Wilderness Cooking and Food

Fire Management for Cooking

The fire for cooking is a different creature entirely from the fire for warmth. A campfire for warmth is large and cheery; a cooking fire is small, concentrated, and above all, controllable.

The Keyhole Fire: The most practical cooking fire layout. Arrange a ring of stones in a keyhole shape — a circle for the main fire connected to a narrow trench. Build your fire in the circle and rake coals into the trench as needed for cooking. The trench concentrates heat under your pots and pans while the main fire continues to produce fresh coals.

The Crane: For suspended cooking. Drive a stout forked stake into the ground beside the fire, lay a cross-pole in the fork extending over the fire, and weight the butt end with a stone. Pots hung from the cross-pole can be raised or lowered by adjusting their position along the pole — closer to the fork for more heat, farther out for less.

The Hunter's Fire: Two green logs laid parallel, 6–8 inches apart at one end, narrowing to 3–4 inches at the other. Build your fire between the logs. Pots and pans rest on the logs, with adjustable heat depending on position — the narrow end is hottest, the wide end coolest. The logs also serve as windbreaks, directing heat upward where you need it.

The Golden Rule of Camp Cooking: All real cooking is done over coals, not flame. Build a hardwood fire, let it burn to a deep bed of coals, and cook over these. Flame blackens the outside while leaving the inside raw; coals provide even, penetrating heat that cooks food through. Start your cooking fire 30–45 minutes before mealtime.

Bread: The Staff of Camp Life

No other food is more important in camp than bread. It is the foundation of every meal, the universal accompaniment, the one food that satisfies when all else fails. The man who can bake good bread over a campfire will never go hungry and will never want for grateful campmates.

Bannock (Trail Bread)

The simplest camp bread, requiring no yeast, no rising time, and only a frying pan:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons fat (lard, butter, bacon grease, or oil)
• Water (approximately 3/4 cup)

Method:

1. Mix the dry ingredients in your pot or a cloth bag
2. Cut in the fat with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal
3. Add water gradually, stirring with a stick, until the dough is soft but not sticky
4. Form into a flat cake about 3/4 inch thick
5. Heat the frying pan and grease it with fat
6. Place the dough in the pan and hold over moderate coals
7. Cook slowly — 8–10 minutes per side. The bread should rise to about double its original thickness
8. When the bottom is golden-brown, either flip it (with practice) or prop the pan at a steep angle facing the fire to brown the top

Good bannock is golden-brown outside, light and fluffy inside, and best eaten hot with butter, jam, or honey. Cold bannock makes excellent trail food — it keeps well for several days.

Variations:

• Add a tablespoon of sugar and a handful of dried berries for fruit bannock
• Replace half the flour with cornmeal for corn bannock
• Add bits of cooked bacon for a savory trail bannock
• Add cinnamon and raisins for a sweet breakfast bread

Baking in a Reflector Oven

For superior bread and baked goods, the reflector oven is the camp baker's finest tool. This is a simple device — two flat, polished metal surfaces set at an angle to reflect fire heat onto the food placed between them. You can build one from tin sheeting or purchase one ready-made.

Set the reflector oven facing a bright, hot fire (not coals — the reflector needs radiant heat from flames). The bread bakes by reflected heat from both above and below. With practice, you can produce bread, biscuits, pies, cakes, and roasts that rival anything from a kitchen oven.

Sourdough is the trail cook's finest art. A sourdough starter — a living culture of wild yeast maintained by regular feeding of flour and water — produces bread of superior flavor and texture. The starter travels in a sealed crock or jar and requires feeding every day or two.

To start a sourdough culture: Mix equal parts flour and water in a clean jar. Leave loosely covered in a warm place. Stir daily and feed with a tablespoon each of flour and water. Within 3–7 days, the mixture should be bubbly and smell pleasantly sour. Use a cup of starter in place of baking powder in your bread recipe, and replace what you take with fresh flour and water.

