250 miles).  And don’t worry, dessert is an option, too.  Check out Wikihow’s special article on “How to Bake Cookies on Your Car Dashboard.” (On a very hot day, you can even fry eggs on your car hood, but I’m sure you probably already knew that.)

Should you decide to try your own carbeque, word to the wise: Be careful not to damage any important car parts while attaching, cooking and/or warming your repast, otherwise all your time, energy, and cost savings will be lost at the car repair center.  

Carbeque. Think about it. 

For more information about Carbeque, check out the carbequer’s bible:  “Manifold Destiny,” by buddies Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller


Photos shown in this post are taken from the bookcovers of Manifold Destiny.