Minimalist? Nah.

Have you ever played with a puppy with a squeaky toy or some sort of a throw toy? They get all excited about those things.  While playing, have you ever taken a second toy in your other hand and held a hand on either side of the dog’s head? (I know that’s teasing it, don’t judge me, I’m just painting a word picture.)  What happens then, in my experience, is that the pup can’t decide which way to go and all it does is shake its head back and forth. It’s kind of funny to watch but from the dog’s perspective it’s got to be frustrating. Instead of enjoying the toy, they have too much information and end up flustered. We can be that way when it comes to cooking choices.

Recently I wrote about the number of gear options from which we can choose when Dutch oven cooking. Sometimes we may feel like that puppy trying to decide between which table or cooking surface, which lid lifter or carrying case, which kind of charcoal chimney to use and the list goes on and on. And yes, just like the pup experienced, it can be frustrating.

Bill, one of my friends that I cook with frequently, commented about the confusion folks just getting started might have. He laid down the gauntlet to some of us in advance of one of our recent upcoming monthly DOGs, (Dutch Oven Gatherings), to bring the minimal amount we needed in order to cook. I was reminded of the old television game show, “Name That Tune”. That’s when a couple of bars or notes would be played and the contestants would challenge one another to correctly guess the song’s title with the fewest number of notes. The game to me was, “how many items of gear do you really need?”.

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We responded to Bill’s challenge and we discovered what we probably already knew, that you really don’t need all that much to get started.

Sure, there’s some comfort aiding items out there that may help reduce back strain or give us more options, but to actually get cooking, it doesn’t take much. Sometimes when we don’t know what options are available, we don’t miss them. In other words, a way to make coals and manage heat are the most basic requirements beyond having a black iron pot of food ready for cooking.  Managing coals means we don’t burn the food or the cook and a simple set of gloves, a lid lifter, a shovel or tongs for moving coals and charcoal chimney may be all the gear we really need.

While not necessary, it’s nice to be able to cook off the ground so you don’t have to bend over to care for the pot, but that doesn’t mean that you need a fancy table.  What’s wrong with using that barbecue grill that’s in the backyard already? How about an inverted metal trash can? Who knew that feed pans would be a good way to contain coals and with a few cinder blocks serve in place of a table? Do we really need to spend the money on a heavy-duty cook table if all we’re going to do is cook once in awhile? Probably not. I remember when my son was growing up, he had to have every single piece of gear to whatever the particular hobby was that piqued his interest at the moment. A set of rollerblades wasn’t enough, there needed to be a hockey stick, goal, puck, goalie mask, knee and elbow pads, helmet, goalie pads, and who knows what more. Everyone knows that in order to go fishing one needs multiple rods with different styles of reels, tackle boxes full of pretty lures, (designed to catch fishermen in sporting goods stores), bait containers, fish finders, spare line, hooks, and sinkers. While I’m being sarcastic, I’m really not exaggerating how some of us sometimes over prepare. It’s like going to a shooting range and doing nothing but aiming and never pulling a trigger. What if one likes getting all the options? That’s fine. Some are amazingly helpful and over time there’s nothing wrong with expanding inventories of tools that are helpful.

How did our minimal gear cooking experiment work out? Bill and Warren were able to cook their one pot meals using nothing more than something on which to hold the coals, (Bill had a homemade windscreen and coal holding contraption he customized out of a metal wash bucket and Warren put his coals on a disc from a farmer’s disc plow. They each used coal tongs, lid lifters, and charcoal chimneys along with lid stands. That’s really all you need. I was trying to be a little more aggressive and used just a charcoal chimney, a lid lifter and aluminum foil both for the ground cover and as a lid stand.

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The best recommendation I can give for someone starting out once they have a dutch oven, is the same one that I’ve heard from other people; gloves, lid lifter, lid stand or trivet, charcoal tongs and a charcoal chimney.

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It’s also true that one can go Spartan and use nearly nothing beyond the pot, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. The point isn’t that you shouldn’t get stuff, but that at its most basic level, you don’t need much. If you see something you’d like to simplify things and your budget supports it, go for it.

The bottom line – Just get to cooking and have fun.