Cooking Game

The wilderness provides an abundance of food for the hunter who knows how to prepare it properly. The difference between a delicious venison steak and a tough, gamey disaster lies entirely in handling and preparation.

General Principles of Cooking Game:

1. Field dress immediately. Game animals must be gutted and cooled as quickly as possible after killing. The meat deteriorates rapidly if the internal organs remain in contact with it, especially in warm weather. Field dressing is the most important step in meat quality.

2. Aging improves game meat. Hanging venison in a cool, dry, fly-free location for 5–10 days allows natural enzymes to tenderize the meat. Temperature should be 34–40°F — above this and the meat spoils; below and the aging process stops.

3. Remove all fat and silver skin. The strong, "gamey" flavor that many people dislike in wild meat comes primarily from the fat and connective tissue, not the muscle itself. Trim game meat thoroughly — unlike beef, game fat does not enhance flavor.

4. Do not overcook. Game meat is lean — far leaner than domestic meat. Overcooking dries it out and makes it tough. Venison steaks and roasts should be cooked to medium-rare or medium. Only ground game meat should be cooked to well-done (to kill potential bacteria from the grinding process).

Venison (Deer, Elk, Moose):

Pan-fried Steak: The simplest and most satisfying camp preparation. Cut steaks 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick across the grain. Season with salt and pepper. Heat the frying pan with butter or bacon fat until it shimmers. Sear the steak for 2–3 minutes per side for medium-rare. Let rest for 5 minutes before eating.

Roast Venison: A haunch or saddle, rubbed with salt and fat, roasted on a spit before a hot fire. The spit is a green hardwood stick sharpened at one end and driven through the center of the roast. Support the spit on forked sticks at the correct height above the coals. Turn slowly and continuously. A 4-pound roast requires approximately 1.5 hours. Baste with fat drippings.

Stew: The most forgiving method and the best for tough cuts. Cut meat into 1-inch cubes. Brown in fat. Add water to cover, along with any available vegetables — wild onions, tubers, roots. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer (do not boil) for 2–3 hours until the meat is tender enough to cut with a spoon. Thicken the gravy by stirring in a tablespoon of flour mixed with cold water.

Game Birds (Grouse, Quail, Wild Turkey, Duck):

Spit Roasted: The finest method for game birds. Pluck and gut the bird. Rub inside and out with salt and fat. Skewer on a green stick and roast before the fire, turning constantly, for 30–60 minutes depending on size. A bird is done when the juice runs clear when the thigh is pierced.

Fried: Split the bird in half, flatten slightly, and fry in butter or bacon fat in a covered pan. Cook slowly over moderate coals — 15–20 minutes per side for a grouse, longer for larger birds.

Wild Edible Plants

The woods provide an abundance of edible plants, but the subject requires caution and study. The cardinal rule of foraging: never eat any plant you cannot positively identify. Many edible plants have toxic look-alikes, and the consequences of a mistake can be fatal.

Universally Safe and Easily Identified:

• Dandelion: Entire plant is edible — leaves in salad (young leaves are least bitter), roots roasted as coffee substitute, flowers battered and fried
• Cattail: Roots are starchy and edible (boiled or roasted), young shoots eaten like asparagus, pollen used as flour supplement
• Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries: Easily identified, widely available, and delicious. Excellent source of vitamins on the trail.
• Acorns: From white oak species, these can be leached of tannins (soak in running water for several days) and ground into a nutritious flour. Red oak acorns require more leaching.
• Pine needle tea: A tea made from steeping fresh pine needles (NOT yew, which is toxic) provides vitamin C and is pleasant-tasting.

Rules for Safe Foraging:

1. Learn plants from an expert or authoritative field guide — not from general descriptions
2. Begin with a few easily identified species and master those before expanding
3. When in doubt, don't eat it
4. Even correctly identified plants can cause reactions in some individuals — taste a small amount first and wait 24 hours before eating larger quantities
5. Avoid plants growing near roadsides (chemical contamination) or in areas treated with herbicides