Lodge Cast Iron Cook-It-All

The Cook-It-All is the best campfire cookware in our camping cookware ranking and the least practical camping cookware, and both facts matter. Two pieces of pre-seasoned American cast iron — a 14-inch surface that is a grill on one face and a griddle on the other, plus a deep 6.8-quart lid that works as a wok — interlock into five configurations: grill, griddle, skillet, wok, and Dutch oven. Set over campfire coals or charcoal, it does things no aluminum or titanium set above it can attempt: seared steaks with real crust, deep-dish pizza, breakfast for six on the griddle, cobbler baked under coals heaped on the lid. Around $150-180 for what is effectively five pieces of Lodge iron is fair value. The disqualifier for most buyers is mass: roughly 29 pounds with the two stainless handles, which confines it to campsites ten steps from a tailgate. Cast iron also demands its ritual — dry it, oil it, never soak it — and it needs a fire or charcoal bed rather than a camp stove to show its range. It ranks last as camping cookware for the majority; for the drive-in fire cook, it out-cooks the entire list.