What do I need to cook with?

[Gambia]

Okay, went to my first overnight rondy last weekend and fortunately we had a potluck dinner Saturday night, but before and after that all I had some dried fruit, nuts and summer sausage, along with some water and sodas in modern coolers that I was allowed to keep in camp but covered.  My question is, what type of cookware and containers would someone from 1830 (my chosen time period & persona) have used to feed himself?  Saturday's potluck was cooked in cast iron, probably 24 inches in diameter, which I know isn't PC for my persona, so what should I be looking to pick up?  What was food normally kept in while away from basecamp?  Lastly, where can I find some quality items?  Should I go strictly by price?

Newbie wants to know-

[Roaddog]

A plain tin pot for cooking in and dryd meet of some sort wormed up in water.Or fresh meet boild in the pot or roasted on a green stick over the fire. This is if you are out on the trail. In camp a stew would be on the fire most of the time. They would just keep addin to it.

[Bigsmoke]

What Roaddog said.
Also a small steel frypan wouldn't be out of line, either.
Bon appetite!!

[Gambia]

A plain tin pot for cooking in and dryd meet of some sort wormed up in water.Or fresh meet boild in the pot or roasted on a green stick over the fire. This is if you are out on the trail. In camp a stew would be on the fire most of the time. They would just keep addin to it.

With a lid or without? About what size?  Quart, 1/2 gallon?

[Three Hawks]

What you need, what you want and what you wind up with are three totally different breeds of cat.

Walk around camp at a few different Rondys and you'll see some things....there will be multicolored enameled tinware of all shapes and sizes, stainless steel, aluminum, glass, tin cans, modern titanium hiking ware, coleman stoves, propane stoves, open fires with as many different grills, hangers hooks and skewers as you can imagine.  Most will be period accurate only in a parallel universe many eons into the past and/or future.  Don't get too shook up over it.

What I've ended up with is a one gallon tinned steel pot with a lid,  it looks for all the world like a #10 tin can, but with ears for the bail and a fitted lid. Period accurate from pre-colonial to about 1890.  A tinned copper 1 qt kettle which is a nearly exact replica of the ones Hudson Bay Co. issued for a couple hundred years,  a 6" stamped steel frying pan, period correct from the late 1800's to about now, a brown stoneware mug  because I got tired of blistering my lips on tin cups of coffee, a coffee boiler, a tin plate, a wooden bowl,  a couple of horn spoons, a butcher knife, a silverplate soup spoon, and a pancake flipper for lending to folks for scraping stuff off frying pans and trying to turn it over. A sheet metal frying pan is as near to useless as anything could possibly be.  I keep mine 'cause it looks cool.

The coffee boiler and an old pre WWII German alcohol stove live in my tent behind cover because I'm too old, stove up and grouchy to put up with trying to make coffee over a d**n fire when it's raining and blowing, and an alcohol stove is silent, not like a coleman.  

You will also see three hundred gross of cast iron implements of all kinds and breeds, none of which were seen except in towns and on wagon trains and cattle drives where they were carried in wagons.  There are people who own and use dutch ovens and iron frying pans.  I try to eat in their camps.  (If you do this, bring beer or liquor.)

I have a fifteen gallon wooden water keg, and threel plastic five gallon water carriers that live under my cot.

The advice I give (when asked) is to use your head.  Try not to stand out until you can get some things that work without looking too silly.  A one quart tin kettle for heating water for coffee and tea, a one gallon tin kettle for wash water and stew, a stoneware mug in a plain earth color without too many flowers on it,  A tin plate, not a pie tin, and a couple of different sizes of spoons, a fork, and a table knife, unless you use your belt knife to eat and prepare food with.  As time goes on, you'll find things that take your fancy.   Ask and look.  Quite a lot of things can be found at thrift stores.  Your first pots and kettles can be tin cans with coat hanger wire bails, they look pretty good and cost nothing.  Don't clean the outsides, put 'em in homemade cloth bags to keep the rest of your   stuff clean. Put Food and spices in little things, little things in big things, big things in tote boxes, Use the tote boxes for camp furniture, pretty soon folks'll be asking your advice.

Remember always that many period correct practices ended in period correct disease and death.  Almost no one wants to be so period accurate as to end in an unmarked grave alongside a trail.  So wash yourself and your dishes with hot water and soap, use the porta- potties and don't be bringin' knives to gunfights.

Three Hawks

[snake eyes]

Bull,
      What little I know about this subject.....My first suggestion would be to
learn making  a fire with stricker&flint with tinder.When you have a fire going,then
all other suggestions fit in. IMO

[Loyalist Dave]

You "need" two standard tin mugs, water and a fire, and you can boild corn/oats/hominy, and make a cup of coffee or tea.  That's really the minimum.  

I would suggest you look for a covered pot that will hold 6 or more cups.  This assumes a good single serving would be a two cup portion of whateveryoustewedup, and allows you to "host" one other person.  Plus a standard sized soldier's tin cup, which is a little more than a pint in size.  You may want an S hook if you think you might use the pot with somebody else's fire irons.  I have modified my cup with a wire bale so that I can hang it over a fire too.

