In this episode, Chris Speir dives into practical and affordable campfire cooking—sharing his go-to meals, essential cookware, and recent antique finds that still hold their weight in the woods. From skillet meals to percolator coffee, it's all about enjoying the simple pleasures of primitive camping without overcomplicating the gear.
This week, Chris covers his favorite campfire meals, highlights some lightweight gear finds from an antique store, and discusses how you don’t need the latest tech to enjoy the outdoors. He also introduces his top-used camp kitchen tool roll and gives a shoutout to Creek Camper.
Topics Covered:
Why the podcast moved to a new YouTube channel: The Primitive Camper
Meal planning for 3–4 people: $10–11 camp meals
Cooking gear talk: old-school copper skillet and cold-handled Snow King skillet
Shoutout to Creek Camper for inspirational content
Classic percolator coffee paired with Primitive Camping Blend
Storytime: camp goulash with dad growing up
Gear rant: titanium vs aluminum vs stainless steel
The truth about “latest and greatest” gear—do you really need it?
Top gear that’s stood the test of time: BPS knife, Grail GeoPress, Titan Lumenade, LockB Tool Roll
Tour of the camp kitchen roll: seasonings, spork with ferro rod, olive oil, bouillon, and even a can opener
Update on building the new Basecamp outdoor studio
What’s coming next on the channel
Mentioned Gear:
Cold-handled skillet (Snow King Baking Powder)
Aluminum copper-bottom skillet (Made in France)
Vintage percolator
LockB Tool Roll
Primitive Camping Blend Coffee
Titan Lumenade Lantern
BPS Bushcraft II knife
Tapiris spork with ferro rod
Grail GeoPress water filter
Call to Action:
Subscribe to The Primitive Camper and Speir Outdoors on YouTube
Rate the podcast and leave a review
Send in your camp cooking ideas or questions
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to the Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft Podcast.
My name's Chris Speir,
and I'm gonna be your guide
to enjoying the great outdoors.
All right, guys, so I missed last week.
I have a lot of stuff going on.
I apologize about
that, but going forward,
hopefully we will continue
to do this on a weekly basis.
I'm actually moving it
to a different channel.
And I've moved all the
videos, all the podcast videos
to the Primitive Camper on YouTube,
and that is my alternate
website or alternate place
for all these podcasts,
for the Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft Podcast.
But anyway, this week
we're talking about cooking,
and I've been launching
a bunch of YouTube videos
on my Spear Outdoors
channel about cooking.
And simple one meals or
large meals that are cheap.
And I've really, the
options are really endless
if you're thinking about it,
because I have found
several different ways
to make decent meals to
feed three to four people
on a camping trip,
and they're lightweight.
And if you're staying
for two or three days,
four days, something like that,
then each person that you're with
can bring one of these meals with them,
and y'all just cook them
together while we're there.
And it's gonna turn
into a great asset to have,
because they're not very
heavy, they're extremely cheap,
or talking like 10 dollars,
10 bucks, or 11 dollars tops,
to feed four people on a camping trip.
I mean, that's crazy,
and if four people did it,
that's four meals for four days,
and then you can bring some snacks and
some stuff like that
to do during the daytime for food, lunch,
stuff of the such.
Now, once again, we're in the cooking
section of the book,
and there's different ways to do it,
but since we've already
been through this book
several times,
Primitive Camping in Bushcraft,
which is on sale, just the other day,
it was on sale for 13 bucks on Amazon.
It was crazy, they
dropped it that low, but anyway.
So, we're not really gonna be going
by the contents of the book today,
so I know there's
several of you out there
that follow along in the book,
but anyway, I wanna show
you some different things.
Today's not gonna be the longest
conversation we've had,
but I do want to go
over a couple of things
that I found recently at a antique shop.
So, if you are watching the
video right here in my hands,
I have a skillet.
Now, this skillet is pretty neat.
It looks like it's copper on the bottom,
and it's got little handles on the side,
and it is bigger than 10 inches,
so this is like 11 or 12 inch skillet,
and it is perfect for camping.
Now, it says on here, "Made in France."
This thing's kinda old,
and you can tell it's relatively old,
but I mean, it's aluminum skillet,
and this thing is, it
weighs exactly the same amount
as the Pathfinder 10 inch cast iron,
not cast iron, but
stainless steel skillet.
But the stainless steel skillet will fit
inside of this one, so
this thing is pretty cool.
I can't wait to get out into
the woods and use this one.
I'm gonna have a video coming
up where I use this skillet,
and it's lightweight, it's
easily, you could pack it,
and I mean, it's not
titanium by any means.
