Those of you old enough to remember the three day week and the oil crisis will remember sudden and unexpected power cuts and half cooked dinners. My mother overcame this by making a haybox. To be fair rather than using hay she used a sturdy wooden box and a selection of cushions. The idea was that you brought the meal (usually, but not always, a soup or casserole) to the boil, popped it in the box, surrounded on all sides, top and bottom by cushions and left it to cook.
Fast forward some 15 years and I went out to work as a health education volunteer in Umtata in the Transkei with Project Trust. It was an amazing experience, I hope as much for the people we worked with as it was for us, the volunteers. As a side line if you are or know somebody who is looking for a volunteering experience in the developing world PT is not only one of the oldest, but also one of the best in the business. They are not, unlike many, in it to make money. They have been going since 1967 and have sent over 6000 carefully selected volunteers overseas. But I digress.
One of the issues faced in the Transkei was the lack of fuel. We built a simple haybox (this time using hay!) and with our trusty three legged potiji
we went out to show people how to save on fuel and still have a hot meal at the end of the day. We used it ourselves and it failed us only once, a particularly stringy goat at Sitebe.
Recently I came across this.
![IMG_1284[1]](https://onepairofshoesatatime.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/img_12841.jpg)
My newly arrived Wonderbag. Essentially it works in exactly the same way as my mother’s cushion box and our haybox. But there are three fundamental differences:
- For every Wonderbag purchased another bag is donated to a family in Africa.
- The Shwe-Shwe bags are made by women in South Africa creating jobs and income.
- The World Wildlife bags generate a donation to WWF for every bag purchased
It’s also great for:
- Camping
- Picnics
- Students
- Bulk cooking
- Working families – cheaper than the slow cooker and no worries about leaving the slow cooker on whilst you are out.
If you are still unsure have a look at this. What are you waiting for?
one pair of shoes at a time 
So very cool!
I have never heard of such a thing. I do have a friend who bakes things, say cookies, for a while and then turns the oven off and lets them slow-cook in the residual heat. I also know a woman who cooks her pasta in a cast iron with a lid bringing it to boil and then turning off the heat and letting the noodles slow-cook in the heated water. I’ve also never heard of Project Trust, but plan to do some reading on both fronts. Thanks!