, some Fritos, a scrap of paper and a Magnesium Fire Starter
. The witty banter reveals the great respect my son has for my efforts.Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Flammable Fritos
A few days ago Russ Roca mentioned in an online forum that he'd really grown fond of Fritos. In response, someone commented that they are not only tasty, they make great emergency kindling. This in turn prompted me to draft my son Eric into shooting this video of me verifying that Fritos are, in fact, rather flammable. The easy way would be to just use some matches, but that's not how I roll. So here in all it's unedited glory is me starting a fire with my Swiss Army Knife, some Fritos, a scrap of paper and a Magnesium Fire Starter. The witty banter reveals the great respect my son has for my efforts.
, some Fritos, a scrap of paper and a Magnesium Fire Starter. The witty banter reveals the great respect my son has for my efforts.
Two minutes to a full flame with no time spent collecting kindling is pretty good. Probably faster than setting up a stove and lighting it. If you had to burn Fritos, you probably didn't have a stove with you anyway. Good to know!
ReplyDeleteHmm so what I can take away from this is fritos make good kindling and the small boy has never had the occasion to start a fire in his life
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming you can use the Fritos to boil water in your JetBoil? ;)
ReplyDeleteI use a Kelly Kettle, not a JetBoil. But yeah, Fritos work great in it.
ReplyDeleteBut we all know RealMen(tm) would reach for the hip flash, pour out a quarter dram of Everclear(tm) and have a flame in 15 seconds or so.
ReplyDeleteIt's how I light my charcoal grill. Nice aftertaste too.
Loved the Jack London "maybe if you were more well read" dig back at him. Nice. =)
ReplyDeleteGreat video Kent! :)
ReplyDeleteI can't take credit for the idea mentioned to Russ. I saw it on an episode of Les Stroud's Survivorman. Great bit of knowledge to remember though. Anything oily will most likely burn awhile given a radiant flame. :)
Hi Kent!
ReplyDeleteA while back you gave us a profile of Peter and promised to do one of Eric in the future. Given his commentary perhaps you are having trouble coming up with something good to say about him?? ;-)
Bob
As much as it made me cringe to see you wrecking the blade on your knife, the commentary was priceless :)
ReplyDeleteBen in Louisville
I saw Les Stroud from the show Survivor Man use this trick.
ReplyDeleteI have heard you can make a candle from spam because of all the fat. I bet it's delicious odors would attract bears though.
ReplyDelete"Stay with me, Fritos" was priceless! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWow. That is a handy fact.
ReplyDeleteFritos are one of the most pure foods found in gas stations, only made from corn, corn oil, and salt. No preservatives or weird flavor chemicals. A good choice when the choices are few.
I expect to see you using Fritos in the Kelly Kettle next time we go camping.
ReplyDeleteThe TSA is going to be scrambling now that you've posted this video. No longer will you be able to stuff your briefs with Fritos before a flight.
ReplyDeletethe best part is your patience with the young man offering up all the blah blah blah...way to hang in there dad!
ReplyDeleteBack in the day of TLA president LBJ I discovered this simple fact in an interesting way:
ReplyDeleteI put some in the toaster oven for too long. Whoa! Hey! They put on quite the impressive display.
Fortunately for me at the time the maternal unit was away, or there might have been some hell to pay.
I can't say that I've made use of this information day to day, but I suppose it could come in useful at some point; you never can say.
Cute vid. Perhaps you could get sponsorship from Frito-Lay.
Ciao!
Ditto on the Jack London comment. I showed this to my oldest son and he replied, "Yeah cool, it works. We did it in chemistry."
ReplyDeleteYouth is wasted on the wrong people.
Steve in Central CA
After seeing your frito video, I came across a similar tip in an issue (Sept '06) of Backpacker magazine. It says "Brazil nuts are both a hearty appetizer and excellent fire starter. Their oily meat burns like candle wax, and they're packed with enough calories (190 per ounce) to kick start your trail mix.
ReplyDeleteWho knew?
The bag of unopened fritos does double duty as a "pillow" for the semi-burly man in all of us.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't suggest you continue to use the large brick of magnesium to scoot the burning pile of fritos back onto the paper bag, though!
Way to save those left over fritos for the starving children in China, Kent.
Word.
Interesting survival trick - though I think I'd eat the Fritos instead.....
ReplyDeleteAaaah parenthood.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty damn impressive, I never would have thought Fritos would be handy when camping! Puts a whole new spin to the traditional party snack food...which reminds me, and a little off topic, but is anyone interested in the superbowl this Sunday? I work with cars.com and if you're one of those guys that gets a crack out of the commercials, check out this one! It'll air during the game, but I've been allowed to leak it to you all now :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.viddler.com/explore/nkraft/videos/1/