In 1976 I was newly married and living in Swaziland on a small farm without electricity or running water. My wonderful mother-in-law visiting from South Africa, gave me a present, arguably my best ever – a Wonder Box cooker, or a modern equivalent of the old Hay Box. It was a cardboard box containing two cushions filled with small polystyrene balls, made by the Women for Peace, an offshoot I believe of the Black Sash movement – a human rights organisation founded in Johannesburg in 1955 as a non-violent resistance organisation.
Somewhat mystified, sceptical even, I started to use it and was instantly hooked. I would start cooking our bean stew in the morning on top of the stove, bringing it to the boil then snuggling the pot into the cushions where it would remain so well insulated the food would continue cooking. I could then spend the day at work and return home to a piping hot pot of beautifully cooked beans or whatever it was that day.
The case for local production and promotion of the Wonder Box was compelling: our farmer landlord (as indeed many others), was always cutting down trees to create more grazing land for his cattle, not noticing that this contributed to the soil erosion unfolding under our eyes. Working in the health sector, I was witness to children with horrible burns resulting from open wood fires or the swollen bellies of children with malnutrition. I also couldn’t ignore the heart-wrenching stories from women I met in the clinics struggling to feed their families, not to mention the hours they spent in search of fuel.
With permission from the Women for Peace we – The Family Life Association of Swaziland (now Temndeni in E-Swatini) – started producing the Wonder Boxes – me and colleagues stitching at night after work and then giving demonstrations cooking rice from raw to cooked state while also talking about the benefits of family planning and healthy living. Scepticism had to be overcome. The notion that we had magic water led us to always ask for water – a bit like the conjurer getting the audience to slice the pack of cards.
Since those early days of my own engagement with this magical cooker, and subsequent promotion in Bangladesh using rice husks as a filling, the concept has been taken up and very successfully marketed by others, notably the award-winning Wonder Bag company. Though current designs are more practical, portable and colourful than the original version, the concept is the same as that described by Jon Verriet in his interesting talk on the haybox from around 1895 to the present day at the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food. Three Gold Medals were awarded to a Mr Johan Sörensen at the Paris Exhibition in 1867 for his invention. Various patents were then granted to Sörensen and others, and the idea was promoted for “fishermen, pilots, and others whose small vessels are not generally so constructed as to enable them to procure hot food while at sea” and, eventually, domestic cooks.
Alison Parente, Founder of the School for Artisan Food likes the Wonderbag’s portability enabling hot meals to be carried from kitchen to recipient. As a family we take ours camping, though down-filled sleeping bags do equally well. Alison adds that patterns for Wonder boxes are available on Pinterest. Recycled polystyrene can be used for the filling which is very useful in countries where there is plenty of waste polystyrene which is not biodegradable. As long as the filling can trap air and keep the pot hot and cooking, or even cold if you want to use it as a cooler then the filling can vary.
My own Wonder Box is a laundry basket with three cushions so that two pots can be cooking at the same time. The savings to your purse, your time and the environment are massive. With acute fuel poverty and escalating prices in Britain, the Wonderbox is a no brainer here as in the developing world. You can make it yourself using natural fibre cloth and a filling such as polystyrene or wool or you can buy them online from Wonder Bag. I cannot think why more people are not cooking in this way.
