The Great American Camping Cookbook »

SCOTT COOKMAN has written cooking features and how-to advice for Field & Stream since 1997. He’s the author of two outdoor adventure histories: Ice Blink and Atlantic.

Bad cooking ruins more camping trips—America’s most popular outdoor vacation activity—than anything else except rain. The Great American Camping Cookbook offers the delectable remedy: a camp cook’s guide to the fresh, natural “comfort foods” of the good old days. Whether your camp is a civilized weekend cottage, a rustic hunting or fishing cabin, or a primitive canoeing or backpacking bivouac, this book can help anyone make meals as vibrant as the outdoors itself.

Start the day with Wild Rice Pancakes or fresh-baked Cornmeal Blueberry Biscuits. Sit down to a classic shore lunch of Beer-Battered Smallmouth, Campfire Potatoes and Hush Puppies, or simple sorrel-stuffed trout. On rainy days, simmer up a pot of real Corn Chowder or Camp-Style Bean Soup. For memorable main courses, serve up a substantial Modernized Brunswick Stew, Blackened Yellow Perch, or Sautéed Walleye with wild rice and mushrooms. For side dishes, try fresh Camp-Baked Beans, spit-roasted Acorn Squash, or Sand-Baked Potatoes. Then savor a legendary Hot Buttered Rum or Camp Old-Fashioned as a nightcap.

In addition to recipes, The Great American Camping Cookbook offers a wealth of easy-to-follow advice on making perfect camp coffee and camp breads, calculating food portions, and composing provisions lists to assure variety and avoid forgotten essentials. The colorful history of American camp food and cooking—from the Jamestown settlement, Lewis and Clark, and Daniel Boone to Ernest Hemingway and John McPhee—adds fascinating lore to this essential guide to eating well in the great outdoors.