Solar Gourmets

by Andrea Millar — April 3, 2008

Imagine you're stuck in the desert. No stove, no firewood. You have a backpack with a couple of eggs, some flour, and some water in it, maybe a little salt and pepper...and suddenly, the urge for an all-American breakfast strikes! Whatever will you do? You'll use your trusty solar powered parabolic heater. And get steaming, delicious eggs in a mere 8 or 9 minutes. Slightly longer for the biscuits.

In one more burgeoning move away from fossil fuel dependence, more and more people are experimenting with portability and solar power, with some impressive results. It's one thing to have a fuel cell connected to a solar panel charging up your cell phone, but imagine that by using something as simple as a specially calibrated reflective surface, you could be eating emission-free. Many enthusiasts also have good things to say about the sun-cooked food's unique taste properties.

Many of the efforts at fuel-cell-less solar energy have been grassroots, applied with minimal scope. Marketability has been a major concern--you're more likely to find a solar cooker at a Girl Scout meeting than at your favorite camping supply store. But there is one company that is serious about making solar heating a presence in people's lives: San Diego-based ClearDome Solar. By producing, among other solar-oriented things, the parabolic cooker, this small company has mastered a way to help you make safe, stoveless, woodless, food right out of the box. Their Octagon Parabolic Solar Cooker is available for a mere $189 off the website.

Parabolic cooking isn't just for the low-tech outdoorsy type, however. A recent deployment of solar cookers for refugees from Darfur in the Iridimi camp in Chad meant that forays into the dangerous outlaying territory for firewood decreased greatly. With the cookers and some training under their belts, women were able to decrease danger of gender-based violence while supplying clean water and cooked food to a community of 17,000.