Cooking over an open fire is one of the great experiences of camping out. It’s a unique event in the life of a camp out that simply cannot be replicated by any other vacation or at home pastime. While camp fire cooking requires some preparation and a little bit of skill, it is something that can easily be taught to children. Camp fire cooking offers a wide variety of options and recipes and it will become a high point of any family camp out.
When you think of camp fire cooking, one of the first things you think of is holding that hot dog or marshmallow on a sharpened stick over the fire until it is a little over done or burnt and then eating it while it is still hot. In fact, you probably won’t be able to talk the children out of a weenie roast as one of the often repeated activities of any camp out that involves a camp fire.
Sometimes there is some concern about the sanitary aspects of such an activity. The aspect of roasting hot dogs over the fire does not have to include the use of native sticks that are stuck through the hot dog. You can purchase metal roasters that are custom designed for holding a hot dog or other roastable items to be held over the fire. However, many people find a fun way to get by without that extra expense. Just pack some unpainted wire clothes hangers in your camping supplies. With pliers you can unravel the hanger and straighten it out and it can be used as a fine weenie roaster and thrown away when you are done.
For the “fire warden” in the family, the perfect open fire for roasting hot dogs or marshmallows is a fire that has been going a while so there are some nice mellow coals for those who don’t want to try to work with an open flame. A well seasoned fire is also one that isn’t flaming violently. If the fire is down to a nice mellow blaze, that is a good setting for extending your holder over the heat to cook your dogs.
But for most meals that you will cook in the fire, that bed of coals is the key to successful outdoor cooking. Start an hour or so before you are ready to cook and get the fire going for a while so plenty of embers are built up when you are ready to cook. Another trick is to lay a base of charcoal down as you start the fire and let those coals get good and hot so you have a bed of coals that is easily manipulated.
When it is time to cook, its best to move burning logs to the edge of the fire pit and/or put them out so you don’t have those hot spots to deal with as you cook. If you can build a firewood “wall” around your coals, that can serve to contain the heat and it’s a good use of smoldering logs that can later to stirred up again when its time to return to a burning fire. But even if you have a stable bed of coals, you will need a long handled tong, spatula and barbeque fork so you can manage your food without burning your hands or wrists.
Usually food you cook in the camp fire will be enclosed in aluminum foil to prevent scorching and so your food doesn’t pick up soot and dirt. Get the heavy duty kind so it will survive the trip into and out of the fire. Many items can be cooked without a lot of preparation by just wrapping them in foil and laying them in the coals. Baked potatoes come out great this way as do baked apples. For an extra good taste, remove the apple core, cut a small “plug” to put back in the apple and fill the rest of the tunnel with “red hot: candies. These will melt into the apple for an amazing taste treat. Another old timer’s trick of camp fire cooking is to take a large onion and core it like you would an apple. Fill the middle of the onion with butter and plug the ends and cook it like a baked potato in the fire. The cooked buttery onion will be big camp fire treat to use as a side dish.
Hamburgers and grill items can be cooked over the fire or coals if you brought a grill with small legs on it so you can keep the burgers above the blaze. You can use the grill from your back yard barbeque but you will need to construct a stand for it using firewood so the grill can rest several inches above the fire. Also be mindful of the fat dripping into the fire and the potential of flames. This is another good reason to always keep a bucket of water next to the camp fire at all times.
Most of these ideas are very simple meals but you can use a concept called foil packs to put together a casserole type of meal. A foil pack is an aluminum foil “purse” that you fill with food and put right down in the coals to cook many different items together. You can make the foil pack by laying out a large swatch of aluminum foil and folding it in half. Fold the edges over to seal the ends and at the corners, fold them in and seal the corners so they won’t leak. Leave the top open with a flap that can be closed once the food goes in.
It’s always fun to let people assemble their foil packs before cooking. At the camp site, offer instant rice, soup, butter, seasonings, canned vegetables and precooked meat that people can combine into their pack. You can use your imagination in the types of things you put into foil packs and experiment to create your own recipes. The key to the success of a foil pack is to put plenty of water, soup or some other edible fluid inside so the food doesn’t scorch as you will be putting the foil pack right down into the coals.
When everything is ready, carefully place the foil pack on the coals and let it cook for 20 minutes or so before turning and cooking the other side about the same amount of time. You will need long handled thongs to remove the pack. If you have several people making their own foil packs have everyone put their initials on theirs with a marker so each camper can enjoy their own food. Without fail, they will declare their own foil pack to be the best meal they ever ate.
Camp fire cooking is a passion that you can grow with as you add more recipes and learn from other camper’s new and fun ways to use your campfire for cooking purposes. It isn’t a bad skill to build up just in case you find yourself in a survival situation. But for most of us, the love of camp fire cooking is great because it adds another level of excitement to the camp out and its just good fun.
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