INDIANAPOLIS — If cooking is half the fun of camping, then Mac and the Big Cheese have perfected the ingredients.

Historically, hot dogs, S’mores, franks and beans, baked potatoes, chili and hamburgers have been viewed as traditional campground fare because they are easy to prepare over the little fire outside the tent.

Partners in grilling, Mac and the Big Cheese, have developed, however, a cooking and comedy act that involves cooking outside the box while telling jokes instead of telling ghost stories that scare the kids before bed time.

As part of the ongoing Indianapolis Boat, Sport and Travel Show at the Indiana Fairgrounds, between Wednesday and Sunday this week, there are 17 additional show times scheduled to view the Ultimate Camp Cooking performances.

While entertaining, and potentially filling, if one eats the samples, which are available, Mike “The Big Cheese” Faverman is armed with eats, but is working with a handicap on this latest of several Indy appearances over the years. He left Pat Mac at home.

This makes an act tricky to consummate when it is built around banter. Mac recently fell down a flight of stairs injuring a shoulder and knee, or as Faverman ruefully said, “I shouldn’t have pushed him.” In true, ba-bump, pause comedy style, Faverman made sure to hit a good man while he was down.

“It’s OK, I’m funnier and a better cook,” he said.

That provides a sense of the tone of the presentation, Faverman, who is a stand-up comic in real life traveling the country from his Las Vegas base, carrying on gamely while actually cooking up suggestions for unusual campground eats. That food, it should be noted, doesn’t involve any, if much, clean-up efforts post-cooking, either, because who wants to do dishes in the wild?

These guys have done this for a while, including producing a book called “Ultimate Camp Cooking.”

The description of the book refers to them as “the Abbott and Costello of outdoor cooking.” It contains 80 recipes and Faverman, if not Mac, was signing copies at the Indy show.

One might say the Big Cheese was one ingredient shy of a full recipe without Mac’s participation, but he endured in the shadow of a sign reading “Danger Men Cooking.”

“I love cooking,” Big Cheese said as he lured his audience into dumping in one ingredient at a time as he whipped up three dishes.

The first was sweet potato hash. This included chopped up sweet potato and carrots, making it very orange in appearance, onions, green peppers, garlic and more, including chicken apple sausage and Cajun spice.

A second recipe was a zucchini bruschetta, additions to sliced zucchini featuring Roma tomatoes. Also, salt and pepper, basil, olive oil, grated parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar. There was a strong emphasis on those Romas, though.

“They’re fresh,” Faverman insisted. “I had them in my pocket all last night.”

He cautioned it was imperative to use the proper type of vinegar, otherwise it “smells like used hockey equipment.”

If observers feel this might be too pricey compared to the old-style staples for campground food, the Big Cheese said that is not so.

“It will cost $3 to $4 to make and it will serve eight people,” he said, “or one really fat person.”

Faverman is a large man, so he did not exempt himself from that category, though he is not really fat. Much of his humor was sarcastic.

Back to the grill, sort of, if one can call a portable omelet transported in a plastic bag, a grill. Recipe number three essentially involved pre-cooking.

“I almost feel like you guys aren’t worthy of this,” Faverman said, referring to a “Boy Scout omelet.”

He cracked two eggs into the plastic baggie, added chopped vegetables of choice, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, those tomatoes and cheese. Voila, another meal.

The Big Cheese said he camped often when he was young, drifted away from it, and then got back into doing those trips again, only upgrading his menu.

“I like to cook and I like the outdoors,” he said. “Eat like a king. There’s no reason to eat garbage food.”

Faverman and Mac have a niche as the outdoor cooking funny men and perform these shows for a few months of the year during the winter, at least when Mac is ambulatory. The rest of the year there are comedy clubs.

People are always going to eat hot dogs and roast marshmallows when they go camping, but Faverman said they should investigate eating better in the woods, too. Food, like camping, brings people together, he said, and laughter cements the entire experience.

Still, even if dangerous grillers are doing the cooking no man likes to eat the same menu every day. So, what’s for dinner, Mike?

“A nice steak would be nice,” Faverman said.