Manifold Destiny (cookbook)

Manifold Destiny is a 1989 cookbook (ISBN 0679723374), its updated 1998 edition (ISBN 0375751408) and a 2008 update (ISBN 1416596232) on the subject of cooking on the surface of a car engine. It was written by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller, a photographer and a travel writer who were also accomplished rally drivers. Though neither edition remained in print for very long, the book is considered something of a cult classic in the American culinary scene due to its unusual subject matter, combining local specialties ("ready-boughts") with recipes designed with various regional and ethnic inspirations in mind, as well as evaluations of representative cars available at the time of their suitability as cooking equipment. A measure of its cult status can be found on Amazon.com, where a search in May 2007 revealed that used copies of the book sold for four to ten times the cover price of the book. In addition, despite its somewhat humorous tone, it is often cited as the primary (or even only) reference on the subject of car engine cooking.

The authors claimed inspiration from a trip from Montreal to Boston, where the authors were inspired to keep a package of smoked meat from Schwartz's in Montreal hot by placing it in a secure spot on the car's engine block, having heard that it was said to be common for truckers to keep cans of soup hot by doing the same thing.

Warnings from the editors[]

While Wikipedia pages are not intended to be instruction manuals, a word of warning has to be given to those who feel tempted to try engine cooking in their car, without reading the book first.

Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller point out that you should always wrap your food in many layers of aluminum foil, to protect your food from contamination, like grease or engine oil present under the hood of your car. ^[1] Heating food in cans with one small hole in the lid, like truck drivers used to do, should be avoided, because cans have an epoxy resin layer on the inside that protects the food from chemical reactions with the can, so the resin could melt and contaminate your food.

The writers of Manifold Destiny also warned against putting food close to moving parts, or close to a throttle cable that could get stuck, because this could put you in life threatening danger, should your accelerator get stuck. ^[1] Furthermore, you should carefully fix your food to your car, because losing your food on the road could cause car crashes if other road users would be hit by it, or start swerving around it, when approaching your road debris at high speeds.

Be careful when your engine is still hot. The fan could start even minutes after arrival and cause serious injury. While cooking on an engine used to work fine for classic American cars, more modern cars and car models from Asia and Europe have narrower engine bays that do not allow you to reach down to the hottest part of the engine, which is often the exhaust manifold. ^[1] Car computers or other electronic parts could be destroyed by fat or fluids leaking from your food, leaving you with very expensive garage bills. ^[1]

Electric and hybrid cars are unsuitable to cook with. ^[2] Should you find any sources of heat and cover them with food, you risk a short circuit, followed by a battery fire that would destroy your car and could potentially cause a concrete building to collapse.

This safety warning was taken from www.roadroast.com in 2010 but that website was found dead in 2020

See also[]

• Outdoor cooking

References[]

• Stock, Jon (2002-12-21). "Meals on wheels". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-11-10.^{[dead link]}
• Schuon, Marshall (1989-09-24). "About Cars: Slow Down, Roast's Ready". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-10.
• Pedersen, David (2010-01-23). "roadroast.com: The first online cookbook with recipes you can cook on your engine". Archived from the original on 2011-01-26. Retrieved 2010-03-19.

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