How to prepare a bonfire

Writer: Mads Wolter Nielsen

20.12.22

How to prepare and what to look out for when making food on a bonfire. 

Dear reader, welcome to this post about bonfire food. This month we will be focusing on the advantages of preparing and cooking one or multiple meals over an open fire. I will end the month with a nice recipe for an easy-to-cook meal over a fireplace, that is great for both beginners and experienced outdoor-people to try out.

Last week we looked at the story of bonfire food from the perspective of our Scandinavian ancestors. This week will focus on what challenges and benefits there can be when you are cooking over an open fire.  

Bonfire and taste

Other than having great mental-health benefits, food from bonfire contains really great gastronomical properties, and there are a lot of dishes that benefit greatly from the slightly smoky taste gained when cooking this way.

In addition to the taste, making food on an open fire also has at least one more chief selling point. It is easy, much easier than you would otherwise think.

What to look out for

When you decide you want to make a fire, perhaps even cook food on it, there are some key features that you should be aware of. I will divide these into two categories: safety and practicality.       

Safety

The first thing to know is how to make a bonfire safely. When outdoors usually there are a lot of combustible things, it is therefore crucial that you can control it does not spread. A way to control your bonfire area is to dig a small circle in your garden. You don’t have to dig deep, just remove the top layer of grass in a circle, around 1 meter (3ft) in diameter. And then place bricks along the edge of the circle 2-3 layers high.

If you are out in nature, you can do the same, find some stones and place them along the edge. It can also be a good idea to dig a slid on the other side of the stones, like a moat without water, that way there are not any dry leaves or twigs just around the fire for stray embers to catch.

The next thing to be aware of is: never leave the fire! It is important that you stay with the fire at all times after you ignite it. If you want to leave you have to extinguish it. It could be catastrophic if you leave the area and the dry leaves catch fire, if you are there you can kill it before it grows.

The last safety precaution to take note of is: at all times have a large bottle of water and or bucket of sand near the fireplace before lighting the bonfire. When you want to kill the fire simply pour the water over it to choke the flames and then pour the sand over to keep the charcoal from re-igniting ones, they are dry.

Practical

The first thing I will mention here is that, you can actually buy fireplaces quite cheap, usually they just consist of an iron bowl with a small stand, but some of them can be quite elaborate constructions. These are great to have since you don’t have to dig up your garden, and if you bring them in on your trips in nature you are always sure to have a safely made place for a bonfire.

The next thing to think about is utilities, if you are cooking over a fire in your garden, you can just prepare the food in your kitchen as you would any other dish. If you’re outdoors then you will have to think of what to bring beforehand. There are a number of things to think about. Buying the right equipment will get you a long way.

Ceramic-, aluminum- or iron pots and pans are great for bonfire cooking, especially those of aluminum are great at distributing the heat evenly and quickly.

The last thing I want to mention in this section is smell. There are no two ways around it, when you are cooking over an open fire there will be some smoke and it sticks to your skin, hair and clothes. Make sure you are wearing clothes that you don’t mind too much, because it is going to smell, you can afterwards hang your clothes outside for a day or two if the weather is dry, that will take away some of the smell. A good tip to rid your clothes of the smell is to put it in a bowl, fill it with water and add Rodalon (or similar chloric products). Let it soak there for an hour or so before washing your clothes as you would normally.

Fire versus charcoal

One of the last things to know before you are ready to start your first cooking, is that when you want to cook over an open fire, you don’t actually cook over fire. As long as you have actual flames, then you risk burning and charring your food more than cooking it. Unless you are a certified chef with great capabilities for flame-grilling your food, you will have to wait until the fire dies down and there are only burning embers left. This means that it is a good idea as much as a necessity to start your fire a long time before you need it for cooking your food.

Make sure to use plenty of wood to start with, that way you are sure to have enough embers left to actually cook your dinner over. If you have never tried cooking over a fire before, a good way to begin is buying charcoal from a supermarket, heat them up in a grill starter, when they are white-hot you pour them out in your fireplace and you are ready to go. This is also a much faster way to get going, because wood burns for a while before it is charred enough that you can actually use it for cooking.

That concludes this week's post about bonfire food, I hope you have enjoyed reading this. Maybe you have even learned something you did not know or think of before?

If you did feel free to contact us on email or DM us on social media to let us know what you have learned or would like to learn.

Cheers,

Mads