NEWBIES: If you are new to camping, then don't invest in much. Keep it very simple folks! Two or three pieces of cookware should do it. Since I have a vegetarian husband, and meat can sometimes be hard to find, almost all of my camping batterie de cuisine is dairy. I keep some long wooden sticks on hand for the occasional weenie roast.
The first pieces of camping cookware that I purchased were from Winners (TJ Maxx for you Americans). I did have some hot spots from uneven heating and some slight warping, but it wasn't a big investment for experimentation. I bought a BBQ grill pan (like the one pictured here), a BBQ flat pan (that looks like a cookie sheet), and two small pots made for cooking on a BBQ. I also brought along a roll of aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans.
Let me just emphasize that each of these pieces was made to be used on a barbeque and could therefore withstand high heat. Pots with plastic parts or non-stick coatings might melt or warp when placed directly onto a fire.
CAMPERS: If you have camped before and know that you would like to invest in good cookware for camping, I suggest cast iron. I know, it's heavy...I mean really heavy. BUT...it distributes heat evenly, is very durable, retains heat, and doesn't require a big cleaning (water only). The great thing about cast iron is that it builds up a "crust" (sounds gross; right?) which helps it do a great job of being a non-stick pot/pan.
Here is the kosher dilemma when buying cast iron; it's seasoned. What does that mean? It means that it has been pre-treated with oil. They take the cast iron, put a bunch of oil on it, and bake it at a high heat until it absorbs the oil. That is what what makes it non-stick.
Hmmm...sounds possibly treyf to me! Well, Mr. Framper called Lodge to find out how the seasoning process works. He also found out that the oil that they use does not have kosher certification (somewhere in Google land it says that it is...but it isn't). He found out that you can "unseason" a piece of cast iron by putting it into your self cleaning oven.
Now that you have kashered it, how do you season it back up? I shmeared mine with a bunch of oil (they said solid oil, but I don't have that), put it in the oven at 450 degrees F for one hour. Et viola! It's now seasoned and kosher.
If you like to cook, you can really get carried away while looking at the cast iron vessels. Do I need every piece? Probably....big pause...not. Darn! I felt the way my kids feel when staring down a candy aisle, and then how they feel when they hear me say "only one piece of junk".
Here are a few basic pieces to get you started. Of course, it depends on your family size, but here are some suggestions for a family of 5-7 people.
You can use the flat side for pancakes, OR you can use the one with grill lines for meat. If you make pareve pancakes, you get double use out of this baby! For us, we'd probably just use the lined side for veggie kebabs and the smooth side for milchig pancakes or flatbread pizza.
This fryer is great for chili, stews, soups, beans, a huge pot of morning oatmeal, boiling eggs or corn, frying chicken, and just about anything else you can dream up. You can even make cornbread and cobblers in some of these, but hold up...now you're getting fancy!
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