The Best Cast Iron for Camp Cooking
Cast iron was the original camp cookware and it remains the best. It absorbs and holds heat from a wood fire more evenly than any modern camp cookware. It has no coatings to blister, no handles to melt, and no capacity to be ruined by high heat. These are the pieces worth packing.
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How to Choose
Camp Dutch ovens differ from kitchen Dutch ovens in one important way: they have legs that elevate the pot above the coals and a flanged lid that holds coals on top. This allows heat from above and below simultaneously, which is how camp biscuits and cobblers are made. A camp skillet is the same as a kitchen skillet; the only difference is you do not mind the exterior getting black from fire.
Lodge Camp Dutch Oven 4-Quart with Legs
The Lodge camp Dutch oven has three legs that hold it above the coals and a flat flanged lid that holds additional coals on top. This arrangement creates an oven environment from wood coals: even heat from all sides, appropriate for bread, biscuits, cobblers, and slow braises. At 4 quarts it feeds four people comfortably. The lid lifter is included.
The correctly designed camp Dutch oven. Legs and flanged lid are not optional -- they are what makes it work over coals.
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Lodge 10-Inch Camp Skillet
The same Lodge 10-inch cast iron skillet used at home, positioned as the camp cooking standard. The helper handle makes it manageable over an open fire without oven mitts. It handles bacon, eggs, trout, and cornbread equally well over wood or propane. The exterior will blacken from fire use; the cooking surface will build seasoning. Both are improvements.
No separate purchase needed. The same skillet from the kitchen belongs at camp.
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Lodge 9-Inch Cast Iron Basting Pan
The Lodge basting pan -- also called a spider -- is a shallow cast iron pan with a long handle designed for holding over an open flame. It is the format for pancakes and eggs when you do not want to balance a full skillet over the fire. The long handle keeps your hands away from the heat; the shallow sides make flipping easier. An underrated camp piece.
The camp piece that solves the open-fire pancake problem. Long handle, shallow pan, nothing to ruin.
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