Group Meals in Camp: Yes, No, Bleh?

[tketcham]

Group Meals in Camp: Yes, No, Bleh?
Not unless I have to. When I'm on a canoe trip I like to be out on the water, not cooking, so I like simple, really simple. I've been on paddling trips with friends that love to cook up big meals as a group and they enjoy a tasty potluck every night. But I'm more of an easy, single pot dinner person when I'm camping. And if it's warm out, a can of soup and bread is all I need. They thought I was a bit odd sitting there eating cold soup out of a can, but at least a couple of them appreciated that I was able to go right back out for an evening paddle as they sat around cooking, eating, and then cleaning up.

 

[clemency]

If I was asked to cook for a group it would only happen once, although I'm working on it. I'm good at cleanup though. Or so my wife tells me.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Jan once asked me

Jan no longer paddles.

Here is Jan running the class 3 Dumplings on the West River in Vermont in the mid-1980's in her Blue Hole Sunburst 1. Very nostalgic for me, and dumplings are obviously relevant to this thread's topic.

 

[Woodpuppy]

Hard to believe the 80s were 40 years ago…

 

[Boreal Birch]

I always volunteer for firewood & washing dishes. Good honest work, cookie always makes sure I get a good portion of the good stuff, maybe even a second helping. No one is ever disappointed with my cooking that way.
As the dish washer, all the soot, grime and dirt are gone by the time dishes are done. Couple splashes of dish rinse water about my face, at the end of the session, gets my face clean too. Crawl into my bed roll feeling some what clean is a good start to a night of dreams.
By myself, I can cook what I like, eat breakfast for supper if I want, eat smoke dried king salmon strips for lunch with a pot of tea a couple of times a day if that pleases me. Plus no complaints or comments about the quality, quantity of the chow.

 

[scoutergriz]

That's actually pretty cool and I'm sure it's certainly a case of "to each their own" but I can't see spending that much time in camp (it takes a few hours to cook a whole chicken)... maybe as a "layover day" option...

I usually go solo so there are no group meals. My son is planning to join me on an early season overnighter and that's as close to a "group" as I'm likely to get. We haven't discussed cooking so probably "every man for himself" with the understanding that Dad's got his back in a pinch (and neither of us will starve in 24 hours)...

I think that, if I were to join a group outing, I'd remain self-sufficient but part of that would be so that I could leave the group at any moment if my need for space overcame the camaraderie. (I seem to be steadily becoming more feral as I get older)

meals like that are for layover days, and are actually fairly easy and quick. the while chicken gets dumped in my aluminium dutch oven with chopped potatoes and a bit of water for an hour, then you add the carrots etc. and cook for another 1/2 hour. dutch ovens cook a lot faster than your oven at home as long as you keep some decent hardwood coals on top

 

[scoutergriz]

I was just about to start a thread on this subject. I have three trips coming up this season. The first is 4 of us on the Miramichi, where there will be coolers involved - two for beer and one large sized Meat Locker. Menus are a loose affair and sometimes we have to play the Missing Label Game, in which cans of food got wet and it's a crap shoot what you are going to eat. Once we had canned pears for supper, with more canned pears for dessert.

The second trip is between two of us, circumnavigating the Downeast Lakes in Maine involving long miles and hefty portages. This will be freeze dried dinners and while we eat them, something is baking in the reflector oven for dessert.

The third trip is 6 of us for 15 days in the far north on the Broken Skull and South Nahanni. I don't make the rules and we're doing group meals, each canoe providing 5 dinners. I used to lead trips for the Sierra Club and have some experience from that. But I'm finding that as we age, food allergies make it difficult to find something everyone can eat. This time around, no curry, no peas, no corn, no carrots, no seafood, no nuts, no chocolate. On other trips I have also had to deal with gluten intolerance and that tic-born red meat allergy. And considering we're not having coolers, nothing fresh (well that's not totally true, I'm bringing roma tomatoes and avocados).

I rarely take cans, but when I do, I write the contents on the lid with a sharpie- that way if the label comes off I'm not playing Russian roulette with my food...

 

[yknpdlr]

Beginning around 1990 i became an instructor and contributor for a BSA high adventure wilderness trek leader guide certification training program in the Adirondacks. Eight days of a combination of classroom lectures followed by wilderness field exercises to train and evaluate students as leaders (typically college age, but open to older participants as well) who look be hired by BSA or other youth summer camps to lead visiting young. scouts and their leaders on five day Adirondack backpack/canoe trips. I began to provide food for the outdoor wilderness portion, the majority of it home dehydrated, with demo selections including portions of commercial freeze-dried and off the shelf supermarket prepackaged for the class of up to 30 students and instructor staff. Done as options to demonstrate what can be done with a variety of camping food resources.

When I paddled as part of a 7-person voyageur race team for the first Yukon 1000 canoe mile race in 2009, I offered to provide the majority of our food (breakfasts and dinners) with easy to prepare and eat home dehydrated meals. As the first Y1K, the rules called for 20Kg (that's 44 pounds!) of food per paddler to be carried from race start. Race organizers felt that fast canoes would finish in a week or so (my canoe finishid in just over 6 days), average time would be about two weeks, plus a third week of food for any serious emergency. We were not allowed to include the weight of water to make dehydrated food edible. Starting with and tossing out 50 pound bags of potatoes would result in disqualification. So I spent several months preparing the required weight of home dehydrated food that was safely packaged and labeled. Daytime continuous snacks were up to individual paddlers to buy and provide for themselves. Oh and by the way, rules also required all food to be carried in officially certified bear resistant containers for passage through the Yukon-Charlie National Preserve portion of the river. After much research, I ended up with a large lockable Yeti that did nicely fit within the voyageur canoe. One paddler (in seat #5) volunteered to heat water on a safely mounted stove station and rehydrate food in individual mugs to pass out to each paddler. Meals were prepared while all paddlers continued to motor on, without stopping during the race. We ate individually in 5 minute shifts while all others continued to paddle on.

