Outdoor Cooking, 22nd August 2015

Written by: Sarah Njauw, Sixer and Scribe

“Horseshoe!” The Senior Sixers shouted. All the cub scouts made a beeline to the kidzone to assemble in horseshoe formation. I was pretty excited about this week’s scout meeting as we are doing outdoor cooking! Outdoor cooking is much different than the cooking you do at home. Outdoor cooking, we do not use the convenient stove that we have at home, instead we used dry sticks and dry leaves then light them on fire to make our own stove.

Firstly, Baloo instructed us to pick up dry leaves and dry sticks on the grassy patches around the floor. Then, Baloo taught the sixers how to start fire. Some teachers-in-charge and some adult leaders help us to light up the fire. Baloo told us to only use three matchsticks from the box even though the matchbox contained several sticks. “A scout is honest,” he said, then he handed the matchboxes over to our six.

I have to admit, I was quite scared once I strike the matchstick against the matchbox. Chil helped us by telling us what should we do once the fire was in the pile of leaves and sticks. . When starting a fire, you have to keep on placing sticks and leaves to keep the fire going. After placing in the sticks and leaves, the fire would get ‘bigger’, it means you can forget about putting in the scrawny sticks and crunchy dried leaves by replacing them with thick pieces of wood. If the fire dies out, just blow multiple times at the sticks and pieces of wood.

Most of the sixes were having trouble with starting fire, it was much harder than I thought it would be. It took a lot of patience and effort to prepare the fire so we could start cooking. After many attempts of blowing the dying fire and running back and forth collecting more chunks of wood, it was time to cook.

Raksha passed me oil, sausages and egg to cook. Cooking was as easy as a piece of fruit cake at home. But when you’re cooking outdoors, it was quite uncomfortable, which makes it difficult for me to cook. I was not used to cooking while squatting.

Some of us made different eggs for their six, such as omelet, scrambled eggs and more variety of eggs. I decided to make sunny side up, it was easy to make and takes a faster time to make compared to the other eggs. After cooking the eggs, I fried the sausages. It was sure tiring! But after we ate, all the hard work was paid off. The egg and the sausages tasted great! After we finished eating, the adult leaders handed us consent forms for next week’s hike.

This meeting was very eventful and exciting! We not only learnt how to cook, we also learnt how to light up fire! I hope to have more interesting meetings like this more often. I am looking forward to the next week’s hike!