Cooking Dinner on a Campfire When It's Raining Sideways

There is a specific kind of optimism that makes a person pack a cast iron skillet for a weekend trip, and there is a specific kind of defeat that arrives when the sky opens up twenty minutes before dinner. I have cooked in rain that came down in sheets, in drizzle that never seemed to end, and once in a hailstorm that turned our fire pit into a shallow, steaming pond. None of those nights ended in cold beans, but a few of them came close.

The first rule of rain cooking is to stop fighting the weather and start working with what it gives you. Rain usually means wind, and wind means you need a fire that can take it. Build small. A tiny, hot fire fed constantly with pencil-thin sticks will beat a big, smoldering pile of logs every time in bad weather. If you have a fire pit with a lid or a folding windscreen, use it. If you don't, ring the fire with rocks and dig a shallow trench on the windward side so the coals get air without getting drowned.

Cook Under Cover, Even If the Cover Is a Poncho

You do not need a tarp cathedral to cook in the rain. A poncho strung between two trees at chest height will keep the worst of it off your stove or fire, and it takes about ninety seconds to set up. If there are no trees, drape it over your own shoulders and crouch. I have made coffee, grilled cheese, and a genuinely decent pot of chili while wearing a poncho like a tent. You look ridiculous. The food is hot. These things are not in conflict.

When it comes to the actual cooking, simplify hard. Rain is not the night for a three-course meal or anything that needs constant flipping. One-pot dishes are your friend: rice with canned fish and whatever vegetables survived the cooler, pasta with garlic and olive oil, a stew built from sausage, potatoes, and broth. Boil water for coffee first, before anything else touches the pot, because morale is a real ingredient and caffeine is the fastest way to fix it.

Plan for the Fire to Fail and You'll Rarely Be Disappointed

Carry a backup stove. This is the single most useful piece of rain-cooking advice I can give. A small canister stove and a couple of fuel canisters weigh almost nothing and turn a soggy disaster into a minor inconvenience. Even if you plan to cook over fire the whole trip, the stove is your insurance policy. Keep it somewhere dry, and keep your matches and lighter in a sealed bag, because wet matches are a special kind of betrayal.

Finally, accept that everything will take longer and taste better than it has any right to. Food cooked in bad weather, eaten under a dripping tarp with rain hammering overhead, has a flavor that fair-weather meals can't match. You will remember the chili. You will probably not remember the sunny Tuesday dinner you made at home that same week. Eat it while it's hot, then go to bed early and let the rain do what it wants.