whatever your particular big one is:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/...e-challenge.php

One cardboard box fits in the other one, aluminum foil, black paint, and Bob's your uncle! The one shown cost seven bucks, but I'm not sure how the spent that much.

I have a friend who dotes on solar ovens, but he spends hundreds of dollars on commercial ones. I know from eating his pizza that they work.

Paint and plastic. Could scrounge up most of that from my garage though

video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nY0XRBFHfo&feature=channel_page

forum
http://solarcooking.org/phpBB2/index.php

Plans for another style of cooker that was used in refugee camps in Kenya.
http://solarcooking.org/plans/cookit.htm

Solar cookers are great...until you want to cook something in the evening/early morning. This is one of the main reasons this idea is difficult to sell to those in developing nations. That, and the fact that some traditional foods taste noticeably different when prepared in a solar oven.

How true. The problem is cooking after an earthquake when there's no electricity or gas, and you can't get to your Coleman stove and fuel (or you ran out in a few days - how long was New Orleans abandoned?). shrug - everything's a compromise.

This is a solar oven most people could make from what's available after the tornado, earthquake, hurricane, when there is no other way to cook. Now all that's left is getting something to cook. :-> Oh, and a pot to cook it in.

I bake Cakes in a solar oven... awesome!
I've not worked up to being a "from scratch" baker when it comes to cakes; but just the regular store mixes like Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker are so moist when done in a solar oven... mmmm!
I never had anything turn out that yummy from a regular electric oven.

Here's a photo of our friend baking a pizza:


He did the whole thing from scratch: made the dough from flour, brought blocks of cheese and grated them for the filler, the whole shebang. This was at Thanksgiving, so it was in the 60s during the day.

This is in Eureka Valley. No electricity, no water, pretty much no nothing if you didn't bring it.

Eureka Valley so central California on the east side of the state, right Philip?
That is a nice looking collector. It reminds me a bit of some of the umbrella designs and the Russian designs.
Judging by the pot shape under the reflector it is a cone type collector. (like a parabola but with the focal point under it instead of above it, am I guessing right?)
It looks a bit complex to just whack together in an emergency though, and it looks a bit big to haul.
Your original post of a box cooker would be much easier to build, and there are designs for them from at least as far back as the 1930s.
This link is to a pdf that deals a bit more with solar cookers designed for disaster areas and refugee camps in Africa.
It includes plans for a couple of different styles.
Note that the Kookit style can be made with pieces of cardboard taped together if you don't have a single large piece.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/solarcooking/images/5/57/CooKit_plans_detailed.pdf

> Judging by the pot shape under the reflector it is a cone type collector.
> (like a parabola but with the focal point under it instead of above it, am
> I guessing right?)

I have no clue, I'm sorry to say. The owner spent a few hundred bucks on it, and it worked like a charm.

> It looks a bit complex to just whack together in an emergency though,
> and it looks a bit big to haul.

That's the point of the original post: the homemade cooker can be whacked together after a big earthquake or whatever and used to cook when you've got no alternatives. Solar cookers really work, as the photo shows, even in mild weather.

As an aside, my wife baked an apple pie while we were there. She used our Weber BBQ grill and a card board box. There are all sorts of improvisations depending on what you've got.

For the geography-minded, Eureka Valley is here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...z=6&iwloc=A

I don't remember where I read it, so no link, and it was some years ago, so I doubt this specific design was tested. A website did a review of some homemade cookers, alcohol stoves, solar cookers, anything really. The one to boil water the fastest, was a solar cooker made with a windshield reflector for a truck. Just a short cut at the bottom to fold 90 degrees, some stuff to set the pot at the focal point, and an easy to make solar oven from stuff you can find out of cars and stores. (I don't think looters go for windshield reflectors that much)