Accessories & Gear

My First 2019 Must-Have: Seth McGinn CanCooker

Published

6 years ago

January 9, 2019

The boat isn’t included. I checked.

Every year, I get together with some friends and hunt Maine’s whitetail season. And every year, we draw straws to see who has to be the Camp Bitch…e.g., the guy who has to cook dinner every night. This year it seems the title will be mine, so my very first act as Camp Bitch is to pick up something so easy to use that even I cannot possibly screw it up (although I intend to give it the ol’ Munson try). That’s why I was so stoked to see the press release about this new “Seth McGinn’s CanCooker,” which is based in the cowboy tradition of the “dutch oven.” It uses steam and convection to make enough food for up to 20 people in under an hour with only one source of heat…which, I think, my Camp Bitch self can handle.

The CanCooker folks say their versatile one-pot design is reminiscent of an old-style cream can, which cowboys during cattle round-ups would load with meat and vegetables and put on a fire to cook while the ranchers and their families would work. At lunchtime, everyone could return to a meal that was hot, hearty, and hope-you’re-hungry.

This modern version is made of 1060 FDA-grade aluminum and has a capacity to hold four gallons, and can be used with any direct heat source, from stove tops to campfires to barbecue grills, which is good because the primitive cabins we stay in don’t offer much in the way of amenities. The directions say all I have to do is load up the CanCooker with vegetables on the bottom, meat on top, and 12 ounces of any liquid, then set it on medium-low heat and then go do something else, like troll anti-gunners on the Internet, which is much more in my wheelhouse than cooking. The CanCooker people say all I need to do to clean it up is give it a rinse (which is good because that’s all I was going to do anyway).

And here are the details:

CanCooker Features