Eating...

This is really just a general question about eating. Not really meant to be about backpacking food.

I mentioned on a post yesterday that I sometime bring a steak with me and grill it on a small wire grill I bring. I also sometimes bring a cornish game hen and roast that over a fire. Sometimes I bring both, using the frozen chicken to keep the steak cold the first day out.

Now, this isn't light, but the weight disappears pretty fast after I eat it and then I'm down to lighter weight, less perishable fare. I don't eat much otherwise, so I'm still not carrying a lot of food.

For me, roasting a game hen over some hickory or white oak out in the forest is just as good as it gets.

Anyone else do bring heavy food?

I've used my late dog, Pooch, to pack in iced down Foster's. Does that count?:)

My friend and I packed in on our mt bikes some steaks and grilled them over some oak. That hit the spot along with some roasted carrots, pototoes.

On a community college Bping and Survival class I took, the survival trip the instructor handed us all a onion, carrot and potato with no instructions other than to put it in our pack. Later in the day we got a good fire going, built it up again and when it died down, we coated our veggies in clay that was in the area we bped into and put one at a time in the coals until we had them all in, building the fire up each time. That was good.

On long trips we stick with the lightweight stuff...but on shorter trips we've been known to add a few goodies to the pack, from brownies to wine...and yeah, an occasional steak.

I pretty much bring real food cause the eating is an important part of camping. We often cook a steak with corn on the cob and finish it off with baked banana with honey on it. Sometime when you have sort of a medium sized fire going with a good layer of ash, surprise your buddies by throwing your steak into the fire. Flip it once or twice, retreive it and dust it off and eat it, it will have a bit of pine flavor. I've packed in a whole duck, rabbits, and prawns. Now prawns may be the best campfire meat on a stick, but rabbit on a spit is truely awesome. My wife and I found that if we eat the same things camping as we do at home, our stomachs are happier, so we try to carry like ham and cheese sandwiches, sliced carrots, and halava or almonds.
Jim.

Something I used to do when camping in a situation where we had a fire going. I would dig a hole in the ground. Line it with rocks. Put lots of hot coals in the hole on the rocks. Wrap a backed potato or two in tin foil. Place the potatoes on the hot coals and then completely cover up with earth. About a half hour or so later I would dig up cooked backed potatoes to the amazement of my friends. The ground makes a very good oven.

Howie

Heavy food and campfire cooking seem to go together like hand in glove. As a westerner who often heads to timberline, I've had to get away from campfires as a regular thing, and so I don't do the steak and potatoes deal either. Sounds yummy, though.

Quite often we've brought heavy food for the first night - pasta with fresh asparagus and roasted peppers, makings for panzanella (including fresh tomatoes), frozen salmon, Asian coleslaw are among the favorites. Someone I once hiked with related a story of someone who surprised the group at lunch the first day, after a hot and dusty climb up a mountain, by pulling out a half gallon of ice cream that had been rolled up in the sleeping bag with dry ice - then proceeded to eat the whole thing themselves!

Our friend Paddy, may his soul rest in peace, would often bring a pint of "holy water" for happy hour around the campfire. In more recent years it was transferred to a Nalgene container, but he hauled in (and out) the glass bottle for many years.

Boy Scout trip hiking out from Lake Ozette to the Pacific Ocean to a campsite that does not allow open fires SOOOOOOOO, we had a kid hike in a eight pound bag of charcoal (the kind where you just light the bag) and lit it in a turkey roasting pan. Had bar-b-cued salmon and baked potatos. One of the leaders figured that a store bought apple pie fits prefectly into the frying pan. Had that over the grate a little also so we had warm apple pie for dessert.

As it turns out, the temperature dropped so we slid the tray of hot coals under the picnic table made out of driftwood and we played cards into the night feeling the heat on our feet and legs.

On another Boy Scout trip on the Olympic coast, my son carried two cases of sodas for his patrol. Of course, at the time he was a junior in high school, 6'2' 200 pds, and playing football and wrestling. I think it was a source of pride for him. From what I remember, his patrol didn't have to filter water for the entire three day trip.

That's a great idea. I'll do that down at our fire pit this winter when my wife goes down there with me. It'll be a great surprise for her and I'll earn big points too!

Thanks!

Picture is worth a thousand words I say

I do this more when on canoe trips than backpacking. But that also depends on the length.

Well, it's heavy - but you can always make the food carry itself :





Of course the big hunk of steel and walnut in the first picture weighs as much as many days worth of very palatable dehydrated food

you can always make the food carry itself

But, can you persuade it to go where you want it to?