It is going to be just as heavy
as the 10 inch stainless
steel Pathfinder skillet,
but the benefits of having
this kinda skillet right here
is awesome, especially
when you're cooking breakfasts
and stuff of the such.
Now, that is a pretty
cool find right there.
Now, one of the other
things that I found,
and I see a bunch of these,
there's a gentleman over in Alabama
called Creek Camper,
and he does these cold-handled skillets.
He does videos on
these things all the time,
and whenever I run across this channel,
I was like, man, that's pretty cool.
So, Creek Camper, if you're listening,
I'm just giving you a shout out on here.
Y'all go follow him on
Instagram or Facebook or YouTube
or anything like that, it's Creek Camper.
And, but he does these little
one-skillet lunches and stuff.
He goes out, he reads
the Bible by the Creek,
he sets up a little camp or whatnot,
and then he will cook in with one
of these little cold-handled skillets.
And so, these are pretty nifty
because they're very lightweight,
they're extremely packable,
and obvious reasons,
it's a cold-handled skillet.
It's gonna give you, it's
not gonna be hot to the touch
when you pick it up, stuff like that.
It says Snow King Baking Powder,
that's what this thing says.
I don't know what model it
is or anything of the such,
but it is relatively old.
I think I picked it up
for like 10 or 15 bucks,
something like that, at
the bars place in Peking.
And it's a pretty cool little skillet,
and it looks like it has
been used several times,
and I can't wait to get it into the woods
and actually try it.
It looks like a seven-inch skillet,
and it actually fits
perfect inside the other ones.
So, you could probably take these two,
and I got one more item I
bought at this antique shop too
that I wanna show if
you're watching the video.
I found this old-school percolator.
Now, let's see, made in,
it don't say, it just says made,
and then that's it, I
can't read the rest.
But anyway, it's got an old-school
percolator in there,
and you can just do you a lot of coffee.
So, you can go ahead and
fill up your coffee in there,
and,
bam, look at that, look
at that, that is crazy.
So, and then that's a hefty
coffee pot right there, man.
I mean, that is something
that you can actually leave
in your house on your little stove
and continuously make your own coffee,
because, let's face it,
these automatic coffee makers are great,
and they're convenient, but ultimately,
they really, the
water don't get very hot.
If you think about it,
and not as hot as if you just boil it,
and your coffee will be
a lot stronger than this.
So, with this, compared,
or paired, not compared,
paired with the Primitive
Camping Blend coffee right here,
this is gonna be an awesome adventure.
So, if you're not, if
you're listening to the podcast,
I was just
demonstrating the actual percolator
and the Primitive Camping
Blend coffee bags that we have,
and those are going to go great together.
So, recently, I have
started doing a series on YouTube
about camp cooking, and, you know,
it's not hard to put some
food together into a pot,
and some of my
fondest memories growing up
with my dad taking us camping was that
he would make goulash, you
know, he called it goulash,
camp goulash, and all it
was was just everything
that we had thrown
together in one pot and cooked,
and we'd eat it.
I mean, you talk some high carbohydrates,
some high protein, some high
fiber, some high cholesterol.
I mean, everything in
this thing was high.
So, it was extremely, what's the word?
Hearty, it was very hearty.
And so, when we went
camping, we didn't have a problem,
and we'd eat on it for
a couple days, you know,
we always went camping in the wintertime,
and it was cold out at night,
so the food was preserved
for a little bit longer,
but we'd always eat on
it for a couple days,
and I mean, I'm telling
you right now, all my life,
we would throw in a
pack of spaghetti noodles,
a pack of hamburger
meat, a couple cans of corn,
a couple cans of green
beans, a can of red kidney beans,
you know, some of this, some of that,
maybe a couple chicken leg quarters,
and we'd cook it all up
and make it big, hearty,
it's not really a stew,
it was thicker than a stew,
but it wasn't a soup, you know,
and, but ever since then,
it's been extremely easy
for me to come up with camp meals,
because when you're
camping, it don't matter,
all you're looking to
do is fill your belly,
and that's all you're
looking to do when you go camping,
is just fill the belly, and to get
yourself more calories,
and get yourself more energy.
There's no other, you know, I mean,
it's great to have freeze dried,
and if you're doing a
lightweight hiking through,
you know, long distance hike stuff,
and I watch these guys, man,
doing these long distance hiking,
and I'm like, golly,
dude, it's like speed walking,
it's like, why are you gonna go,
how are you gonna
enjoy the great outdoors
when you're speed walking?
