In this episode of Fundamental Friday, Chris winds down a primitive camping day by cooking Spam in a skillet, cleaning up with hot water, and setting up camp lanterns for the night. From improvised pillows to versatile lights, this session highlights the small comforts that make roughing it enjoyable.
in the final episode of this series, after a full day of primitive camping setup, it’s time for food, fire, and light. In this episode, I’ll show you how I:
Slice and fry Spam for a hearty, easy camp meal.
Clean cookware the simple way with hot water while it’s still on the fire.
Use compact solar lanterns for red light, strobe signaling, and camp illumination.
Improvise a pillow using a tarp bag and extra clothes.
Wrap up camp life with gratitude and the reminder to always leave no trace.
Camping is about more than just surviving—it’s about enjoying the little routines that make the outdoors feel like home.
below is a list of gear used in this series:
Fire redundancy: Ferro rod, Bic lighter, char cloth, and even a pencil sharpener for tinder.
Cutting tools: Belt knife (Mora Garberg), backup knife, multi-tool, and folding saw.
Cooking gear: Bush pot, skillet, wood burning grill, cutting board, and seasoning containers.
Food & drink: Freeze-dried meals, tortillas, powdered milk, trail mix, and drink mixes.
(if you are interested in my new homemade freeze-dried meals email me at chris@speiroutdoors.com I will be offering:
Breakfast, (Southern) Red Beans & Rice, Chicken Stew and Shepherd's Pie)
Water systems: GRAYL filter, 6L gravity bag, and backup metal bottle for boiling.
Shelter: DD 3x3 tarp, wool blanket, hammock, and a blow-up mattress for flexibility.
Comfort & safety: First aid kit, solar lanterns, gloves, shemagh, change of clothes, and even a folding camp chair.
If you’ve ever wondered how to put together a primitive camping kit that covers every base without overpacking, this video lays out the blueprint.
Next up we're gonna take our trustee but not rusty knife, and I'm gonna save the cutting board. We're just gonna cut the spam inside the skillet.
Make sure you take your garbage outta the woods with you.
That's some good stuff right there. Now all you do is just slice it up and slices.
There we go. We got some slices of spam.
If you're ever looking for something easy to cook and very tasty spans what that at,
I love this stuff.
You cook it until you got a nice little golden brown on that side, just like that.
And then when you're done and you're done eating everything and you're doing some cleanup, you just pour some water in here while it's real hot and all that burn stuff will come right out.
Oh my God. That's good.
So I told you it don't have to be a lot. It just has to be hot. Pour that in here and make it taste a little bit better, and always take this stuff out with me.
All right. This is how you, this is how you rough it here, guys.
Ah, that's good. Eat some dinner now.
Uh.
All right. These little liners are amazing. You just pop these dudes open
and then turn it on. You got a red light, low visibility,
or you can actually do the, uh, strobe in effect too.
It will do some strobe light. That way you can signal for some help and it also does, uh, white light at night.
Yeah, you guys can see why I love these things. Here. Right here on top of my tarp. I got my monitor right here where I can see what's in the camera, so it looks pretty good. It's kind of bright too. It's not as bright as light one of my field lights, but those things are amazing.
Now with the. The bag that the tarp come in. Let's see if we can do this. Get a little bit more light on subject. I like to take, you got a spider. I like to take the clothes and put aside that bag. That way I have and makeshift pillow. I used to, I'd always bring a pillowcase with me. It's probably not a bad idea.
Continue doing. But this works just as well. And there we go. Now I have a makeshift pillow that I'll put on whenever I get into bed.
There we go. Right to here.
Now this is camping. I love it. This is one of my favorite things in the world to do right here. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's it. We packed up all our gear. We hit it out to the woods, we set it all up. We filtered some water, we cooked some dinner. We got everything hooked up. We got the lanterns out now.
And I just wanna say thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it, and I hope God blesses you and you have a wonderful day.