Cooking Equipment

This is the one area where I think a lot of people get all caught up in getting the “proper” gear, and lose sight of what they need! A walk around any camping store will reveal shelf upon shelf of specialized camping cooking equipment – the vast majority of which is completely unnecessary!.

Stove: A stove is the most basic piece of cooking equipment you’ll need. Well, maybe you don’t need it – you will have to make that decision. On our year-long trip around the Indian subcontinent back in 1990-91, John and I opted to leave the stove at home. We ate at restaurants the entire year and survived just fine – but taking a stove is the one thing I would have changed about that journey. Now that we have kids, we find a stove to be a great thing to have. Essential? Not really, but – for us – it’s worth carrying.

We wanted a stove that could use a wide variety of fuels – we never know what we will be able to find. At this point, we are using John’s MSR Internationale which is about 20 years old – but still going strong. The only drawback is that it only has two levels: very hot and even hotter. If/when I buy a new stove, I would probably get a different one that can simmer.

Pot: This is where people drop a whole lot of cash! There are specialized pots in camping stores, but do you really need a specialized pot? We felt we didn’t. I picked up a 4-liter enamel pot somewhere (I forget where) and we strap that on my front rack. We wanted something big enough to make plenty of pasta for four hungry cyclists – and this one is perfect!

The one thing I wish I had is a frying pan. A lot of the specialized camping pots are designed in such a way that the lid doubles as a frying pan which is probably the only reason (in my humble opinion anyway) to get a camping pot. Given the fact that my stove is too hot to make pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches or fried eggs, I guess the lack of a frying pan really isn’t that big of a deal…

Utensils: I carry a big wooden spoon and a knife. That’s it. With my little knife I can cut up veggies just fine, and I can stir oatmeal or beef stew with my wooden spoon. I don’t need anything else.

When we first set out, I had rigged up a fancy-schmancy knife protector thingie – and lost it after the first week on the road. Since then, I’ve simply wrapped the blade of the knife in a couple of plastic bags from the grocery store and have had no problem whatsoever.

Plates/bowls/cups: On our last trip we carried bowls and cups, but found we rarely used the cups. This time, we left them at home and are traveling with only four bowls. We figure we can eat anything and everything out of bowls, but there are a lot of things we can’t eat off plates – so ditch the plates and go with bowls. You can decide if you’ll use the cups enough to make it worth it – we just drink out of our bowls.