The Trekkin' Gourmet
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|---|---|
| Title: | The Trekkin' Gourmet |
| Creator: | S. Marshall and Greg Baker |
| Date(s): | August 1980 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | focus on Star Trek |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Trekkin' Gourmet is a three-page article by S. Marshall and Greg Baker in the con book for Augustrek.
It is a practical "how to" article about how to cheaply eat and cook food in your hotel room.
It offers up some easy recipes for quick bread, cocoa mix, and gives pointers about how to cook food with an immersion heater and an old coffee can.
Excerpts
BEING A TREKKER can be expensive. There are about three Trek cons a month, and if you add some of the s.f. cons, one could go to a con every weekend of the year. Hotel rooms, gasoline and food bills take a big chunk out of a salary, however, and even if one saves for a few good cons, there are still agonizing choices to be made: do I buy that copy of R&R and a stuffed dragon, or do I eat?
Convention food itself can be classified as expensive or dreadful. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Too often a Trekker eats fast foods or peanut butter sandwiches three times a day, which is filling but not very nourishing. Cons use up a lot of energy! No wonder when the con ends, the Trekker drags herself home and barely rises to make work or school...
There are ways around the con eating dilemma, including the forementioned peanut butter sandwiches. (The August Party Committee has been known to live off of peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips - and what they eat at cons is worse.) This article describes some of the ways a Trekker can bring food from home or buy food from the grocery and eat well.
The most useful item on your list besides the can opener is the immersion heater. This is a coil of high-resistance wire wrapped in solder, connected to a plastic coil and cord. Current passing through the wire heats it to the point where the solder melts, about 300O C, so NEVER EXPOSE THE PLUGGED-IN COIL TO AIR!! Keeping it in water, however, heats the water and boils a cupful in two minutes.
If you want coffee in the morning, then place the coil in the cup (kept immersed, a plastic cup is satisfactory) and then plug it in. Once the water boils, remove the plug, then let the coil sit for half a minute before removing it. BE SURE NOT TO LET THE CORD FALL INTO THE WATER! Then add the powder of one's choice and drink.
Canned foods can be heated using an immersion heater and the coffee can filled with water. Place the food into the water - don't open the can- insert the coil, plug it in, and let the water boil for two or three minutes. Use the towels to prevent the can from marking the table.