In the end we only used about a quarter of the massive amount of food carried. No one went hungry and no one lost any weight during the race. Thankfully, that ridiculous food requirement was dropped for the next year's Y1K race, and I prepared only ten day's worth of food for our six day race.

BSA bannnock for breakfast



Yukon Yeti

 

[Idiot Savant]

I've never been a fan of group meals.
What you like to eat might not be what I like to eat.
What you consider enough food might not be what I consider enough food.
It could force me to bring a cooler that I wouldn't have brought if we weren't doing group meals.
I do as little cooking as possible, while on a canoe trip. Food is not why I'm there.

 

[billconner]

I find the group eating around a fire ring to be very comforting, supporting bonding and sharing of ideas and feelings. A kind of de-polarizing and socializing experience.

If it's edible, I can tolerate it and maybe even learn to like it. Could become my next favorite meal even.

 

[Odyssey]

Individual meals and group socializing are not necessarily mutually exclusive activities. In the distant past I found that group meals among friends made for easier use of the single fire. One cook, maybe a helper, and everyone else took care of other camp chores, staying well out of the way of the meal provider. But of course it's all about the group dynamic. Those meals were forgettable, but the friendship was memorable.
I hadn't done the group meal in decades until last spring. This time it was between family, so the dynamic was unique in that way.
As much as I can be amenable to others I sometimes prefer to look after my own cooking. Sharing the single fire between several cooks can be done, with everyone coordinating their turns cooking. Socializing can happen regardless of meal planning. The larger the group, the more group meals makes sense I suppose, but larger party group trips don't appeal to me. Rising early, putting on the coffee pot to perc and starting the morning bannock does.
Just this morning my wife and I were sipping our morning coffee and tossing around trip meal ideas for this coming August. And there's the possibility we'll have another tandem pair or two joining us. Who cooks what for whom is a minor point. The meals, like the paddling, portaging, and camp life, are what brings us together. It's all about the socializing. We may never remember the meals but I know the trip will be memorable.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Individual meals and group socializing are not necessarily mutually exclusive activities.

I agree.

Preliminarily, I am of the mentality and practice that I am on a canoe trip primarily for the paddling experience and not for any sort of food experience. I don't like to cook and don't care much what I eat in the woods. In fact, I usually use canoe trips as a way to enforce a diet. I am exclusively a small stove, dehydrated food, and protein bar guy.

My preference is to cook my own meals this way regardless of what the rest of the group does. That doesn't mean I can't sit around the campfire or non-campfire to socialize with others before, during or after eating. The bigger issue in that respect with groups is booze. As a former drinker who hasn't had one in 34 years, I don't really care to be around inebriated persons. If things go in that direction, I will just retire to my tent.

 

[lowangle al]

I have almost always done group meals in the past, but that was when taking non experienced friends and relatives. If I were meeting up with others who were experienced I would rather be on my own for meals. I also think it's a good idea to split up a large group into smaller groups of two or four so they can share some cooking equipment and possibly meals or condiments.

 

[LarrySw45]

Nope. I will carry and cook my own food. I don't care what anyone else wants to carry and cook. I do my own stuff and I will not carry a blue barrel fir anyone.

 

[Erica]

I travel solo now and keep food as simple as possible.

 

[lowangle al]

I'm a big eater, so I prefer group meals even when solo.

 

[ppine]

I always tell people "canoeing is a team sport." Anybody gets wet, we are going to rescue them. Same in camp. I like the communal aspect of group meals and working together. But now I am very selective about who I go on trips with. I know their strengths and weaknesses.

Nothing like setting up a chair on the beach of a lonely river at the end of a long day and making some cocktails while someone else cooks dinner.
I have been using Dutch Ovens for over 40 years, but for canoe trips I bring a smaller aluminum Dutch 10 inch. It works in a fire or on a stove. The heavy lid acts like a pressure cooker.

 

[Jatfomike]

Definitely group dinners.....I am fortunate in that I have a core group of tripping buddies that all have a background of being former scout and/or church youth group leaders.......we are used to doing things as a group with everyone participating in the process from trip planning to trip execution. With that said, with all of us getting older, we have made a number of adjustments over the years......Most of our trips of a week or longer involve daily travel with a layover/storm day floating in there somewhere. We did the usual progression moving away from cooking over fire with cast iron skillets/Dutch ovens to aluminum and then to Banks Fry-bake pans to reduce weight and clean up, however, we have not reduced our menu......We try to utilize fresh food as much as we can, at least the first few days and then slowly progress to freeze dried/dehydrated in the second half of the trip. We plan a few lavish breakfasts for light travel days with the flexibility of changing them to lunch if we decide we need to bust out of camp earlier than planned because of weather or fishing or whatever reason. Other than a possible "breakfast for lunch", we have done away with lunches and opted for "snacks" to fuel the beast and keep us going until dinner. That allows for more travel/fishing/exploring. We all kind of enjoy the "communal" approach to dinner sharing in the prep/cooking/clean up so it doesn't take too long. Weather permitting after dinner, we move down to the water and enjoy the sounds and stars with a "cocktail" or a cup of tea or coffee, maybe a good cigar and then call it a night.

Mike

 

[billconner]

This thread is like a litmus test for who I'd like to trip with.

 

[Tryin']

We usually have one or two shared meals, because someone always wants to bring steaks for the group or cook a good days catch. But usually we all just fix our own food in a group setting. Sharing is common, but procurement, preparation, and consumption are ultimately up to the individual.