A Highly Evolved Mess Kit

I love tradition, I appreciate aesthetics and in deference to these important principles I carried traditional  cooking and eating gear for years. Thankfully we actually do evolve. Authenticity is one thing, eating  hot food in a modicum of comfort is another.

Crappy aluminum mess kits are the bane of campers everywhere. We foist them on the young as some sentimental talisman of an authentic wilderness experience. The garden variety clam-shell mess kit is a sentimental throwback to the days when World War one soldiers needed to cook and eat in the trenches. We are not soldiers.

These traditions are so strong that you can still buy a mess kit at any Walmart. The idea persists that we should carry special 'camping' gear into the woods no matter how impractical, impeding or flimsy it is.

Here's a condemnation of the lousy traditional mess kit and recommendations for the practical modern mess kit assembled from components free from the kitchen or for a few bucks at a discount store.

Utensils

The ubiquitous, cutesy 'vittle kit' is an interlocking knife, fork, spoon.  Lugs on the spoon collect crud and the bowl is shallow and small. The fork is a utilitarian masterpiece compared to the dull, flimsy, useless knife (calling it a knife shames knives everywhere). Why carry a fork AND a spoon when a spoon will do?

I like lexan utensils; indestructible, sanitary, light and well designed. The hopelessly cheap can get a pretty good plastic spoon for free at Wendy's.

Lexan Utensils at Amazon

 

Plate

The thermodynamic qualities of the plate half of the mess kit should be studied by engineers who design heat dissipating equipment. Hot food placed in it begins to ice up as the heat is sucked from the food and transferred to your burning hands. A sturdy plastic bowl is better but a Frisbee makes a dandy deep plate, doubles as a throwing disk and triples as a fan to inspire an otherwise  lackluster campfire. Using a Frisbee as a plate first evokes blank stares, then knowing laughs and burning envy.

Frisbees at Amazon

 

The 'Frying' Pan

Try frying something in a mess kit 'frying pan' without it sticking and burning; go ahead, try. Never mind the Chinese puzzle of a handle with nuts and bolts that inevitably disappears into a pile of leaves. Who really needs to fry something in the woods anyway? If you have to fry carry a real frying pan, or heat a flat (dry) rock.

Pot

The Barbie-sized mess kit pot is fine if, for some reason, you need to fill an eye cup with boiling water. If you want enough hot water for a meal be prepared to fill the pot several times. The world is full of inexpensive one quart saucepans; there's probably one lurking at the back of your kitchen cabinets. Cut off the handle to save weight and use your Leatherman pliers (you do have a Leatherman, don't you?) to move it when it is hot.

Cup

The temperature of liquid put in the flimsy mess kit cup soon reaches that of the cup. A minimal, flimsy handle and the cup itself is frustratingly  unstable. Insulated plastic mugs are so ubiquitous these days there are probably several kicking around your kitchen fraternizing with old one quart saucepans and lidless Tupperware. Give them a second chance; take one camping.

Canteen

Canteens are small mouthed, leaky, difficult to fill, ungainly and hard to clean. Anyone who has ever used an aluminum canteen recalls the distasteful metallic tang imparted to the contents along with the ghost of last year's Kool-aid. Is there anything more uncomfortable on a hike than a canteen slapping against your hips at every step? Nearly any empty diposable plastic beverage bottle does a better job (their tops can be leaky)

The capacious two quart Nalgene Bottle now rules the day. A generous, easy-to clean mouth, inert materials and a secure cap make for a perfect camping container - and the colors! 

Nalgene Bottles at Amazon

Comments

[josh]

the frisbee is a good idea. but i carry these in my bag with me everywhere (not just camping). they're foldable plates, cups and bowls. they can hold hot liquids, are real easy to clean, are about as light as can be and pack flat.

http://www.flatworld.co.uk/

they're available at rei.com:
http://www.rei.com/online/store/Search?query=flatworld

[Mike]

On canoeing trips, I store my food in shallow watertight containers (Tupperware, et al.), which double as my plate/bowl when I'm done camping. When it's just me, I eat straight out of the pan.

[Peter]

Got to say a word for an enamelled steel mug- I have heard stories of guys waking up in the middle of the night to make some coffee and using an enamel mug to chase a hyena out of their campsite (by hitting it in the face). Plus you can boil water in it- which doesn't really work in a plastic cup.

[Jim]

You only need two utensils. A spork, and a knork.

Jim

[jai]

California Pizza Kitchen gives away great black plastic utensils with their take out. Stronger than normal plastic uts, they're a great substitute for lexan if you are cheap. they can still break, but use carefully, and you'll be fine. cheap commuter cups are good too. check sal army or goodwill for those, and the cheesy pans & pots. cookware that looks like junk for the home suddenly looks great for camping when you change yr pespective!

[chris corwin]

for my money it's hard to beat titanium cooking pots.

they're sooo light -- much lighter than a cheap pot with the handle cut off.

when going up and down switchbacks that weight matters.

[shannon]

Instead of a saucepan, I use a coffee pot with lid. My stove (Peak 1, practically a relic now) fit inside, which was a plus. Also, the coffee pot can be simply stuck into the fire as the lid kept ciders, bugs, and other scouts' detritus out of the water. Water was then used directly in plastic bowl or plastic mug with dehydrated foodstuffs.

I have a great small folding non-stick pan for eggs and other fiddlier food.

Those tupperware boxes Mike mentioned above are great as well as a bowl. You can carry eggs in them and if the eggs don't make it, then no harm done to the pack/clothes/etc.

I always use the bowl as a plate or ate out of pan, but the frisbee is intriguing...

[Hal]

Titanium cookware is nothing more than expensive bear deterrent when the hikers must chase away a marauding bear from their campsite at night. In the late 1960s to 1970s the Swiss military had produced an anodized aluminum mess kit for their soldiers that are now showing up in the U.S.A. at surplus stores and on line auctions. The kit consists of a 1 liter cook pot with a bail, a lid that multi tasks as cup and an eating dish with a fold down handle. This kit also has a plastic fuel bottle, the pot support which also serves as a wind baffle and the most valuable item of all in this kit is the small brass alcohol stove made by either of two manufacturers, Svea or Trangia. The purchase price of this whole kit is worth the cost of the little brass stove alone. The stove, with no moving parts and nothing to break performs well above 9,800 feet in elevation where most pressurized fuel stoves do not. It is only necessary to allow the stove to cool before replacing the cap to prevent the alcohol fuel leaking out. The quality of this item surpasses anything you would pay $ 50.00 for at a good outdoor outfitter, happily this Swiss kit can sometimes be found for 1/5th that cost.

[Len]

Thanks for saving my son the prospect of the old mess kit idea I had planned for our first scout trip. I think I'll just bring our regular camp kitchen, downsized. I forgot all about the problems with those old mess kits. Love the Frisbee idea!

[Nate]

is there an edible lubricant to surface your mess kit(traditional aluminum) with so that the food doesnt stick and burn?