LITTLE ROCK — Camp Cooking in the Wild by Mark Scriver, Wendy Grater and Joanna Baker (The Heliconia Press, paperback, 2012), 208 pages, $19.95
The Paddling Chef, Second Edition by Dian Weimer (Fox Chapel Publishing, paperback, 2012), 185 pages, $16.95
Two books about cooking while camping? What if we only want to buy one?
Go with Camp Cooking in the Wild, a glossy, lavishly illustrated and full color what to-eat book for backpackers and paddlers from the owners of Black Feather Wilderness Adventures, a guide service in Ontario.
In contrast, Dian Weimer’s book offers advice for canoe, rafting and kayak camping only. While the information is useful and the recipes look good enough to try at home, she pads it with accounts of personal trips, including little maps. Entertaining in a homey way and, of course, deeply interesting to anyone who also plans to paddle to, say, the northern shore of Nootka Island, these provide more local color than instruction.
Also, the paper isn’t glossy and the illustrations aren’t full color or lavish.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Yes, but my point is Camp Cooking nods toward backpackers as well as paddlers. And the authors’ advice includes pointed suggestions that inexperienced people would not be able to supply themselves using common sense.
For instance?
For instance, that a wok is more versatile than a frying pan, requires less oil and can double as a wash basin. That it’s handy to store your eating and kitchen utensils in the pockets of a nylon apron. That wood you find on the ground that has lost its bark will dry out quickly, even after a rainstorm, but rotten wood will not.
That it’s not at all safe to pull a rock out of a riverbed for use in your campfire. These tend to explode when heated so rapidly.
What features do the books share?
Recipes for food so varied you’ll never want to buy those boring packs of freeze dried stewed stuff ever again; time and skill estimates for recipes; advice for planning quantities; shopping lists; packing to protect perishable and easily bruised fresh foods; menus; organization tips so you can find things in a hurry; and the serious matter of avoiding the near occasion of bears.
Both books have, here and there, a typo but Weimer’s has more typos, including a nonsensical sentence in the introduction (of a second edition).
Which book has more recipes?
Weimer’s. She also provides more detailed advice on dehydrating foods.
Which book deals most directly with environmental stewardship?
Both offer recommendations on how to clean up after yourself without laying waste pristine wilderness, but Camp Cooking devotes a chapter to detailed instructions for disposing of human things, including a photograph of someone doing just that. Camp Cooking also has interesting suggestions on food waste containers, kinds of soaps and a fun method for scattering your wash water.
It also teaches how to make fire and how to fillet a fish.
If you did have the option of buying both books, would you?
Yes. I love cookbooks.
Who are the authors?
They’re all Canadians.
ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 04/09/2012