Two simple spuds.

[Roger Murray]

Running short of provisions, so baked a couple of potatoes, (which was all I had) in the oven of the Epping back cabin coal stove. With lots of butter, black pepper and a touch of salt they made the most delicious meal imaginable. Maybe my imagination, but been baked in a old coal fired oven, in the trad back cabin of a boat, on a cold winters evening, made them somehow differently better. Just as was licking the last of the butter from the plate a chug chug chug sound could be heard. Looking out from the back cabin doors a big Woolwich under cloths came into view with the back cabin chimney merrily smoking away. Think it was 'Aldgate' or a name similar. as going dark and couldn't see it properly. Couldn't have been a better finish to the evening.

Just as an aside. The evening before had been entertained to dinner in one of those expensive Nouveau Cuisine establishments where art is more important than the meagre messed about portion of food which arrives on the plate. I can tell you...Those two simple spuds were a hundreds times better!

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

 

 

[Up-Side-Down]

Running short of provisions, so baked a couple of potatoes, (which was all I had) in the oven of the Epping back cabin coal stove. With lots of butter, black pepper and a touch of salt they made the most delicious meal imaginable. Maybe my imagination, but been baked in a old coal fired oven, in the trad back cabin of a boat, on a cold winters evening, made them somehow differently better. Just as was licking the last of the butter from the plate a chug chug chug sound could be heard. Looking out from the back cabin doors a big Woolwich under cloths came into view with the back cabin chimney merrily smoking away. Think it was 'Aldgate' or a name similar. as going dark and couldn't see it properly. Couldn't have been a better finish to the evening.

Just as an aside. The evening before had been entertained to dinner in one of those expensive Nouveau Cuisine establishments where art is more important than the meagre messed about portion of food which arrives on the plate. I can tell you...Those two simple spuds were a hundreds times better!

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

 

 

 

Sitting beside my Epping in the back cabin as I type, with the kettle singing merrily away, I can only endorse everything you say Roger.

 

From October through till April my 'menus' are based solely around what can be cooked in the oven of the Epping and I have, over a period of some 16 years, found no limitations to the range of fayre that it can turn out.

 

But then, of course, I'm merely re-inventing the wheel as this is precisely what generations of real boating families have always done!

Running short of provisions, so baked a couple of potatoes, (which was all I had) in the oven of the Epping back cabin coal stove. With lots of butter, black pepper and a touch of salt they made the most delicious meal imaginable. Maybe my imagination, but been baked in a old coal fired oven, in the trad back cabin of a boat, on a cold winters evening, made them somehow differently better. Just as was licking the last of the butter from the plate a chug chug chug sound could be heard. Looking out from the back cabin doors a big Woolwich under cloths came into view with the back cabin chimney merrily smoking away. Think it was 'Aldgate' or a name similar. as going dark and couldn't see it properly. Couldn't have been a better finish to the evening.

Just as an aside. The evening before had been entertained to dinner in one of those expensive Nouveau Cuisine establishments where art is more important than the meagre messed about portion of food which arrives on the plate. I can tell you...Those two simple spuds were a hundreds times better!

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

 

 

 

P.S. Love the web site Roger .............. thank you!

[captain birdseye]

Running short of provisions, so baked a couple of potatoes, (which was all I had) in the oven of the Epping back cabin coal stove. With lots of butter, black pepper and a touch of salt they made the most delicious meal imaginable. Maybe my imagination, but been baked in a old coal fired oven, in the trad back cabin of a boat, on a cold winters evening, made them somehow differently better. Just as was licking the last of the butter from the plate a chug chug chug sound could be heard. Looking out from the back cabin doors a big Woolwich under cloths came into view with the back cabin chimney merrily smoking away. Think it was 'Aldgate' or a name similar. as going dark and couldn't see it properly. Couldn't have been a better finish to the evening.

Just as an aside. The evening before had been entertained to dinner in one of those expensive Nouveau Cuisine establishments where art is more important than the meagre messed about portion of food which arrives on the plate. I can tell you...Those two simple spuds were a hundreds times better!

