What was the quickest recipe you can make on that stove? Aren't you fucked no matter what if your burner takes that long to heat?

Incredibly large amounts of food for multiple days, because the cast iron plates did hold the heat insanely well. Use the time while they heat up for misé en place, cook once for like 2 hours and eat that for 4 days or so.

Quick starch if need be was usually Gnocchi via boiled water by the kettle

I'm not sure what cheap starch makes sense for your stove tbh.

Again, former stove.

but I was still specifically perplexed by your pasta tirade because that should be the quickest starch to make other than asian-style rice noodles or ramen, which idk if those are common in Europe, and still require boiling water quickly.

Ramen is common, rice noodles not so much. OTOH you can get cheap cooked lentils in a can here, that's been helpful back then.