Steam pits are a storied way of cooking food that ensures a thoroughly and evenly cooked meal.

Best of all, you do not have to monitor it while it is cooking, which frees you up to do other things.

To start out, a pit of varying depth and width is dug in the dirt, clay or sand. The pit can be as small as one foot deep and one foot wide, or as big as you need if you have enough hot rocks and food to fill it.

Next you’ll need rocks and lots of firewood. Select suitable rocks from a high, dry location. These rocks are placed in the bottom of the pit to see how many it will take and where the stones fit best. You have a choice now of leaving the stones in the pit and building the fire on top of them, or taking the rocks out of the pit and placing them in a big fire. Either way the stones should be heated for two hours.

If you heat the rocks in the pit, you must scoop the remaining wood, charcoal, coals and ash out of the pit when the rocks are hot enough. The wood, ash and charcoal will give the food an unpleasant “wet smoked” flavor otherwise. If you heat the rocks outside of the pit, you can use a shovel to scoop them and move them into the pit.

Once the pit has the hot rocks in it, cover them with an inch or two of dirt or sand. Then place 6 to 8 inches of vegetation over the dirt. Next, put your food in a single layer, with the things that need the most cooking in the center and the other foods around the edges. Leave a few inches of space between the foods and the wall of the pit for even cooking. Then cover your food with another 6 to 8 inches of vegetation.

Once you have your food in the pit between layers of vegetation, you can cover the pit with the dirt from digging the hole. A layer of bark, mats or cloth could go on before the dirt to make dirt removal easier when the cooking is done. When the final dirt goes on, your work is done. Come back three or more hours later, dig up your food, and enjoy.

As you can see, using a steam pit to cook your food is really very easy.

In a survival situation, it is one method that ensures you a hot meal while freeing up your time to do other survival tasks.

To learn more about survival cooking, please visit OutdoorLife Survival.