How to cook in the mountains?

At night, we spit fat on a spit around a campfire and eat it with bread. Or bacon seasoned with salt and pepper. Wow, delicious. Spending time with friends around a campfire is very comfortable. But when you are crossing a mountain range, for example, you can\’t cook all your food over an open fire. Not that you can\’t heat and cook in a casserole, but have you ever seen a casserole after such an event? They are black as shoes, impossible to clean, and even inadvertently stain anything they touch. A dirty casserole is nothing but trouble.

So how do we cook in nature? Safely, quickly, and without unnecessary complications? If we exclude cooking over fire, there is only one thing to do. Choose cookware you can trust.

There are alcohol, gas, and gasoline cookers on the market. All of these are easily available at hiking and sports stores. Some can also be purchased at regular hypermarkets.

Alcohol cookers seem to be past their prime. The last known type has been in production for perhaps 50 years. It is like a folding box made of hard galvanized sheet metal. When opened, it serves as a pedestal on which the cooking vessel is placed. Underneath it is a hard alcohol cube. The brewing process takes a long time and requires good wind protection. However, it is definitely the lightest brew and a good solution for short trips.

Gasoline rice cookers are very popular and their fans are outnumbered 50:50 by gas cooker fans. The main difference between the two is price. Otherwise, both fuel cookers are very reliable, thanks to evolution, and with proper handling and occasional maintenance, they rarely fail. The difference may be the availability of fuel. Gasoline has the advantage in this regard. Mainly because gas systems use two types of bombs. Not every store always has both.

Gasoline smells a bit. Gas can be aired out quickly and leaks less. The mechanism of a gasoline cooker is to gasify gasoline. By the time the entire system is properly pressurized, it smells pretty bad.