NOTE don't buy a "mucket" which is a lidded, handled cup (sorta like a "tankard"), with a bale.  ALSO Don't buy any cup with a bale that is off set from the handle at 90 degrees - as most of the makers, even the really good makers, sell.  The dang bale gets in the way of drinking from the cup, so defeats the purpose.  The best idea is to get a soldier's tin mug (sometimes called a "can") and install your own bale by putting a hole about 1/2" from the mug handle just below the rim, and another directly opposite, and use some steel wire from the hardware store to make a bale.  That way you can hang it like a pot and boil water..., but if you want to brew tea or coffee and want to drink right from the mug, the bale doesn't hit you in the lips.  Back to your question...,

To be a bit more fancy, get a second covered pot to "nest" inside the first.  That allows you to cook a meal, and boil water for a beverage or cleaning.  

You put your "rations" in cloth sacks, and this go inside the pot (s), so when all nested and closed you have one unit for cooking needs.  

You will possibly want:
A knife (you probably have one on your belt)
A wooden spoon to stir and to eat with (one for each if you have company)
Soap for hands and cleaning (food poisoning is authentic but not recommended)
Salt, red pepper, and maybe sugar

Minimum rations for me:
Cloth bag with jerked venison
Cloth bag with oat groats (unrolled or uncut oats)
Cloth bag with parched corn
Small container of "gunpowder" (green) tea
Salt horn.  Red pepper container.

I like the cooking pots, but these are copper so not as cheap (generally) as tin:
http://westminsterforge.com/cookingpots.html

Carl Giordano lists these, and the bigger one is 8 cups (plenty) for less than the above in copper:
http://www.cg-tinsmith.com/images/Photos/boilers.jpg

Two of the soldier's cups from this fellow work fine for a lone person:
http://www.avalonforge.com/MainCookEat.htm

You can have fun going to yard sales, and look for a solid bottom copper mug or two, or a copper/Tin pot, and some are fine and some need just a tad of modification..., and are a lot cheaper when the folks are selling off old "knick-nacks" from the old kitchen.  Don't forget to go to events and see what's on the trade blankets.

LD

[pathfinder]

Again,I sound like a skipping record,but Mark Bakers books,"A Pilgrims Journey" cant be beat to use as a starting point on your own journey! Been in this silly game better than 30 years and still refer back to these every now and then.

[rickevans]

Path...I certainly respect your years and years of actual knowledge...and I believe you eat well when out and about. So...what is in your basic camp kit?

[Longhunter]

Here's my kit, a copper pot, copper cup, folding fry pan and a wooden bowl, canteen (not shown) I can carry all of this in my haversack along dried meat, dried peas, dried corn, flour, coffee or tea and a salt and pepper horn. Besides the fork I have a horn spoon.

[Rasch Chronicles]

Ron,
Awesome kit! I really like the fire iron you have, the twisted steel is really an attractive touch. May I ask where you got it from?

L Dave,
Once again you have proven your intelectual prowess in all things period correct! Thanks for the link to Westminster! Super nice stuff!

I've always been a big fan of metal cans for all sorts of camping duties. #10 cans in particular can be cut into plates, bowls, kettles, penny stoves, and all sorts of other things. Other cans fit inside, and you can come up with more ideas for them than I. The important thing is to remove the plastic on the inside if you are going to try to do something that might melt or burn it.

Almost forgot! Good thing we can edit!

A pointy stick! I have cooked more stuff on a pointy stick, than you can shake a stick at. I also have a copper S shaped hook that's about 8 inches long that is sharp on one hook, round on the other to hang stuff on. Could be a piece of meat, could be a the bail on a pot. Believe it or not, I also have a couple of oak branch skewers that have survived several camping trips. I keep them because they happen to be the right size and shape, and have a feel all their own, so they have been kept.

Best regards,
Albert “El Matamoro” Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
Top Turkey Hunting Tips!
?O??? ????!

[snake eyes]

RC,
    Unless I am mistaken and I don't think am that is one of Wally Peters
fine forks.He is a TMA member and does some great work and won't break
the bank in the process.He does a number of pieces using that same attractive pattern.
snake-eyes

[rickevans]

Loyalist Dave...thanks for that Avalon Forge link!

Al...as a fellow blacksmith, I am jealous of Wally's work. First class, great pricing and I hear he is a just all round fine fellow as well.

[Longhunter]

Ron,
Awesome kit! I really like the fire iron you have, the twisted steel is really an attractive touch. May I ask where you got it from?

Al, it's a "squirrel cooker" by Wally Peters who goes by wwpete52 on the Trade blanket. Wally is our in house Blacksmith and offers his wares for us here on the forum. This little item besides holding squirrels or any other meat over the fire also will hold your small pots. The neat thing about it is that it's small and light and will fit in the haversack along with the rest of the cooking kit.

[Sir Michael]

The attached photo is of the complete cook set I took to the Rendezvous I just got back from.  I haven't even had time to clean everything up for winter storage.  

[album:y8g8wzje]5309[/album:y8g8wzje]

For eating, I have a tin plate, a french folding knife, silver spoon and fork, 1 cup ceramic mug, and tea pot.