Although I
was noted as a potential pyromaniac by my parents, who were careful to keep
matches and other combustible materials out of my grubby little hands until
well past the age of eight, I remain to this day a clumsy fire starter.
On the few
camping expeditions I have participated in I always volunteered to do the
cooking, figuring that it was the easiest job in camp and the only one guaranteed
to keep me well fed.
Gathering the
necessary lumber for a hearty blaze never proved much of challenge to me in the
wild; I simply poked around at the base of trees and shrubs and came up with
plenty of damp twigs and leaves and branches with which to build my
bonfire. I suspected the dry tinder was full of beetles and spiders, so I
left it strictly alone.
Dumping it
all in the stone circle at the campsite, I would proceed to use up a full box
of kitchen matches trying to get the soggy timber to ignite. On a few
camping expeditions I was canny enough to bring along a can of charcoal
lighting fluid – then it was just a matter of giving the uncooperative shavings
a generous dousing and WHOOSH!, there would be a roaring fire. But I kept
losing my eyebrows in the initial explosion, so I stopped using that method of
combustion.
I
had recourse to newspaper scraps and any other paper products I found
handy. On one memorable outing I used up all our paper plates just to get
the kindling dried out enough to catch fire; we had to eat our meals from our
hats.
The whole
idea behind a cooking fire in the wilderness, of course, is not the leaping
flames, which occasionally caught a few dead branches overhead and threatened
to set off a forest fire, but the resulting embers, in which I, as the cook,
would nestle potatoes wrapped in tin foil. I also had a nifty cast iron
Dutch oven, in which I would mix sliced potatoes, carrots, onions, and a can of
Hormel Spam, for a camping stew that was sheer ambrosia – if I do say so
myself. But here again my timing was off – I often waited too long, so
that when I put the potatoes in the ashes they were already as cold as
yesterday’s news. But raw potatoes, I’ve always heard, are good for you.
Unfortunately
the Dutch oven’s lid did not fit very tightly anymore; the result of numerous
falls out of station wagons while unpacking. The fact of the matter is
the lid had a gaping crack in it – so when I heaped up the glowing embers
around it, a few of them would always manage to fall into the stew. I
thought it gave the stew a hearty outdoor aroma, but the wimps I was with
always complained it made the food taste like charcoal.
Nowadays, of
course, there are nifty little chemical fire starter blocks that you can use to
start a blaze, or you can simply bring along a small spirit stove – they are
quite convenient and efficient. But somehow, the food just doesn’t taste
the same if it isn’t undercooked, burnt to a crisp or flavored with generous
amounts of wood ash.
The upshot is
I just don’t go camping or hiking anymore. I prefer to thumb through my
old National Geographic and make the s’mores in my microwave.
(For your
next camping trip don’t rely on any such crude and humorous strategies as noted
above. You can have all the nutritious and tasty meals you want by
bringing along quality MRE meals from hikingware.com.
They have a large selection at prices that will make your mouth water.)
Visit us at www.hikingware.com
Email: sales@hikingware.com
Telephone: (703) 496-5500
www.facebook.com/pages/Hikingware/183290271848107
https://twitter.com/Hikingware
written by Tim Torkildson
Email: sales@hikingware.com
Telephone: (703) 496-5500
www.facebook.com/pages/Hikingware/183290271848107
https://twitter.com/Hikingware
written by Tim Torkildson
