I’m going to be camping for 4 days at a location without easy access to fire (hence no boiled water). As such, I’m going to be packing a bunch of canned stuff for my daily meals. The place is in England, where we’re expecting a few hot days this week and maybe some rain over the weekend.
However, I have some free time before the trip to cook food. But I’m not sure if there’s any good foods I could bring along that could keep for 3-4 days without a fridge. I guess that crosses out most meat dishes.
Some ideas I had were: falafel, fritters, bread, calzones, pasties. Have you tried taking such foods camping and if so, did they last a few days without spoiling? Are there any other foods you’d recommend? Thank you so much!
It really depends on whether or not you plan to be pooping during those few days.
Pfft, eat a few MRE’s a day and you won’t poop for two solid weeks. Emphasis on solid because when that shit comes out it will be a brick the size of a baby.
I can’t remember what it’s called, but mixing the brownie with the coffee was the best thing I’ve ever had from an MRE.
It’s called ranger pudding and the recipe is 2 packets coffee, 1 packet creamer, 1 packet chocolate beverage powder, 1 packet sugar. Add a bit of water, stir and enjoy. You can also add peanut butter if you’re feeling frisky.
Edit: I forgot the 1 packet of crackers. Gotta add those bad boys in for substance.
Thank you! I’m a civi (civilian) and only had it when my older sister came back from basic training.
Ok, I’m googling that shit (no pun intended), didn’t know about it.
Because of a certain YouTuber now every time i see MRE i hear the sound “let’s get this out onto a tray… nice”
Wow I wasn’t expecting to get some much info today!
👀
A true sign of a Lemmy old timer. That was what, a month ago now?
At least.
I’m over here getting nostalgic for BEANS.
a jar of peanut butter with granola and dried fruit and candy mixed in is a solid go to.
granola bars in general are solid, even the ones you make yourself.
fresh fruit like apples and bananas are good.
canned condensed soups are surprisingly good cold if you have access to fresh water to reconstitute them and you aren’t worried about dehydration. that brings me to my next and much, much more important question:
do you have water figured out?
you can easily survive for four days without food, but you can’t make it that long without water. you can’t expect to rely on springs/streams/wells especially if you haven’t been drinking from them for a while already.
you need about a gallon of water a day, more if youre exerting yourself, sick or eating very dry foods (like camping foods). so if you don’t have a supply already figured out, focus on water. If you do have a supply already figured out, pack a gallon or so and some iodine anyway. you literally can’t survive if for whatever reason the supply that was fine last time isn’t running or is spoiled.
if you do end up having access to water, you can use flameless ration heaters to boil it quickly and use that to heat up any sealed foods you have. frhs’ are powdered metals and salt that make a real hot reaction when you pour water on em. so if you had a bag with a frh in it, you had say some food that would taste good hot in another sealed bag, you could put your food bag in the frh bag and pour some water in, fold it closed, prop it up on a rock or something and wait for your food to get hot.
You can always go with a historic solution to packing long term food: Pemmican.
Don’t know how feasible this is to cook, but jerky will last more than 4 days. One of my favorite snacks, but it is very expensive.
Yeah, beef jerky, even when making it yourself like @CloverSi@lemmy.comfysnug.space does, can be quite expensive depending on where you live. Thankfully beef jerky doesn’t require high-end cuts of beef. Round Eye is one of the preferred cuts and even in regions with relatively high prices for beef (e.g. Germany) it’s still quite economical compared to store-bought Jack Link’s.
I have a friend that makes his own before trips. He has it down to x pounds of fresh meat per person per day. He just buys meat, adds seasoning, and dries/cooks it in his oven. There is surely a youtube on how to do it.
First of all, depending on the area you’re going to be camping in, is a camp stove out of the question? I don’t know what’s readily available to you in England, but there’s quite a range of different options out there from little folding metal things that fit in your pocket that use solid fuel tablets up to briefcase sized ones that are basically like a regular kitchen stove that use 1lb propane tanks (or larger tanks with an adapter) and basically every form factor in between using just about any kind of fuel imaginable. You can even make a small stove out of some soda cans that burns denatured alcohol. You can probably have most of them delivered to you from Amazon before you leave for your trip, and assuming prices are similar in the UK to the US, there’s options out there that will only cost you about £10-£20 plus a couple more bucks for fuel
Some of them are practically like cooking on a blowtorch so the flame is too concentrated and intense to do much besides boiling water, but even that opens up your cooking options a lot. Being able to heat up your food or make some coffee/tea/hot cocoa can be a huge quality of life improvement. And having a method to boil water to sterilize it in an emergency is always a good idea.
Usually, at least in the US, camp stoves are exempted from fire bans if that’s what you’re up against, look into your local laws about that.
