Survival: Bamboo Cooking Pot

The rain has not stopped yet, but there is no storm today. I Step out from the abandoned house carefully after peeking through the holes on the wall. We had been 3 days since we stepped in this house to save ourselves away from the blood hunter. We are group of five; My wife, and our 3 little girls and I myself. It is not an easy task to lead a group with children and my wife to survive, but I must do my best to save healthy next generation after this mega disaster, they give their faith on me, they trust me to save them and bring them to find new life. I myself doubt about the new life, but I must try my best not to disappoint them. I won’t turn my back off for them. I told myself again and again :” Survival is adjustment ability to adapt in particular situation until it feel as routine life ”. I knew a few ways of traditional life and I had ability to recognize the unusual environment conditions.

It has been 6 months looking for another place to establish new life for my little group, 3 little girls; the youngest is 3.5 and the second is 7 years old and the oldest is 12 years old. We had to avoid the fight with the blood hunters since we had no chance to win at all, I could not take the risk of my wife and my 3 little girls. This rotten wooden house is far enough from the last village we crossed 4 days ago. I haven’t seen any other food print or single sign of other human nor groups pass the area since then.

They have been away from homeland since the EMP wipe out our home land, I remember they were too young to run at night and stay without proper shelter. It was rainy night when a group of people started to burn out our village we all were so scared. My wife managed to wake them up and prepare to flee away that night. I could not save much, but only important tool that I had prepared for survival training. I was lucky to grab a flintstone (magnesium flint fire starter) so I have no worry to set a fire when I need it, we have no more electronic device and gas lighter or torch, but only a small fire at night to warm ourselves in our hiding shelter or cave.

Foraging Food

Heading to the deep valley in the mountain is my destination now, I knew it will be much more easier for us to survive there, and I am sure that I could find more food and fresh water out there, and the most important thing is that place will make my family feel safe from the blood hunter. But now, I need to prepare find food, all the food we had found have been eaten for the last 3 days, and it is time for foraging from the forest. Besides, I need to find the safe road to walk away from this shelter. If someone finds this wooden house, we would have big problem. It is time to find something to eat immediately. I ask my wife and kids to stay inside and make no sound at all. I walk to the bush and looking for something, I hope I could find mushroom or something else, maybe taro and kind of wild fruits, because they have good carbohydrate and glucose. I remember that I left some brown sugar to my wife in case I do not find anything and I took some with me to keep my energy for looking more foods, that brown sugar will be able to buy us one more day while we walk away from the house.

I have been walking for one hour, but nothing I can find, I saw the river, but I have no time to do fishing now. Something cross my mind; I will bring my family to cross this river, but the current is too strong and this river is deep, I knew it is flood, I will be able to swim at this current but the rest of my family won’t be able to make it. The idea is good to cross it, but I need to wait until the water gets lower. Perhaps within next 2 days.

Anyway, it is the safer way to go deeper into the jungle. I step closer to make sure the right point to cross, and yes this is the right point to cross. I keep looking for something to eat and I found wild taro, I knew this one is good to eat, although not too many people recognize the different with the poison one. I can recognize this from it buds. I am so happy to have it and really sure this taro will last for a few days or even a week. I took it and clean it in the river.

Left: poisonous wild taro and the bud is red, and at the right is eatable wild taro with white bud

Left: poisonous wild taro stem, it has green stem color, and at the right is eatable wild taro with brown stem skin

---

Cooking Wild Taro Porridge in Bamboo Pot

Preparing bamboo

It is better for me to cook it here instead in the house to avoid unexpected sign from the smoke, but I did not have any cooking pot. My eyes are looking around to find something that I can use as cooking pot and finally I saw bamboo as the best option to be my cooking pot
This is the way to prepare cooking Taro in Bamboo; Cut the bamboo before the segment to keep both segment uncut, make a hole about 3-4 cm. Clean inside of hole with leaf and wash it. It is better to have 10 cm of bamboo diameter.

Cooking Wild Taro Porridge

Ingredients:

• 15 cm clean wild taro
• 1 tbsp salt
• 30 gr brown sugar (palm sugar)

Preparing Taro and cooking

This taro is very different from the normal cultivated one, this taro does not produce tuber to eat but stem itself is eatable, as long as we know how to prepare to avoid the poison from the skin of the stem.

Step one:

Cut the stem 15 cm from the ground and 15 cm from the first green leaf (depend on size of the stem), this middle part has less poison.

Step two:

Chop off the outer skin about 3-4 cm, because the poison is concentrated inside outer skin

Step three:

Slice it into smaller size depend on the size of bamboo tube

Step four:

Wash it thoroughly with fresh water and put it into the bamboo one by one

Step five:

Add some brown sugar and salt into the bamboo and mix it with taro

Step six:

Fill the bamboo with water and close the hole again, dot not close the hole tightly to avoid the pressure in the bamboo.

Step seven:

Put the bamboo on the fire

The problem is I haven’t set the fire yet. I need to do it before the rain is getting heavier. I don’t have gas lighter (gas match), only 3 things I brought from the shelter, I have a knife, a machete, and a flintstone. I need to prepare to set the fire to cook the food. I need really thin wood fiber or something dry thin and light like coconut fiber, and I found it in the bush, maybe it was eaten by someone else and left the fiber there a few week ago. And here is my way to set the fire:

This is the link how I set the fire to cook wild taro porridge

https://dlive.io/video/el-nailul/800328d0-942d-11e8-b2de-f7be8f055a16

Finally, I made it, I have set the fire and now time to cook the food for my family and myself. I have no worry to burn out the bamboo, because the bamboo is full of water. I had experience to boil the water in a plastic bottle, the fire will not burn it until the water is hot enough to make some coffee.

I have been outside for 4 hours and I think it safe to bring my family to have some fresh air and bring them with me for a while since the distance with the shelter is not really far. I left the cooking food for 30 minutes and I return with my family and eat the porridge. They were so happy for the food, it was really delicious even more than my expectation.

Please note: The story in this article is a fiction, and it is intended for Prepper Cook-Off Challenge #3! by @canadianrenegade, read this article for more information. The photos and food are real and made by myself. It is not recommended to eat any kind of wild taro if you do not recognize and understand to prepare it for your own safety.