Life

Bushcraft expert Ray Mears on his first cookbook: Things do taste better outdoors

If at the end of that day you can provide yourself with a decent meal, it’s like pushing a reset button for morale, psychology and physical wellbeing

Ray Mears, whose debut cookbook Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Outdoors is out now
Ray Mears, whose debut cookbook Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Outdoors is out now Ray Mears, whose debut cookbook Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Outdoors is out now

THE best kind of marshmallow is toasted on a stick over a fire, the sky overhead glazed with stars, and your body weary from a day spent trudging outdoors. What other marshmallow could even compete?!

For Ray Mears, there’s a real magic to the simplicity and communality of cooking outdoors, from fetching water to tending the fire together.

“You go right back to the origins of cooking,” says the writer, presenter and bushcraft specialist. “Things do taste better outdoors.”

His debut cookbook, Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide To Cooking Outdoors, brings this feeling together, along with practical advice on how and what to feed yourself and your fellow adventurers when out exploring (or even just ‘camping’ in the garden).

“I fervently believe that, if you’ve got very little to cook with, if you’ve got some culinary skill, you can still make a good meal; if you don’t know how to cook, you’re lost,” explains the 56-year-old.

“I’ve always valued the importance of food, and certainly when travelling in wild places, if you’ve had a really bad day for whatever reason, if at the end of that day you can provide yourself with a decent meal, it’s like pushing a reset button for morale, psychology and physical wellbeing. Food is really important.”

The book is packed with effective, if primitive-sounding, cooking ideas – from baking eggs in embers and steaming fish in a blanket of moss, to skewering cuts of venison on sticks and building a ground oven. Mears shares recipes for hearty soups and roast meats, and even a camp-stove pineapple upside-down cake.

“If you go out, even for a day hike, and you take a stove with you and you decide you’re going to cook something at the end of the night before you come back, you make more of the experience of having been out. It provides a lovely punctuation in a day,” he says. “It’s all about company and sharing. And that’s the joy, and that sharing of the meal is a great time to get to know each other better, to share the experiences you’ve been having outdoors.”

You might think for a man accustomed to sleeping outdoors and travelling the world, that lockdown would have chafed for Mears more than most – but he’s actually found it a rare period in which to “be home and just watch the local nature” – like the roe deer buck being nudged onto its feet by its mum, which he caught on camera.

“I’ve had the opportunity to look at my local wildlife in a way that I haven’t for many years, without any distractions,” he says, something many of us can now relate to, thanks to weeks of local lockdown walks and grabbing as many moments outside as possible.

Mears is “very encouraged” by people's increased interest in the natural world, arguably a welcome side-effect of restrictions. “We must hang on to that,” he says. “This period has shown the value of the green spaces that we have, and how important it is to preserve the green belt.

“There are two things about my experience of life in terms of being nature-based,” he continues. “There is the stimulus you receive from the natural world, and there is stimulus you receive from human society – like the nucleus of a camping trip. And in this lockdown, both of these things have been valued: one, because we’ve lost it, the ability to communicate freely and meet people, and the other is that what we’ve been left with is this opportunity to go out and walk in nature and pay more attention to green spaces.

"That’s been very, very important for people to be able to maintain their morale, their mental health and their enjoyment – to me that’s the key thing.”

Throw outdoor cooking into the mix (where it’s allowed, of course) and you have a formula that can be thoroughly life-enhancing. “Cooking is a celebration of the ingredients. And when you’re outdoors, if you’re fishing and catching the food as well, it’s even more [than that],” buzzes Mears. “It’s a celebration of the whole day, the whole event.

"It’s a culmination and an honouring of the thing you’re eating – whether it’s flesh or whether it’s a vegetable, it doesn’t matter – you honour it in the way you deal with it.”

Being a bushcraft expert, Mears is understandably mindful of the impact we can have on the planet and the need to interact with it respectfully – be it when cooking fresh-caught fish, or going out foraging. “We have this view that wild things are all free; they’re not, it all comes at a price. When you harvest or forage, there is always a consequence of what you take from the environment,” he explains. “Nothing is for free. The key thing is to be conscious of the fact, so we don’t over-exploit a resource.”

Take picking blackberries, he says, “you don’t take them all, you always leave some. And then there are seeds for future plants to grow, and there are berries for the other animals that depend upon them.”

Wilderness Chef: The Ultimate Guide To Cooking Outdoors by Ray Mears is published by Bloomsbury, priced £20. Below are three recipes from the book for you to try.

CHICKEN YAKITORI

(Serves 2–4)

2 chicken breasts

2 leeks

2 red peppers, seeded

6 mushrooms

3tsp brown sugar

4tbsp water

125ml soy sauce

125ml mirin

1 garlic clove

Ground black pepper or shichimi pepper

Pinch of salt

Method:

Prepare some skewers and soak them in clean water for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, beat the chicken breasts to an even thickness of 1cm. Cut into 3cm squares.

Cut the leeks into 4cm segments and the pepper into 3cm squares, and trim the stems on the mushrooms. Prepare the skewers, alternately threading on the meat squares and the vegetables.

In a small billycan, combine the sugar, water, soy sauce and mirin and heat to dissolve the sugar. While it’s heating, crush and add the garlic, and stir in the pepper. Once the sugar has dissolved, set the glaze aside.

Begin cooking the skewers. It is traditional to have some skewers simply seasoned with salt, as well as those brushed with the sweet glaze.

Once the cooking has reached what you consider to be the halfway point, glaze the skewers that will be sweet. Do not worry if the glaze seems thin, it is built up in layers. Season the remaining skewers with a pinch of salt.

Continue glazing the sweet skewers little by little until they are cooked, and the glaze is a beautiful glossy brown. Cook the salted skewers until they too are golden. Serve hot.

DRINKING CHOCOLATE

100 per cent cocoa chocolate

Water

Milk, to taste

Sugar, to taste

Method:

Grate sufficient chocolate according to the manufacturer’s instructions or your preference. Work to a volume of water of 2/5 cup (100ml) for two cups, or 4/5 cup (200ml) for four cups.

Bring the water to the boil, then add the grated chocolate and when dissolved, stir into a smooth paste.

While stirring, add milk to taste and bring to the simmer, then taste and add sugar to your preference. If possible, whisk to aerate the drink before serving.

Milk powder can be added to the grated chocolate prior to the water. It can also be made without the milk if none is available. Evaporated milk mixed with water makes rich hot chocolate for cold weather.

CANOE CAMP FISHCAKES

(Makes 8–10 fishcakes)

100g dehydrated powdered mashed potato

213g can wild Alaskan salmon

1tsp dried mixed herbs

Good pinch of angler’s salt

Good pinch of ground black pepper

Flour, for rolling

Groundnut oil, high temp olive oil or vegetable oil

Method:

Reconstitute the dehydrated potato following the packet instructions. Add the salmon, herbs and seasoning and mix it all together with your hands. Roll into small balls, 5cm in diameter. Roll each ball in some flour and then flatten into a fishcake.

Heat the pan, then the oil, and fry the fishcakes for about three minutes on each side, until golden and crispy.