Car Cooking for the Bachelor Sophisticate

About author / Josh Gunn

Bachelor chef; southern cooking; mixologist; university professor. Josh's recipes will delight (and sometimes terrify) you.

My cooking career began as a Boy Scout at the tender age of ten, heating up eggs and bacon in a cheap aluminum pan over a sterno canister in the woods. As I grew into my teens, my fellow scouts and I sought out new and innovative ways to cook outdoors on our various camping trips.

When I was 14 or 15 I found an intriguing book penned by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller titled, Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! This book taught me how to prepare food in tin foil, strategically place it on a car or truck engine, and then cook it on route to our camping destination. Cooking time was not measured by the clock, but rather the odometer and type of engine: for chicken parmesan, for example, hotter engines required less mileage while cooler (usually foreign) engines needed more distance. About the time I mastered this skill I discovered cars and girls and left the Boy Scouts. I never abandoned, however, my love of rolling cuisine!

Unfortunately, Maynard and Scheller's car-top cookbook is long out of print. I suspect part of the reason has to do with the innovations in engine-design since they first wrote it in 1989: engines are faster and more efficient these days, but they're also smaller and cooler. Heck, after driving my Volkswagon Golf for a half-hour the engine feels only mildly hot to the touch. American cars in the 80s were bulky and their engines were hot (even hotter in the 70s!), and most of the recipes in Manifold Destiny assume this level of heat.

Consequently, I've had to change my car-cooking strategy: you pre-prepare your picnic food at home and then place it on the car engine to keep it warm until you reach your destination. True, I'm no longer really cooking on my car, but even so, the look on the face of my unsuspecting date when I remove our meal from beneath a popped hood is priceless.

It's been some years since I've done this, but you enterprising bachelors might try it for kicks. Car-cooked cuisine always gets a smile (if not a twinge of fear) from friends and dates alike. You can easily dispel their fear by making sure your car is in tip-top shape; a well-running car does not have fumes in the engine compartment. Moreover, all your food should be tightly sealed in aluminum foil packs. Under those two conditions, the food will be absolutely fine. This said, here's an idea for a fun picnic or date out:

1. Select a pretty, outdoor destination—a park, a hillside, somewhere that is relatively close to where you would park your car. Secretly plan to end up at this outdoor spot, but don't tell your friend or date that's where you're ending up. If you can time this around sunset, so much the better.

2. Invite your friend or date to "go out for dinner." When he or she or they ask where to, tell him, her, or they it is a surprise. Then, plan your meal. Fix something relatively uncomplicated and that can be transported in its own tin-foil pack. I like to prepare chicken or eggplant parmesan (there are many recipes on this website: go fish), rolls, and a nice, pre-mixed salad.

3. Shortly before your friend or date is to arrive—or shortly before you leave to pick him, her, or they up—prepare your food. The day before your dinner, make a make-shift menu by using a folded piece of paper with the meal on the inside and some cheesy name on the outside (the last time I did this, the menu said "Josh's Rolling Café"). Put this menu in the glove box. Crank your car. When it has been running enough to warm the engine, place your food on the engine in a cranny or tight spot. You want to make sure a bump in the road won't send your chicken parm flying into the windshield of the person behind you!

4. When you're driving your friends or date to the destination, try not to give it all away. Your grin will be irresistible, so that's okay. Be sure to take a camera, too: I promise your rolling meal preparation will be a first for your friend or date!