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

 

 

If you are still on the Macc it was Brian & Ann Marie on Alton off on their fortnightly fuel run

 

Edited to add, Aldgate has just gone past, so it was her you saw

Edited April 4, 2016 by captain birdseye

[Dharl]

being a modern boater I still struggle to get the stove to work correctly....usually can boil a kettle an managed a stew once mind you! Love the Website Roger, great Cartoons and loved reading about SNB Monarch too!

[Roger Murray]

I too had problems at first cooking with the Epping, sometimes just to keeping the thing alight! This was on an earlier boat...the first experience of a living in a trad back cabin. On first lighting, the Epping would belch out clouds of black smoke from every orifice, with me gasping for air and having to open the back doors and hatch. A knowledgable old hand on these things was disgusted at the dirty condition I kept the stove in, spending a good hour raking out all the sooty gunge blocking up the airways and flu's leading to the chimney, plus the chimney itself. Repeatedly saying that oxygen was just as important as coal! I should have known that, well I did, but had been lazy as far as that particular stove was concerned. It worked wonders after that clean out!

In later years with the steamer Monarch, a lot of the cooking was done with a pan on the top of the boiler, with some of the aroma sucked up the funnel. I'm sure providing gastronomic pleasures to some we passed on the towpath.

On one occasion, coming up past Rugeley, one of the boiler tubes started leaking. One trick with the old steam men was to bung a dead sheep in the boiler, which always seemed a bit far fetched to me, or a less dramatic cure, a sack of spuds! Thought about the dead sheep idea but opted for the less dramatic. All the way up through Stone and the Potteries, we smelt like a floating fish and chip shop, and I'm sure the smell would have lingered in the Harecastle Tunnel for days.

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

[gazza]

Roger,

 

Have a look here,

 

http://www.thedailyspud.com/2011/02/06/baked-potato/

 

Spud heaven

[dmr]

Running short of provisions, so baked a couple of potatoes, (which was all I had) in the oven of the Epping back cabin coal stove. With lots of butter, black pepper and a touch of salt they made the most delicious meal imaginable. Maybe my imagination, but been baked in a old coal fired oven, in the trad back cabin of a boat, on a cold winters evening, made them somehow differently better. Just as was licking the last of the butter from the plate a chug chug chug sound could be heard. Looking out from the back cabin doors a big Woolwich under cloths came into view with the back cabin chimney merrily smoking away. Think it was 'Aldgate' or a name similar. as going dark and couldn't see it properly. Couldn't have been a better finish to the evening.

Just as an aside. The evening before had been entertained to dinner in one of those expensive Nouveau Cuisine establishments where art is more important than the meagre messed about portion of food which arrives on the plate. I can tell you...Those two simple spuds were a hundreds times better!

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

 

 

 

Baked potato and "bits" is probably my favourite meal, especially cooked in the stove. We rarely light the Epping as it makes the back too hot so do the spuds wrapped in tinfoil in the firebox of the saloon stove.

 

I also have had noovo cuisine. We were walking the Ridgeway a few years ago and stopped overnight in a posh eating pub. The food was expensive and was just a tiny lump of something in the middle of a huge plate. I patiently waited for the veg or chips or whatever to arrive. After a while the waitress realised what was going on and came over and told me to start as that was all there was. She did look a bit sheepish. Rather a baked potato anyday.

 

.................Dave

[Gwydion]

You can't beat a jacket spud cooked in foil in a fire. I've been living off them this last week. Stick a tin of Tesco Value sweetcorn on top with lots of melted butter, black pepper and freshly picked wild garlic... You've got food fit for the gods, make no mistake.

[Loafer]

You can't beat a jacket spud cooked in foil in a fire. I've been living off them this last week. Stick a tin of Tesco Value sweetcorn on top with lots of melted butter, black pepper and freshly picked wild garlic... You've got food fit for the gods, make no mistake.

 

Did you put them in among the glowing coals, or in the ashcan underneath?

[MtB]

 

Baked potato and "bits" is probably my favourite meal, especially cooked in the stove. We rarely light the Epping as it makes the back too hot so do the spuds wrapped in tinfoil in the firebox of the saloon stove.

