Claire Thomson - Camper Van Cooking: From Quick Fixes to Family Feasts, 70 Recipes, All on the Move

VW. Dreamy wheels.

TOAST. Warm knits.

Netherton Foundry. Camping cookware and a fearsome chapa.

Joy Stoves. A joy to cook on.

Falcon Enamel. The only enamel.

Primus. Very cool, that Onja gas stove.

Campingaz and Coleman for iconic lanterns.

Eweleaze Campsite, Dorset. Wide open skies, a terrific campsite.

Belmont Estate, Somerset. We asked for woods, and we got them.

Pipers Farm. Brilliant butcher.

Fish For Thought. Spanking fresh fish.

Isle of Wight Tomatoes. Number 1.

Sarah, Jane and Tim, Sams family, for the secluded beach location. And for letting Dot and Ivy borrow Barney the dog.

The team at Quadrille, in particular, Sarah Lavelle and Claire Rochford. If anyone can pull a camping cookbook together in a year when travel plans and holidays were in a constant state of flux, it is you.

Sam Folan. Photographer and now friend. My girls adore you. Rule of six, and what a six we were, such fun camping with you again soon.

Faye Wears. For prop styling from afar.

Our children: Grace, Ivy and Dorothy. Weve had stellar sunsets, flooded music festivals, paella on the beach, and also on one occasion the worst holiday ever. Heres to the three of you, for camping through thick and thin. Always.

It is a remarkable feeling to take to the road with ample provisions, shrugging off the day-to-day and household responsibilities, in search of high adventures and a need to reconnect with the world beyond our front door. We are creatures who have roamed for millennia, after all, and deep in our collective make-up is a need to look up at the stars in the sky or rather, and perhaps a more current phenomenon (certainly for me), a need to switch off from work and spend quality time with my family.

Camping offers a more hand-to-mouth existence and, even if you are staunchly the sort of person who requires running water and electricity to enjoy yourself, living outside, whether for a night, a week or more, allows for a different sort of reality. Freer, certainly; more weathered, definitely, with the rhythm of your day then subject to more base conditions the need to eat, the need to keep warm and the need to sleep. It is this nascent sense that I so enjoy when it comes to camping, with the heat of the day beginning to fade. Fires are lit for warmth, illumination and also for cooking. People gather, food and heat sources are shared among friends, old and new, and stories are told. There are also those opportunities to camp when you might prefer to go it alone, or at least with fewer people, in search of proper wilderness. When you arrive, as night begins to fall, there is the joy of swinging shut the doors on the camper, setting up the table within, blankets, a deck of cards, some drinks, a meal prepared, the van a cosy beacon in an empty landscape.

Im quite aware how romantic the notion of all this sounds. And, truth be told, I became a convert to camping only in recent years since becoming a parent, I suppose. My husband is a Kiwi and, by birthright alone, is a massive fan of camping. Matt delights in telling our three children about his experiences as a child, the entire summer holidays spent under canvas, roaming the outdoors. Hotels can be a pain with a young family, not to mention costly and perhaps even stressful with the exhausting regime of having to temper childrens (teenagers, even lively adults) more exuberant and boisterous conduct behaviour better suited to wide-open spaces.

And so it is that my family and I have found ourselves these past five or so years driving off in a camper van in search of secluded camping spots and, in contrast, the occasional music festival. Beaches, rivers, mountains, forests having the camper van bolsters my confidence as the more apprehensive, fair-weather camper. Rain, wind or shine, I prefer the sturdy format over canvas, for when we all do (finally) drift off to sleep.

More often than not, our camping party will swell with the odd tent or awning (for hardy friends or plucky children, who have no need for walls) nudging up beside the van, our camp spilling out to accommodate more people for the night, the week, whatever. A flexible space, a movable feast, it is the sense of independence that camping offers that I find compelling. I enjoy the days being punctuated by the making of food and the conviviality of sharing it. I also happen to think that our camping diet should not be inferior to the one we enjoy from the comfort and reliability of the home kitchen. Different absolutely, more portable perhaps, or more likely to be eaten off your lap at the very least, but it is always my aim that it must never be anything less than completely delicious. Some of the recipes in this book make a nod to nostalgia that many find heartening when cooking outdoors. So, yes, marshmallows feature, as do sausages but I have also tried to ensure, for the most part, that these recipes have a contemporary and intuitive heartbeat that is suited to camping. I hope, too, that they embody the principal idea of how we can achieve imaginative cookery from beyond four solid walls, in the middle of nowhere, in a makeshift kitchen, and even with the rain lashing down.

From my experience, cooking well on a camping trip is primarily about being well organized, so much so that your aim is to become one of those people who merrily declare a place for everything and everything in its place. Perhaps not, but you get the gist. Its very tricky to find a corkscrew in the dark if you havent put your headtorch in the place where you first think to look for it. Im including a non-negotiable camper van tool kit and camper van storecupboard in the introduction both are paramount in allowing you to cook to the best of your ability, conjuring up meals worthy of raucous campsite applause. You might find the manner in which Ive listed some of the ingredients in the recipes for this cookbook a bit of an anomaly at first. Let me explain

While writing the recipes, I decided there were probably very few people who would bother to take a set of scales camping. Therefore, tablespoons, cupfuls, packets and tins are my preferred format for this books recipes. However, the recipes in chapter one are intended for cooking in advance to take with you, so here Ive also given the weights and measurements for each recipe.

As for the rest of the book, Ive separated the contents into the different eating scenarios that we encounter in outdoor cookery. Ive covered everything from first-night meals (tired-on-arrival sustenance) and one-pot classics (swift, easy-to-assemble) to more ambitious dishes (over flames, open fire, a charcoal grate or gas burner), lunches and picnics (daytime adventures) and sweet provisions (tempting, perhaps even to make new friends).

Above all, this book is a celebration of cooking from a camper van. Its about having the freedom to take off in search of the open road and being able to cook outstanding food when you get there.