MALAGASY FIRE COOKING STANDS

On a recent work trip to Madagascar I had the opportunity to meet several work crews in the jungle, and witness how the local people had developed a myriad of ways to put a pot over a fire to cook (rice or soup). I would have assumed that a single best setup would have evolved to dominate and render all other designs obsolete; as you will see this was not the case. I am not going to go into detailed descriptions of how to construct these cooking stoves, I have never attempted these myself and the images are really quite self explanatory.

***Make sure that you are not building a fire under dry forest conditions and always have several liters of water ready to put out your fire if it gets out of control***

The example above can be called the Delta design. 

1. Find a Y shaped section of a branch
2. Sharpen the base
3. Push, or pound it into the ground on a slight slope
4. Affix two other branches to form a V into the crook of your Y shaped branch
5. You can adjust the height of the pot by sliding it towards or away from the Y and adjusting the position of the supports to hold your pot up.

This was actually the most common setup that I saw. You basically push three separate sections of branches into the ground to support your pot. Nice wet wood is better here because the pieces will get charred.

This was the design that really got me interested. In this case I think they chopped off a sapling near the base with a machete and trimmed the edge so that if fit snugly through the handle of the pot.

These guys were really organized. They shoveled a notch in to the slope and built a simple rectangular frame (without nails or rope) to hang the pot, but also to keep the bugs off their pans.