Why cook with wood?

So, an important question…why would you want to cook with wood when you’re camping?

Apart from saving you the bother of carrying and changing camping gas bottles or carrying liquid fuels around, wood is generally free and available everywhere. And we mustn’t forget the pleasure of collecting sticks and feeding a fire before you feed yourselves.

Open fires aren’t allowed at many campsites, and they’re not very efficient when it comes to cooking. A good stove, though, can cut the amount of wood you need to cook a meal by as much as 80%.

There’s an added incentive with some of the rocket stoves too. Some began life as a humanitarian project for developing countries, saving families fuel costs and the health costs of cooking over smoky open fires.

Wood or charcoal stoves will never be as fast to get going as a piezo ignition gas stove, of course, and they vary widely in portability. You won’t want to be carrying 12 kilos of stove very far. But, if you usually camp with a car or campervan, then it’s a viable option. The lighter stoves, usually the highly-efficient wood-gas type, aren’t really family-sized – more for back-packing and wild camping for one or two people.