 

I also have had noovo cuisine. We were walking the Ridgeway a few years ago and stopped overnight in a posh eating pub. The food was expensive and was just a tiny lump of something in the middle of a huge plate. I patiently waited for the veg or chips or whatever to arrive. After a while the waitress realised what was going on and came over and told me to start as that was all there was. She did look a bit sheepish. Rather a baked potato anyday.

 

.................Dave

 

 

I too have bin scoffin' a large number of spuds baked in the stove. It's the one thing I admit the hateful Boatman stove I have is relly good at! Like Dave I wrap the spuds in foil and bury them in the ash below the grid and an hour later they are done. Far FAR more delicious than if baked in the oven, dunno why.

 

Isn't it 'noovelle kwizeen' actually?

[Gwydion]

Did you put them in among the glowing coals, or in the ashcan underneath?

I stick them in a good base of glowing wood embers when the flames have died down. Took a bit of trial and error, but I'm getting the timing and technique honed really well!

[peterboat]

I stick em in the Rayburn lovely but nowdays only eat sweet potatoes as they are supposed to be better for you

[dmr]

The ashpan in the current stove is too shallow for potatoes so stick then straight into the fire! rake the hot coals a little bit to one side so they are not touching the spuds too much and its fine.

 

.................Dave

[Loafer]

The ashpan in the current stove is too shallow for potatoes so stick then straight into the fire! rake the hot coals a little bit to one side so they are not touching the spuds too much and its fine.

 

.................Dave

 

I've gotta give that a go!

What would be the result of making a metal frame, to plonk above the glowing coals with the foil-wrapped taters on it?

[Roger Murray]

Just read a brief history of the potato. Contrary to the general belief that Sir Francis Drake brought a shipment back from Virginia in 1586, thus first introducing them to Europe. They originally came from the Andes, Peru in fact, where the Peruvian people have been eating the potatoes for thousands of years, also a valuable food source for the Inca. A civilisation destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors and who first introduced the potato to Europe and the British Isles. Although it was said that Drake did bake jacket potatoes on an Epping stove in the back cabin of the 'Golden Hind.' Liking them so much that he recommended them to Queen Elizabeth, who dedicated them to her great great great great grandson 'King Edward.'

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

[steamcompound]

That Queen Elizabeth was married is new to me...

[Roger Murray]

.....and was news to me that Francis Drake had an Epping stove in the back cabin of the Golden Hind!

[Claude]

The things people find to talk about on boat forums... Potatoes! It's like the WI or Mumsnet!

Edited April 5, 2016 by Claude

[bastion]

Just read a brief history of the potato. Contrary to the general belief that Sir Francis Drake brought a shipment back from Virginia in 1586, thus first introducing them to Europe. They originally came from the Andes, Peru in fact, where the Peruvian people have been eating the potatoes for thousands of years, also a valuable food source for the Inca. A civilisation destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors and who first introduced the potato to Europe and the British Isles. Although it was said that Drake did bake jacket potatoes on an Epping stove in the back cabin of the 'Golden Hind.' Liking them so much that he recommended them to Queen Elizabeth, who dedicated them to her great great great great grandson 'King Edward.'

Roger.

www.rogermurray.co.uk

Thought it was tobacco that he brought back and dedicated to 'King Edward the cigar'

[Gwydion]

That Queen Elizabeth was married is new to me...

She married Doctor Who.

 

Everybody should know this.

[mattlad]

Two spuds cooking in the oven. One says to the other "Blimey it's hot in here!"

 

The other one thinks to itself "F**k me, a talking spud....."

[MtB]

Lol.!!

 

Here's your coat....

[Ssscrudddy]

Lol at the joke! While it may not be jacket potatoe, I do like bangers n mash with gravy.

[gazza]

Lol at the joke! While it may not be jacket potatoe, I do like bangers n mash with gravy.

Dinner last night was jacket spud, sauages, carrots, cabbage and onion gravy - last hurrah for tasty winter meals before salads and healthy stuff is the orders of the day.

[adam1uk]

Lol.!!

 

Here's your coat....

 

Here's your jacket, surely!