A couple of examples. A Calor butane ‘boiling ring’ (Calor terminology) of the 1960’s and a British Army naptha-fuelled No.6 of a similar era. The Calor device was boxed with this character prominent on the label. A leaflet on ‘outdoor cooking’ (campsite cookery) was enclosed. Custard must be watched carefully … Milk needs to be ordered as it can only be obtained from the milkman - any cottage will do this for you. Evidently the local inhabitants were thought to be less obliging in the supply of vegetables however. Don’t rely on getting your vegetables from cottages - you may have difficulty. John
Hi, John, (@presscall ), Outstanding post, with much to recommend it! I love the burners, themselves, and also the advertisements that were used to attract customers! Nice, whimsical stuff, and I very much enjoyed seeing it! The cooking pamphlet was wonderful in it's comments about getting comestibles from various sources along the way/ How do the slot burners hold up in a windy situation? I didn't see any windscreens, but might have missed them. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on scoring such interesting burners and documentation! Take care, and God Bless! - Doc Mark
I’m enjoying the idea of going cottage to cottage while camping in search of milk, bread, and produce. We were stuck with mundane grocery stores…
We can do a lot with califlower! Sweet Bride once made califlower "steaks", and truthfully, they were very tasty, indeed! - Doc
As well as a silent burner might Mark, which is to say, requiring windshielding. The leaflet addresses the issue and puts it very well. John
I’ve scanned the leaflet for those wanting a more in-depth look at ‘Outdoor Cooking’ and have added an accompanying leaflet How to use your CALOR Portable Boiling Ring
"Custard must be watched carefully on the fierce heat of the picnic set or it will burn." This is good and timely advice since I am going on a four-day canoe trip on New Brunswick's Restigouche River next week with a group of old friends. I have been assigned to make dessert one night, and plan to make custard on my Svea 106 (which no longer leaks thanks to good advice on replacing the seals received here.) I doubt that a modern-day ad copy writer would refer to the "fierce heat" of a client's product. They'd probably call it "gentle but powerful" or some such thing.
@Jon Vara Have a great time Jon. Timely advice about custard indeed. A flame diffuser (steel disc for example) is handy for such occasions. You’re right about the ill-advised reference to ‘fierce heat’ which is in any case misplaced because the burner in question is very controllable, down to a usable simmer. Mind you, the text got a bit wayward here and there, such as advocating ‘Mushrooms picked locally …’ to go into a risotto. Fine, if you’re certain they’re not of the poisonous kind!
From earliest childhood I was warned about the danger of wild mushrooms. This was because an elementary school classmate of my mother died after eating a meal of wild mushrooms that poisoned his whole family. They had emigrated from Armenia to Norfolk county, Massachusetts sometime after WW I--escaping from genocide but not from fate. I suppose their mushroom identification methods were adequate for their old homeland, but not their new one. Sad. As a result, there are only two wild mushroom species that I'm confident enough to eat myself. And I never told my mother I was eating any wild mushrooms at all. She was enough of a worrier as it was.
Also, what are "sponge flan rings?" It seems to be one of those "two nations divided by a common language" terms. I could look it up on my own but it's so much more fun to ask here.
The only wild mushrooms I trust myself are chantrelles; they are unmistakable unless one has no powers of observation at all. I'd say the same about morels, but I've never gathered them myself. That's it. Period.
As in many other countries there are species in the UK capable of causing death, causing sickness, and causing all the grains of rice in the risotto to turn into spiders and crawl off the plate. The plate which is shaped like a four sided triangle and tastes like the sound yellow makes.
In this context a flan is a dessert. Think of a Chicago deep pizza, but the base is a light sweet sponge cake material (eggs, sugar, flour), and the filling is fruit and custard and or potentially other shizzle depending on local tradition. Do USAicans even have sponge cake?
Sponge cake can probably be found somewhere in a country this large, but what we mostly have is Twinkies--a sort of hand-size, oblong sponge cake with a creamy filling that somewhat resembles sweetened drywall compound: Twinkie - Wikipedia
