A Cast Iron Skillet Should Not Be Your Only Camping Skillet
March 31, 2011
By Gus
Cast iron skillets are great for camping, legendary even, with a history that goes back to the early pioneers, but they should not be your only camping skillet. There are some camp foods that are better cooked in a non-stick skillet.
The two best features of cast iron cookware, for camping, (other than the lure of tradition), are its durability and heat distribution properties. You can’t get much tougher than a cast iron skillet. If you are fortunate, you might be using one passed down from your parents or even grandparents, and it’s hard to find a better piece of cookware for getting even heat from the dancing flames or hot coals of campfire cooking. Every good campfire cook should have at least one in their camping cooking gear, but they should also have a non-stick skillet. It’s a rare camp cook that can dish up a batch of eggs-over-easy from a cast iron skillet.
Cast iron enthusiasts will swear that a well-seasoned cast iron skillet is just as “non-stick” as a Teflon-coated skillet, and that they can cook anything in their skillets just as easily as you can in a Teflon skillet. While both statements are true, there are a couple things to take into consideration.
First, even a novice camper has probably heard about the need to “season” cast iron cookware before it’s used. The more seasoned the skillet is the better it is to cook with, but getting a cast iron skillet to the non-stick stage takes a lot more than just one or two preparation seasonings and a few sessions over a campfire. Depending on the type of food you cook, and how often you use it, it could take two or three dozen, (or more), meals before your skillet even gets close to non-stick status. Then there is the problem that just one instance of misuse or improper cleaning could destroy that hard-earned cooking surface.
Secondly, sometimes using a cast iron skillet is a case of just using more tool than you really need. As great as they are for breakfast meats and steaks, and those fantastic 1-pot skillet camping meals, it is so much easier to use a smaller non-stick skillet to whip up some omelets or sauté a few onions.
Check your camping gear, if you don’t already have one, you should consider adding a 9” or 10” non-stick skillet to your cookware collection. Just make sure it is a thick heavy-duty one. You can see some examples of what should be in your camping cookware in the article; Campfire Cooking – The Basic Pieces You Need
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Gus
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2 Responses to “A Cast Iron Skillet Should Not Be Your Only Camping Skillet”
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Great tips for having an additional skillet. Cast iron skillets are great but with the new technology there are some alternatives. Do not overlook the use of plain ole aluminum foil. The main thing when cooking at camp is to keep it simple.
Gus,
I am going to have to dissagree with you. A cast Iron skillet is the only skillet you need for the traditional park and camp. The issue people have with them is they are not used to how easy they are to cook on so like the 99% of people I have seen ruin eggs over easy on a cast iron skillet is the heat. Cast iron is the most efficient with heat than any other metal so you need it at about half what you use for traditional skillets and the eveness of the heat makes eggs over easy in a cast iron skillet simple. I will agree with you that it takes practice but, the key to practice is the amount of heat.