h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most regulated camp grounds in Canada have a fire pit. Its just a space on the gravel pad with a metal box with a grate top. Build a fire inside, and let it burn down to coals. Wrap whole potatoes seasoned with salt and pepper, perhaps some chopped onion, in tin foil and bury in the coals. It takes about 45 minutes for a medium potato. Meanwhile, use a cast iron frying pan on top of the grate to fry fresh-caught fish, and when its all done, its a meal fit for a king!

A wilderness camper gave me this recipe for a form of bannock that can be made up at home and taken with you.

7 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 4 tbsp baking powder, 2 cups powdered milk. Store in an ice cream bucket. When you're camping mix as much as you need with water - lots of water for an easy pancake recipe, or mix like biscuits and fry up in the frying pan.

Old scouting recipe; Twisters,
make up dough with flour water,wrap round a stick,cook over open fire until nicely browned,they should then slide off stick, cut longways and fill with jam or honey: sounds revolting, tastes great!

Old scouting recipe; Twisters,
make up dough with flour water,wrap round a stick,cook over open fire twistting until evenly nicely browned,they should then slide off stick, cut longways and fill with jam or honey: sounds revolting, tastes great!

Why cut them? Made as we use to, they're open in one end (where the stick went in) and closed in the other - just fill'em up...!

You can also quickly grill sausages and stuff them in there (optinally dipped in mustard first).

Advanced twisters (BTW they're called "snobrød", meaning - well - twisted bread, in Danish):
Add cocoa, M&Ms, raisins or other yummy flavourings to the dough. At a (very) recent scout camp, we had a buffet of doughs...!

the simple dough wrapped around a stick I first encountered on a tour through a Celtic dig. There was none to be seen at the time, but the archaeologists organised workshops and the kids were allowed to have a go at making their own stick bread.

It was practised by the Roman soldiers who baked themselves a little snack for their long marches in this way. I think they used a little honey in the dough.

Yes, why did we split them?, think it was just 'cos we were greedy and liked to make sure we had real lot of filling!! good idea about sausages, also adding cheese to dough is nice, ohhh this making me quite hungry!

A really good dessert is cobbler made in a Dutch oven. You have to use the cast iron type to really get it right. I don't remember all the details, but you use cake mix and canned fruit with lots of hot charcoal and let it cook for a couple hours. In fact, you can make lots of cool things in Dutch ovens.

In the US, you can do a lot of camping in the wild in the national forests as long as you're willing to hike in and be low-impact.

Whether at an established site or in the wild, some things should always be the same. Try to always cook with gas. It's easier, more efficent, and better for the enviroment. Don't make a new fire ring if there is an existing one. If you are going to grill, use charcoal instead of burning wood down, though you can use a little bit to get the charcoal going, especially if you're using a charcoal can or chimney.

If backpacking, titanium is even better than aluminum. Also, if you can get it, those polymer plastic silverware sets are really nice as they don't heat up and melt or get cold. They are very reusable and good for the enviroment because of it.

Hmm, maybe we should make an entry on low-impact camping.

That is very good advice. There is an entry on camping wild, which isn't quite the same as low impact camping. (link in this entry).

In fact, environment-friendly tourism should be covered in all its aspects. I tried to point out that it is more sensible to buy food on the spot rather than transport a load of stuff from home - but environment-friendly and local-economy-friendly are two different things.

I wonder why this article has had most responses from the US and Canada? As far as I can tell - all the comments have come from there.

Hmmm - low impact camping. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints? Our family's last responsibility after camp is struck and the boat loaded is to pull the truck out of the campsite and "police" the area. The three of us go to the back of the site, look over the surrounding bush, turn around and slowly walk to the road, picking up anything we've left behind as we go.

Don't know about the US, but in Canada you have to book ahead for some campsites, especially national and provincial parks. We seem to be a country that loves to get out and camp, whether its in a tent, or a 2-bedroom motor-home. We have all these great campgrounds, and all these wonderful lakes.

As for buying supplies locally, that's possible in some places. Personally we try to find places way off the beaten track - where the nearest store may be 20 miles away. So we're forced to lug in supplies for several days.

I do agree that you should always leave the place in the same conditions as it was when you arrived - even though I'm not from the western side of the Atlantic

Why's gas more environmentally friendly? I'm just curious OK, I do realise that you have to remove wood from the area to make a wood fire - but on the other hand, gas does come from somewhere and that process isn't nice, either...

And then there's the thing about keeping yourself warm and cosy around a gas burner...

Surely how you cook is regulated by the rules of the campsite. We use regular campsites in the UK and even bbq's are regulated. Having said that we have used my parents' old two ring gas burner to great effect in our tents over the years (we now have a trailer tent) with two rings we have cooked most things (including baby food). We also use gas to cook at home so camping is not a trial but last year did a meal for hubby, youngest, oldest and wife, brother in law, niece and me on two rings. Guess with practice you get better but tend to do anything with rice or potatoes - occasionally we use the bbq but tend to consider other campers - if the wind is wrong we wont use it. After all we dont like smoke in our tent.

In fairness we have worked up from small tent with pup tent to larger tent (and son leaving home) to a trailer tent but it is our only holiday and we prefer to enjoy rather than rough it! lol