How to Cook Outdoors Without Cooking Utensils

A nice campfire is all you need to cook a good meal in the woods.

If you plan to go camping in the near future, learn how to cook without using utensils. This is a good skill to have in case you lose or forget your cooking gear or you simply want to teach a group of Boy or Girl Scouts. As long as you have the ability to make and sustain a fire, you can cook just about anything without any utensils.

Things You'll Need

• Campfire (burned down to red hot coals)
• Newpaper
• Fish
• Water
• Flour
• Sticks
• Flat rock
• Leaves (green leaves, not brown and dead)
• Meat
• Orange
• Eggs
• Pocket knife

Instructions

1. Build a campfire. Allow the fire to burn until the wood has burned down to red hot coals. The coals will be the temperature you need to cook more quickly and easily.

2. Place a piece of fish on some newspaper. Use three or four layers of newspaper. Fold the four sides of newspaper over the fish to wrap it completely. Dunk the fish in a bucket of water to soak the newspaper. Pour some water over the newspaper if you do not have a container in which to hold water. Place the fish into the fire. Use a stick to scrape some of the coals on top of the fish as well. Wait about 5 minutes, then use two sticks to remove the fish from the fire. Allow the fish to cool for one minute, then peel back the newspaper to eat. Cooking times can vary depending on how large a piece of fish you use.

3. Mix some flour with some water to make a thick dough. Use a flat rock to mix the dough together. Roll the dough out into a long snake-like strip. Wrap the dough strip around the end of a stick like a coil. Hold the dough several inches above the fire. You should see the dough begin to brown and expand. Remove the dough from the fire when it is nicely browned, but not burned. Unravel the dough from the stick and eat like you would a bread stick.

4. Wrap a piece of meat in four or five layers of large, green leaves. Fold the leaves over to form a tight-fitting pocket around the meat. Set the meat on top of the coals. Wait four or five minutes, then remove the meat from the fire. Unwrap the meat, then re-wrap with new leaves. Place the meat back into the fire on its non-cooked side. Wait five more minutes then remove from the fire to eat.

5. Cut an orange in half with a pocket knife. Scoop out the insides of the orange to hollow out the rind or peel. Poke a stick through the top of the peel. Set the orange peel on top of the coals for two or three minutes to heat. Crack an egg into the peel. Allow the egg to cook in the orange peel until it is firm. Remove the orange peel and egg from the fire and allow to cool for a minute or two before eating.

References

• British Pathe: Cooking Without Utensils Video & Summary
• Scouting: Cooking Without Untensils