Camping food

[Jenna]

Camping food.. well more to the point 'backpacking food'!

Been looking through the net and reading up on various ideas on what i guess is lightweight food, the dehydrated stuff, the semi dehydrated (pulp) and some of not so obvious ones and wondered what people here use!

Currently there are a load of specialist backpacking meal makers like Wayfarer and so on but at £3-£5 per pack you could spend £10 on a basic 3 course meal.. times that by 2 times a day add in snacks and drinks and you could be looking at £20-£25 a day with this pre packed stuff!!! add in the fact i'm veggy and I am not a big fan of food that freeze dried with sulphur dioxide.

I'm sure some have used the MOD ration packs before (that 'brown box') and the food was ok... barely but it did last you 24 hours (or even 48) and at £14 a box these seam a lot more realistic. Its interesting to note that same company makes both the mod pack and wayfarer foods yet the joe public ones cost 200% more!

So any links, ideas or tips???

ones that i like off tinternet:
Just add water cake mixes, can be baked in a foil tray in a pot that has stones in the bottom to make an oven.
Pancake mixes...
dehydrating your own foods... basically the sky is the limit.

[davsato]

hi jenna, i think those dehydrated meals are pricey and not very nice, and if you can carry some of them you can carry some dry noodles, a pack of dried mushrooms and a tube of tomato+garlic puree.

im a bit different in that im not a veggie and not a backpacker, i camp with a motorbike so generally i can get away with carrying some heavier gear, undehydrated foods and a bigger tent. pack space is a problem though, if im camping for a whole week in the middle of nowhere then i use the trusty vacbag machine to make packet meals so i can do away with tins and wrappers.
i nearly always cook in one pan, a 1ltr pan of water on the boil, heat the meals in the bag, then use the clean water for a brew and some noodles. then theres no pan to clean afterwards and youve only used enough gas to boil a pan of water.
you can have great homemade curry, chilli, stew, works best with runny stuff but i have had whole roast dinner portions inc potatoes and veg in gravy in a bag and that worked well. these things keep quite well too being sealed away from the air.
my favouritest thing though is quesadilas, tortilla bread with cheese spread and onions folded over and dry fried on the pan till it all oozes out.

oh, and those MoD ratpacks are pretty good, easily as good as wayfarer meals but be warned they are for soldiers out in the field and have upwards of 3/4000cals, in not much volume so you could eat the lot for one meal! the newer menus are much nicer than the old stuff and they do cater for veggie, kosher, hallal etc these days. the american MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) self heat in their little bags but they are expensive and the british army 24hr has much nicer stuff in it. (the americans know their meals are not so good, so supply a tiny bottle of tabasco with eack pack!)

[StumpyFingers]

I do like the fact that it is possible through Silvermans, to get the MOD ration packs.
Some of them are brill others not so.
3 of them broken down and placed in you backpack, take very little room and allow for emergencies if you can not get the burger and chips you crave while out and about.
I also like the fact they come with purification tablets, so if in an emergency you can use any water source.

[Jenna]

yep the modern ration packs are targeted at 4000cals per box to give a boost in 24 hour use and survial over 48, I haven't seen one yet but they also do a 'lite' pack designed to battle carried.

I did many years with the ACF and TA (through from cadet to instructor..8 years in total!) and got used to the blandness of the mod packs, we normally traded half the stuff so it blew the whole calorie count out the window

We looked at a vacuum sealer in Lidl a few weeks ago and it never crossed my mind of using like that to make pouchs... ziploc backs are great for nuts and bolts but not much cop with liquids.

[steveR]

I like the meals from this outfit Nice Food! , about 3 quid for a main course from supermarkets or on the net, so not the cheapest, but nice, very nice. However most are no good for a veggie... You do still need some carbs and veg, but a pack of rice or similiar and a can of veg and a super meal for under a fiver.

Nicer than the Wayfarer stuff. TBH, I loke wandering around a foreign supermarket, but it is great to have a couple of evenings meals in the panniers.

I also have some of the instant meals with the self-heating packs. Why? Cos they appeal to the gadget junkie in me!! Food is OK, and if you get a casserole type, they are warming and filling before you turn in late if the weather is cack and you cannot use a stove. I used to use them on gennie watching work a few years ago as it means you always have a hot meal with you. Good to chuck in a bag for festivals and the like too if you have chilluns who would otherwise live on dodgy burgers....


However, all these ready meals are cheapest from a can, but it is the weight....

[steveR]

pack space is a problem though, if I'm camping for a whole week in the middle of nowhere then I use the trusty vacbag machine to make packet meals so i can do away with tins and wrappers.
i nearly always cook in one pan, a 1ltr pan of water on the boil, heat the meals in the bag, then use the clean water for a brew and some noodles. then theres no pan to clean afterwards and youve only used enough gas to boil a pan of water.

Where do you source the bags from? When you prepare a meal for the bag, how do you sterilise the meal/bag? Do you part cook, seal and then finish the cooking in a sealed bag?

[davsato]

no need to sterilize the bags, they come on a big roll of continuous tube, usually two widths mine are about 20cm and 30cm wide, and you heat seal whatever size bag you need. the bags are dishwasherproof and re-usable but i dont bother as once theyve been used and contaminated the seal can be a bit unreliable and i dont want 1/2lb of chill con carne squirting all over the inside of my panniers!
i mostly have precooked stuff that i prepare at home, usually just leftovers from family meals that get vac'd into portions and frozen. then grab what i need before going out. the food is hot when its bagged then cooled and frozen so it keeps a long time, something like a beef stew lasts a week as long as its not put in the sun.
BTW i would never do this with raw meat! i dont think this method would be safe with a lot of raw stuff, i know eggs go well, 3 eggs with cheese and onions boiled in a bag make a great omelette. so i suppose im reheating, not cooking.

i use a vacsealer from JML, one that you have control over vac pressure and sealing because obviously liquid sucked into the pump wont do it any good! bag rolls you can get on ebay.
i got it in woolworths but other places would do them. get one thats strong enough to crush a beercan, those cheap ones on ebay are rubbish. mine crushes a packet of supernoodles to the size of a fag packet.

[davsato]

added onto the last post;
i tried to move from precooked leftovers to completely dry ingredients that will keep unrefridgerated for ages, and i think ive just come up with the best ever after browsing a local chinese supermarket

1/2 packet of dry thread noodles, broken up
1/2 cup dried shrimp
1/2 cup dried mixed veg (think thats what it was, it mightve been cabbage flavoured pot-pourri)
1 tom yam cube
1/2 tsp garlic powder

boiled 1.5 pints water, made a mug of coffee then tipped food into the remainder and stirred till the veg had gone soft and the stock cube disolved. vac'd about the size of a normal instant noodle packet but 10 times as good. tom yam is a really spicy chilli broth from thailand i think, lovely

[Jenna]

ummm..

hate shrimp..
hate cabbage...
hate chilli...
hate garlic...

not that impressed with noodles...

think this is a no go for me

[steveR]

ummm..

hate shrimp..
hate cabbage...
hate chilli...
hate garlic...

not that impressed with noodles...

think this is a no go for me

Apart from teh garlic, I kinda agree!