Steak doesn't need to be all dressed up, salted, buttered blah blah. Just put your slab of meat in a skillet seasoned to your liking and just sear it. I prefer steak to be rare, much healthier and way more tastey.
At least a little salt...it brings out the flavors. You like ice cream? check out the ingredients. There's salt in it.
Yeh I used to make home-made ice cream with my dad when I was a kid. Couldn't believe the salt used. I hate salt. Never use it, never add it to my food... if it's in there already whatev... but I don't cook with it. Only thing that needs salt is tequila.
I was helping out a new scout troop a few weeks ago by showing them ways to cook over a fire without utensils or a grid, which was a requirement for first-class scout when I was a boy. It's no longer a requirement but still a desired woodsman's skill. They listened and watched as I showed them how to make a spit and other meat-holding contraptions and also to cook meat directly on hot coals. They went out the next weekend camping and their Scoutmaster later told me that he gave them each a ribeye and told them it was their supper. The ones who tried to cook on bare coals didn't pay careful attention and mostly burned their steak to a crisp. The one who tried to cook on a spit did better, but invariably dumped their steak in the fire a few times, mostly by picking sticks that were too light for the load. Some tried to cook the steak on a forked stick like a weenie and had varying degrees of success, but mostly undercooked their steak and ate it bloody rare. The cleverest boy simply cut his steak into cubes with his pocket knife and made a shish-ka-bob. Fortunately for most of them, their scoutmasters made jambalaya for everybody. But he said that they all learned a lot and had fun and were eager to try it again on their next campout. And they have an increased appreciation of the grids and frying pans.
Mostly they cook with gas stoves now, as part of the BSA's new "leave no trace" ethic. They just light them up with one match. I agree wholeheartedly about "leave no trace" camping, especially in heavily over-camped national parks and fragile ecologies in the arid west with short supplies of wood. But frankly . . . camping in the forests of the deep south, it makes little sense not to make campfires for cooking. There is dead wood galore and picking it up and using it in a fire actually lessens the fuel for forest fires. And the small bed of ashes, when properly put out and spread around is quickly recovered by jungle vegetation. I carried flint and tinder in my survival kit for many years, but now I have a high-tech ferrocerium rod instead of flint. Drag the back of a knife blade along it and it produces a shower of hot sparks that blow flint away. It still helps to carry some dry tinder.
Not intentionally trying to be a smart ass, even though it probably comes across that way, but why not just carry a lighter? I realize a lighter needs fluid that can be used up or whatever, but if you're in a survival situation, hopefully you'll be rescued before that happens. I'd be doomed anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.
