Camping Furniture & Cooking

Camping furniture & cooking, built around the pitch

Camping furniture & cooking covers what turns a patch of grass into somewhere to eat and sit down. The kit gathered here sits at the cooking end: nesting pots and pans sets, and folding gas stoves for open-air use. It is the part of a camp used three times a day, judged on how fast it comes out of the bag and how easily it goes back in dirty.

What do you actually need to cook outdoors?

Four things, in order of how much they are missed. A heat source. Something to heat food in and eat out of. Somewhere to sit while it cooks, which is why a folding seat from the camping chairs range beats most gadgets at the end of a long day. And light, because half the year the evening meal is cooked in the dark, and a camping lantern on the table beats a head torch pointed at a pan.

Which stove suits which trip?

A small folding burner that screws onto a gas cartridge weighs almost nothing, packs inside a pot and boils water quickly, which makes it the sensible choice when everything is carried on the back. A wider stove with a broad pot support and a windshield is more stable under a full pan and easier to simmer on, which suits camping from a car. Wind is the deciding factor in the field either way: an unshielded burner loses far more heat to a breeze than to a cold pan. The full spread sits in the gas stove range.

Is it safe to cook in a tent porch?

No. Burning gas produces carbon monoxide, which has no smell and gives no warning, and a porch that feels open is still an enclosed space. Cook outside, clear of the flysheet and guy lines, on ground that will not burn. Keep the cartridge out of the sun and away from the burner's heat, turn the gas off at the valve rather than blowing the flame out, and let the stove cool before it goes back in the bag.

What is worth checking?

• Nesting: pans, lids and mugs that stack inside one another take a fraction of the space of loose pieces.
• Material: stainless steel takes rough handling and scours clean, aluminium heats fast and stays light, non-stick spares the washing up but dislikes metal utensils.
• Handles: folding or detachable handles pack flat, and an insulated grip lets a hot pan come off the burner safely.
• Pot supports: wide, well spaced arms hold a full pan steady, which matters more on uneven ground than raw output does.

How do you keep a camp kitchen small?

Build it around one pot rather than a kitchen drawer. A pan with a lid that doubles as a plate, one mug, one spork and a knife covers most meals, and the stove often lives inside the pot. Wash up while the pan is still warm, scrape food waste into a bag instead of onto the pitch, and use hot water and a cloth rather than detergent on the ground. Everything goes away dry, because a lid closed on a damp pan leaves the set smelling stale. The sets themselves sit in the camping pots and pans range.