And, you know, I'm just
more of a laid back approach,
head out into the woods, set up a camp,
sit there and chill for a day or two, or
a week, or whatever,
but, you know, when it gets
down to your actual cooking
and of the such, we can talk at length,
because, you know, I've
been using these various pots
and pans, and demonstrating
these various different types
of cookware and stuff like
that for cooking purposes,
and cooking our food, and, you know,
I believe we've already
discussed this several times
on this channel, and this
platform, but, you know,
there's a lot of folks, you know,
the most important thing that you can
bring with you camping
are in the woods,
period, bushcraft survival,
all the, whatever
hashtags you wanna add to it.
There's one thing,
there's one common denominator,
some sort of metal
cup container or whatnot
is going to be one of
your most important items
to bring into the woods, you know,
during a disaster
situation, anything metal,
a survival situation,
anything metal to boil your water
and cook your food,
you know, stuff is great,
but we're talking camping, and so,
you're gonna usually have
some kind of bush pot with you,
you're usually gonna have
some time with titanium kettle,
you know, I was just watching some videos
on Dan Becker's page earlier,
they were introducing
some new kind of bush pot,
the 750 and the 1100, you know,
they had the handles and
the wings and the wooden,
no, at the top of it, the lid had a
little wooden dial there
to pick it up and it was pretty cool,
but I mean, realistically,
do you have to have
the latest and greatest?
No, you don't, you
don't, I'm 50 years old
and I have lived with
the least of the latest
and greatest all my life and
I've written an entire book
on the fact that you
don't have to have the latest
and the greatest to go
and do and, you know,
it seems it's, there's always gonna be,
there's always gonna be, all right,
let me give you this example, you know,
back in 19, I'm dating myself,
but back in 1998, no, 96,
I'm gonna get, no, 96, back in 1996,
you know, before, just before
cell phones really took off,
they had pagers and they had beepers
where, you know, you
wore this little device,
they would type in the
number in the telephone
and it would pay you,
it was a pager or beeper
or whatever you wanna
call it, it would pay you
and it would tell you to
call a number, all right?
Now, this was the easiest
way to get ahold of somebody
back in my day and it
was state of the art,
it was like, man, that's cool, you know,
I wanna pager so people could call me
and, you know, I could feel needed
and have to call somebody else back.
So, but, you know, the
service was like expensive,
it was expensive every month,
it was paying the $70,
$80 for beeper service.
And then, you know, as that went away,
it got replaced with cell phones
and then cell phones
became the next craze
and it's the same
price and then, you know,
and so everything has stayed the same,
the latest and greatest, you know,
has always been expensive or out of reach
for the lower people,
us lowly people like me.
But, you know, the
pagers and the telephones
and the car phones and, you know,
all this stuff, all the
kids born after the 2000,
after 2000 just ain't got a clue.
(laughs)
They don't, they do not.
You know, what it was like
to grow up in the 80s and 90s,
I mean, that was ridiculous.
But it was crazy and then, you know,
but it was all state
of the art at the time.
It's just like, let's take
this little cold-handed skillet
right here and this was
state of the art at one time.
This was the premier cooking
pot to take into the woods.
Now you got titanium and
they come at 750 milliliters
or they come at 1100
milliliters or 64 ounces
or whatever you wanna call it.
Then they get your
stainless steel, you know,
there's always gonna be
something else, something flashy,
something, you know, ecclesiastes says
there's nothing new under the sun.
And I believe that is
everything that has been done,
everything that's being
done has been done before.
You know, we just, we
regurgitate the same stuff
throughout history.
Every bit of it is all the same.
I mean, even the
tactics that the devil uses
to get us to do things we
don't wanna do is stay the same.
There's nothing new under the sun.
And when it comes to
cooking, camping, hunting, hiking,
there's nothing new.
There's a new way to present it.
There's a new kind of material to use
to do the same old thing.
But ultimately there's nothing new.
It's the same thing.
And it's just rehashed, regurgitated,
redone, reprocessed,
re-shipped out, rebranded and refocused
and retargeted to you.
And it doesn't matter what it is.
It doesn't matter what you're into.
If you're into hiking,
if you're into camping,
you're into fishing, you're into hunting,
you're into mountain
climbing, you're into rock climbing,
you know, you name it, airplanes,
flying, submarines, you know, anything.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Everything has been done.
Everything will be done again.
I mean, there's
nothing new under the sun.
Anyway, little rant there.
(laughing)
So if you've been
watching some of my videos
on the Spear Outdoors channel,
I have come across, it's very rare
that someone sends me a product
that I continuously use religiously
over and over and over.
It is extremely rare, you know.