Beyond that, your options depend a bit on how comfortable you are ignoring “refrigerate after opening” warnings on labels. A lot of things will say they should be refrigerated but would probably be fine for a few days as long as they’re stored with a little care (container with a tight lid, wrapped up careful in some plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, etc. kept clean, dry, kept in a shady place out of the heat of the sun, etc) and depending on the type of camping you’re doing, if you can bring a cooler full of ice you can bring just about anything you would normally keep in a fridge, some things can be kept cool by submersing them in a cool stream. Anything that’s very sugary, salty, packed in brine or oil will probably last at least a day or two after opening. Many of those types of foods originated as ways to preserve stuff anyway.
But assuming you for whatever reason absolutely cannot have any type of cooking appliance and no access to any way to keep your food cool- Most fruits and veggies will last fine for a couple days unrefrigerated. Breads should be fine. Jams, and jellies, pickles, and other types of preserves are probably fine. A lot of smoked/dried/cured meats should be fine (jerky is a classic choice, salamis, summer sausage, etc. should also work but try to get a whole one, not pre-sliced, country ham if that’s available across the pond would probably do the trick, maybe prosciutto) Dried fruits, nuts, harder cheeses. In general you can take a lot of inspiration from a charcuterie board. A lot of “just boil water” kinds of foods don’t necessarilyneed the water to be boiled, it just makes it go a lot faster, you could do some overnight oats, instant noodles, etc.
As for your ideas, falafel and fritters are probably fine, but will depend on the exact ingredients and recipe you use. Calzones are probably fine, but I’d keep away from using too many wet ingredients in them, keep a separate jar/can of sauce to serve them with, don’t load them up with too many veggies and such, stick to cheese and maybe cured meats like pepperoni for the filling. I had to look up pasties because we don’t really have them in the US, but I’d say largely the same as the calzones, probably fine but be smart about what you put in them. At any rate, if you don’t have a plan to keep them cool, I’d say you probably want to plan on eating them the first or second day, they might start getting a bit questionable after a couple days.
I dig what you’re getting at here man, however my advice is just get a little propane camp stove. Mine has improved my camping life so greatly I’m kicking myself for not buying one before. It’s not even expensive one and you can cook in no time flat anywhere. That being said Tuna and crackers is a classic, there is a lot more canned meat than tuna and you can get a lot of variety out of crackers.
Is there a reason you can’t use a Coleman style camp stove or single burner backpacking stove? Those are standard fair for campgrounds and backcountry.
Fare*
Although, certain fairs have also been known to be near-standard fare at campgrounds, here and there.
Most of the foods that existed before the refrigerator was invented!
Can you bring a canister cook stove? something like a Jetboil? that way no need for a whole fire etc. you can boil water etc, cook basic stuff like ramen etc. make coffee…Hardy veggies should be good, beef jerky, cured meats like salami etc. dried fruits and nuts, bread, crackers etc. regular fruit, granola bars…i would just bring a little burner thing if you can it will be so much nicer than only eating cold foods etc.
Pemmican
Beef jerky
Pork rinds
Apples and other fruits
Nuts
Remember to bring water.
My mother’s fridge is only maintaining a temp of 6C (you want 4). While waiting for a new fridge she was concerned about this. I explained that for the first 15-20 years of her life, their was kept cold by putting in a cabinet with a block of ice in it. She calmed down a lot about it after that. :)
It depends if you’re not trying to poop that whole time?
Boiled eggs and boiled potatoes. They will surely last 3 days.
Boiled potatoes, maybe. But I wouldn’t count on the eggs, especially when it can get hot outside.
When I go camping, I do almost all my cooking on a little alcohol stove, they don’t take special fuel, any gas station will have the yellow Heet that you can use for fuel in it.
But what I usually eat:
- Canned soups, can be made hot right in the can, but heavy if you are backpacking.
- Oatmeal and instant noodles like ramen just need to heat some water.
- Those microwavable rice pouches, just need to heat them up, I also like to add some tinned mackerel and some hot sauce with it.
- Bagels, eggs, spam, and cheese makes bomb breakfast bagels. Cheese and eggs will last a couple days. Eggs that are not washed do not require refrigeration.
- You can also bring some cured meats if you want to make sandwiches on your first day. Some meats like summer sausage don’t require any refrigeration so will last until you cut into the casing before you need to worry about it. I also will stop at a gas station and grab a few of the single use packets of condiments: mayo, mustard, bbq, relish, etc.
- And MREs or freeze dried meals are easy.
This is great info! Does the “heet” stove give any flavor to the stuff you are cooking?
None. You don’t want to be roasting a marshmallow or hot dog next to the open flame, but cook with pots and pans over it.
Also, you don’t have to use methanol, here is a good article that I found that compares some of the fuels you can use in it.
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