Part 2: Solar Cooking Open Day
You will hear a volunteer talking to visitors at a community garden open day.
Lời thoại bài nghe (transcript)
Guide: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Hollin Green Community Garden open day. My name's Martin, and I'm one of the volunteers who run our solar cooking project. Before you go and try things for yourselves, I'd like to tell you a bit about the project and give you some tips.
Guide: The project started four years ago. A lot of people assume it began as a way to save money on energy bills, and that's certainly a benefit, but actually it grew out of our summer camps for children. We wanted an activity that showed them how the sun's energy could be put to practical use, and cooking their own lunch turned out to be far more memorable than any science lesson. Adults kept asking if they could join in, and so the workshops were born.
Guide: Now, a question we're often asked is whether solar cooking works in a climate like ours. The answer is yes, but with some limits. What matters most isn't the air temperature. You can cook perfectly well on a cold, clear day in spring. What you need is direct sunshine without cloud, so the main season for us runs from April to September. And because the sun is lower in the sky in the early morning and late afternoon, the most reliable cooking time is between about eleven and three.
Guide: There are three types of cooker on display today. The first is the box cooker, which is basically an insulated box with a glass lid. It's the easiest to build yourself, and the cheapest, though it's also the slowest. The second is the panel cooker, which uses shiny folding panels to reflect light onto a pot inside a clear bag. It's light and folds flat, so it's the one I'd recommend if you want to take it camping. The third is the curved dish, or parabolic cooker. This gets hot enough to fry food, but it needs turning every fifteen minutes or so to follow the sun, and you have to be careful because the focused light can burn you.
Guide: Right, some tips on particular foods. Rice is a good place to start. Our volunteers originally recommended soaking it first, but we've found that it's not really necessary. The important thing with rice is to use slightly less water than you would on a stove, because very little steam escapes from a solar cooker.
Guide: With beans, on the other hand, soaking is essential. Leave them in water overnight, otherwise they'll still be hard after a whole day in the sun.
Guide: Bread can be baked very successfully, but it's best to put the dough in early in the day, by about ten, because it needs the full strength of the midday sun to rise and turn brown.
Guide: With vegetables like carrots or potatoes, cut them into small pieces of a similar size. Big chunks will still be raw in the middle long after the outside is soft.
Guide: Eggs are surprisingly easy. You don't need any water at all. Just put them in the pot in their shells, and they'll cook in about an hour and a half.
Guide: And finally, if you'd like to try a cake, use a dark tin with a dark lid. Dark surfaces absorb the heat, whereas shiny ones reflect it away, so a shiny tin might never get hot enough.
Guide: OK, so what's happening today? In the large tent by the gate, you can see the three cookers I've described. At twelve o'clock, we'll be serving a vegetable stew made in our box cookers, so do come and taste it. If you'd like to build your own box cooker, there's a workshop this afternoon. It's free, but places are limited to fifteen people, so please put your name on the list at the information table. You'll need to bring an old cardboard box, but we'll provide the foil, glass and paint. Oh, and I should mention that the talk on cooking in developing countries, which was advertised for two o'clock, has been moved to three, because our speaker's train is delayed.
Guide: Right, enjoy the day, and please do ask any of our volunteers if you have questions.
