A man took advantage of an Australian heatwave last week, using it as an opportunity to cook pork roast — in his car.
On Dec. 13, Perth resident Stu Pengelly placed a 3.3-pound pork roast inside his old Datsun Sunny. After 10 hours passed, the slab of meat was fully cooked.
In a Facebook post detailing the experiment, conducted on a 39-degree day, the Australian noted the temperatures inside the car at 7 a.m., 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., which were 30, 52 and 81 C, respectively.
Pengelly used the experiment to show how dangerous it is to leave animals and children inside hot cars.
“My warning is do not leave anyone or anything precious to you in a hot car, not for a minute,” he wrote in the post, which included photos of his car and the cooked roast, sliced on a platter.
“If you do see kids or dogs in a hot car, do not hesitate to smash a window to get them out ASAP. It is not an offence to do this and you could save a life. Please keep a watch out.”
While the experiment had a deeper cause, Pengelly had fun with it, too.
Speaking to Reuters, he said he wanted to try out a roast beef next to see if it would cook as perfectly as the pork.
“A quiche would cook in two hours, I reckon,” he added.
Others also saw humour in the situation, with one asking for an invite to his next roast and another saying they’d definitely break out a pork roast if they saw it locked inside a car.
In a video shared by ABC Great Southern, Pengelly can be seen slicing the pork and taking a bite.
“A bit of Texas spice, salt and pepper,” he says in the footage. “It worked! Go Datsun oven!”
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has projected a severe heatwave for the week, reporting Dec. 17 as their hottest day on record at 40.9 C.
It exceeded the previous record of 40.3 C on Jan. 7, 2013.
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