BPS sent me a knife
and I use that knife more
than I use my Morin knife Garberg.
I've done a video between the Garberg
and the BPS Bushcraft II.
And I love both of them knives.
But it is very rare,
other than like a water filter
or something like that, that
a company sends me something
that I religiously use
every single time I go camping
or going to the woods.
There's two or three
things that I can tell you
right off the bat.
One is gonna be Titan Lumenade, the
Lumenade Titan Lanter.
They sent me two of those
and I'm telling you now,
I use them every single time I venture
into the woods camping, every time.
Then I have the Grail GeoPress.
Nobody sent me that, I
bought it in all $110
or whatever it was, a water filter.
I use it every single
time I go into the woods.
Then there is this,
there is the LotB Tool Roll.
Now this, I'm not sponsored by them.
This is not a sponsored
video or a podcast episode.
I'm just giving you something
that they sent me this video.
And inside this tool pouch
is all kinds of little spots
where you can, as I
unroll it and unravel it,
it's got a zipper on
one side and I keep all my
one packet seasonings in
there like Tony Sachery's.
I got a bottle of Tabasco sauce in there.
And that Tabasco sauce is great.
It really helps out with the flavoring.
I got my Tony Sachery's
single packets of Creole seasoning.
And I actually have a
couple packets of Folger's
instant coffee in there too.
Now, I got a bottle of
some more seasoning here.
And they all fit in this,
kind of looks like the
little shotgun bullet holders.
Then I got a tube of salt.
I got a tube of black pepper right here.
And then on the backside
of that is another pouch.
I mean, this thing's
got pouches for days.
I got garlic powder in one.
I got onion powder in one.
I mean, this stuff is, this is amazing.
I got my spork and this is another item
that my brother gave me
for Christmas one year
as a joke, a gag gift.
And I have used this spork
more than any other fork or tool
that I have ever had.
Now, Tapiris is the name of it.
This is a survival spork.
I even mentioned it in my book.
You pull it, it's got a knife.
You pull that spork
and the knife is nested
inside the handle.
You pull it one more time
and it's got a ferro rod
to start your fire that
you can use the knife.
You use your knife
nested with this ferro rod
to start a fire.
And I mean, that is just one of those,
this is tactical right here.
It is tactical.
Now, there is something
on this backside back here.
I don't know what it's for.
I don't know.
So, but anyway, we'll
put that back in the bag
and then continue with
our demonstration here.
Oops, I keep hitting the microphone.
All right, so now, next
I have a squirt bottle
from Walmarket and it's
got some olive oil in there
so you can squirt your
little pan with some eggs.
And squirt your little pan
so you can cook some eggs.
I'm sorry, brother.
Then I got a pouch
with some chicken bouillon
and some beef bouillon.
And then I don't know why I
didn't think of this before,
but my latest and greatest addition is
the little can openers.
And what is that, a P, B
something, can opener, whatever.
I forget, P57.
(laughing)
P57, World War II airplane.
But it's a can opener in there.
And now, we'll put this bag together.
There we go.
But this tool roll is amazing.
And you know, I mean, you can
get by with it a different way.
Like I said, it's hardly
ever do I have anything
that I just don't go
into the woods without.
And this has made it up into my top items
and top gear list, you know.
And everybody has some kind of gear
that they always go with.
And that is my whole camp
kitchen right there in that bag.
That bag is waterproof,
not really waterproof,
more water resistant.
It's more like an oil
cloth type material.
But that bag is water resistant,
water beads off of it and everything.
Keeps all the stuff on the inside dry.
And unless it just flat out
lands inside the water itself.
But anyway, I love my little tool roll
and these lock bead
tool rolls are pretty cool.
So anyway.
All right, well guys, so I
apologize about not getting
podcast stuff or an
episode done last week.
I have really been extremely busy.
I've been building a new
base camp, outdoor studio.
I've been doing several videos out there
trying to get this place
figured out and everything.
So I got a brand new camp studio outside
and I'm gonna be doing a
lot more videos from there
and stuff like that in the future.
So stay tuned.
We're gonna continue
going over cooking next time
on the next episode.
And I got another video
dropping today as well
for the spare
outdoors, you know, cooking.
So if you like what you're hearing here
on the primitive camper page,
head over to spare outdoors on YouTube.
And don't forget to hit the subscribe
button on either one
and then hit the like
and rate the podcast.
You know, give me some
ideas about what you think.
So, but other than that, all right guys,
we're gonna head out of here tonight
and we will see y'all in the next video
or the next podcast.
Thanks for joining.
I appreciate every one of you.
God bless you.
See you next time.
(upbeat music)