In the ground cooking....?

[Gerhard Gerber]

Hi All

We recently had a company event that was in essence an outdoor cast iron pot cooking contest.
There was free booze, a mechanical bull and Karaoke as well, but lets not go there....

We didn't know what the challenge would be, and the speculation reminded me of something from my distant past 

While/during/after reading the Clan of the Cave Bear series of books I decided I would substitute chicken for Ptarmigan and cook it in a hole in the ground. 
We used foil for the lack of anything better, covered with sand and gravel, made and kept a fire going on top -  2/3 hours later we had a fine meal.

Not too long after we tried a repeat performance with more guests and 2 chickens, made the hole too deep and 3 hours later took some pink & bloody chickens out of the ground......
(BTW, "we"=my cousin, long time partner in crime and myself)

I'm itching to try this again, and I was wondering if anybody else here has tried it or maybe uses the bushcrafter version of a steam cooker?
 

[Smashie]

I thought the idea was you dug a hole, lined it with rocks and lit a fire in the hole. Then when it is down to embers you put the food in and cover it?

[AimlessWanderer]

It has been done by burying the food for centuries in a few cultures. Often the food will be wrapped in appropriate leaves (rather than tin foil) before burying. I've never done anything this way as I like to check on my food while it's cooking (for the reasons highlighted in the OP).

[AimlessWanderer]

Oh, and personally I don't like putting rocks in or around a fire. Wet rocks can explode. I'd rather just have a cleared patch of ground and know it's not peaty 

[greenbear]

It's called a Hangii (maori) and the idea is you build a fire over rocks (dry ones because wet ones can explode).  While the fire is burning dig a pit.  When the fire dies down shovel the glowing red rocks into the hole, get your food wrap it in suitable leaves (apparently banana leaves are good - but we don't have them here) pop it into the pit.  Cover with earth and turf and sit drinking beer for some time while it steams away. Tis tender and tasty when it's dug up and munched on.

We're doing a whole deer that way in a couple of weeks 

[zoidberg]

Here we call it hangi. In Fiji we ate lovo. In New Guinea it's mumu. Yummy. We cook them up a few times a year when you have a large group to feed.