The Camp Kitchen Manifesto: On Living Deliciously in the Wild
Let's talk about the soul of any good overland trip: the camp kitchen. It’s where stories are told, plans are made, and memories are seared into your brain. But it's also a place of deep philosophical division.
The Two Tribes
At dawn, in any given campsite across the world, two tribes are waking up. The first sees food as fuel, a problem to be solved with boiling water and a foil pouch. Their goal is efficiency, a quick and joyless refueling before the day’s conquest. God bless 'em. But then there’s the other tribe. They move a little slower. You can hear the deliberate clank of a real pan, the scrape of a grinder. For them, the first act of the day isn't about survival. It's about creation.
Beyond Survival
There’s a certain romance to that first tribe’s approach, isn’t there? That picture of rugged self-reliance, the primal hiss of a single burner. But let’s be honest with each other. That’s not a meal. That’s refueling. And somewhere along the line, we confused surviving with living.
Our overlanding rigs have evolved. The suspensions, the solar, the whole damn circus of it all has made getting out there easier. And with that comfort, that lack of desperate struggle, we’ve been given a gift. A gift of time. The question is, what do you do with it? You could scroll through pictures of other people’s adventures. Or, you could use that time to do something deeply, primally human. You could dedicate yourself to the art of gourmet camp cooking.
An Invitation, Not a Cheat Code
And here’s the secret, the beautiful, liberating truth: out here, the stakes are gloriously low. You want to try an ambitious recipe that scares you? Attempt a paella miles from the nearest ocean? This is the place. You scorch the sauce? Who cares? The raccoons aren’t writing a Yelp review. You laugh, open a can of beans, and now you’ve got a much better story. Failure in your outdoor kitchen is just part of the flavor.
The new gear isn't a cheat code; it's an invitation. A Genesis stove isn't about convenience. It’s about control. It's the difference between "scorched" and "seared." Lay down a big Coleman or Blackstone griddle and you’re not just making breakfast; you’re holding court. It's the centerpiece of a car camping kitchen setup that's a greasy, beautiful, temporary temple of sizzling pork fat.
The Ritual
An early rise on the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia…
“This is about the ritual. It’s about the deliberate, almost defiant act of making a French press or slow-drip coffee as the sun bleeds over the horizon. It’s the antithesis of instant.”
This is about the ritual. It’s about the deliberate, almost defiant act of making a French press or slow-drip coffee as the sun bleeds over the horizon. It’s the antithesis of instant.
It’s about the prep. The satisfying thunk of a real knife on a well-loved, oil-treated maple cutting board. The almost obscene luxury of laying out a proper charcuterie—good cheese, salty meat, crusty bread—miles from the nearest zip code. It's a small act of civilization, a pocket of defiance against the chaos of the wild. It says…
"I am here, and I will not be reduced to eating nutrient paste out of a bag."
A Labor of Love
Cooking by the glow of a headlamp or a string of camp lights is a labor of love. It’s a messy, often clumsy, beautiful art form. The obsessively organized will have their masterpiece DIY chuckboxes, every spice and utensil in its place. The rest of us will curse as we dig for the garlic press. But we’re all there, creating something real.
The Point of It All
So, yeah. You can go light and fast. You can eat your dinner with a featherlight titanium spork and call it a night. But you’re missing the point. The point is to linger. To create something. To share it. The journey is the thing, sure, but so is the meal at the end of it. It’s the period at the end of a perfect day.
Tell me about a meal you cooked outdoors that went spectacularly wrong—or surprisingly right. What's the story?
“Don’t just survive out there. Live. And live deliciously.”
