Jan. 7-10 - The Triple Crown of Cooking

Wow!

This week has been quite eventful for all our field teams. We have been rotating daily (morning, noon, and night) amongst the three settings and the three different cookstoves. It’s hard telling which one is “winning” per say. Though, our field team has consistently received great feedback from all the families about all the stoves. From my perspective, the HECs seem to be delivering on their promise; they are consuming less wood, cooking food in less time, and producing less smoke. It's the Triple Crown of Cooking!

Rani cooking with the local cookstove plus grate in Karech. 

While this stove performed fairly well in Karech, it performed even better in Gogunda. As expected, everyone has slightly different customs and preferences.

 

I’m anxious to start diving deep into all the data we have been amassing in our notebooks so we can design the best stove possible. More clarity will come from processing pages and pages of rich:

…qualitative data:

v  Positive and negative attributes of each stove

v  Ways we could modify the stoves so they are more effective at saving wood, time, and smoke, as well as we can make the stoves safer and easier to use

v  General cooking information: customary foods and biomass fuels; average amounts of food, biomass fuel, time, and smoke consumed (inhaled); normal occupants (the cooks in the kitchen); preferred cook times; specialty dishes and traditions to be aware of when designing a stove that meets and exceeds needs 

Using a temperature probe to investigate a design flaw after receiving

feedback that the exterior of this cookstove gets really hot (a major child-safety concern).  

 

…and quantitative data:

 

v  Temperature at the center and edge of the clay tawa (used to cook wheat and maize rotis) and metal pan (used to cook dal, vegetables, curries)

v  Time to start the fire, as well as the time to cook the entire meal, cook one roti, and cook the “soup-like” side dish

v  Weight of biomass consumed in the cooking process

v  Weight/volume of the ingredients used: kilograms of flour and liters of soup

 

(left) A migrant worker teaches us how she cooks roti while working in Udaipur. Her family of five lives in Gogunda, but comes into the city for 2-3 month blocks of time for construction work. (right) She and her daughter are eager to try cooking with a high efficient cookstove.



 

So what’s next for the group?

 

o   Complete final round of testing and surveys with families in Gogunda (town setting) and Udaipur (city setting)

o   Observe traditional cooking and complete comparative surveys in Karech (village setting)

o   Process and collate data (cookstove tests and surveys)

o   Calculate averages for comparison

o   Explore outliers and discrepancies

o   Discuss and debate findings

o   Translate findings and conclusions into action items

o   Further explore the newly-established bonus features of our research project, stay tuned…

People in India are incredibly warm and welcoming. We are frequently gifted with cups of steamy masala chai, which is like liquid gold in a semi-arid region before noon. 

Morning temperatures get into the 40s. Thankfully, our daytime temperatures have been wonderful, sunny and 70s. Cheers to the desert life!