What do you eat?

[Rosepetals]

Just wondering what most people eat when they go camping. Do you bring food with you or do you find stuff to cook? For us, we usually bring hotdogs and things we can cook on the campfire, but we do also go berry picking, but that is about the only food we go out looking for.

 

[ArkansasMom]

We usually bring hotdogs and hamburgers. We will also pre-pack these foil packets. They usually consist of vegetables. That way we can throw them on the fire and they cook easily. We also bring chips or other easy foods.

 

[Grandpa]

When grandma goes camping, its dutch all the way. Her and those dutch ovens can make a 5 star restaurant envious. She even makes yeast bread from scratch and bakes it in the dutch ovens.
Backpacking is a different story. Basically Mountain house or homemade freezer bag meals, ramen noodles and oatmeal packets. The only "don't have to add water" foods are trail mix and tuna/chicken salad packets on flat breads. Although on a long trip, I've been known to stick a Tbone with veggies in a foil pack for the first nights meal. But that is NOT the way to build good relations with your hiking buddies.

 

[Blazer]

I don't like to cook at home or while camping. I have a Jetboil that I bring camping and 99% I use it for boiling water for coffee. Occasionally I'll heat up some chili or Dinty Moore stew and put some shredded cheese on it. That's about it.

When backpacking, I'll bring summer sausage and cheese, trail mix and Cliff Bars while backpacking. If kayak and car camping I'll add in some pita bread, spreadable cheeses with some flavored jellies (I love flavored chutneys and jellies that you can get at Wegmans), grapes and hummus and carrots..stuff like that. I'll bring some wine and cigars too. I like to keep it light and easy.

Back in the days when I was married and we had kids we brought a Coleman stove on our Lake George camping trips and cooked pancakes, egg, cheese and sausage/bacon sandwiches and had burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, etc. But those days are gone. It's just me now and I don't want to cook due to the complexity and it makes it difficult to keep a clean camp so as not to attract raccoons and bears.

 

[Cappy]

What do we eat?? LOL click the link at the bottom of this post and scroll down through the last 10 years or so or at least the last 6 weeks of this camping trip, we eat well if ya dont believe ti look at us

 

[HardyC]

When I go camping with my family to a State Camp site we bring hotdogs, hamburgers, bacon, vegetables to cook in foil, chips, oatmeal, and trail mix. Sometimes we pack salads and watermelon, too. We will eat fish if we go fishing and catch anything. Pretty much whatever the kids will eat, we will pack and make.

 

[dinosaur]

I eat the same things I eat at home. I've made spaghetti sauce, cheese sauces, Eggs Benedict, stuffed omelets, steaks, roasts, fried potatoes, baked potatoes, French fries, lots of soups, gumbo, jambalaya, pancakes, waffles, fried fish, poached fish, baked fish. I've also baked bread. I even picked wild strawberries and made a compote to put on waffles in the morning.
As my Daddy taught me, just because you're camping doesn't mean you can't eat like the food came from a menu with a tassel on it.

 

[ppine]

I would be very happy camping with Grandpa, Cappy, and Dino. Not only because we all think meals when are camping a big deal, but because they are all experienced gentlemen with stories to tell.

I like to make meals like good ones at home. When camping out of a canoe or a truck the Dutch Oven is the main implement. Sometimes we use a fry pan and a sauce pan. Usually with a group, like canoeing we take turns cooking dinner and there is a certain competitiveness related to making some really great fare.

I am surprised that people still eat hamburgers and hot dogs and canned beef stew. I gave that stuff up about the age of 20.

Backpacking is more challenging. I really do not like dehydrated food and bring things like salad, canned chicken, dehydrated vegetables, dried fruit, etc. and I am willing to carry some extra weight.

 

[Cappy]

"Grandpa, Cappy, and Dino." Yep with you and Sarge that would be a camp fire indeed,

 

[Charlotte]

We usually eat a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers while camping. I always bring things that we can grill and won't be too complicated. I also will bring vegetable packets to throw on the fire as well.

 

[Pathwacker]

Depend on where you are camping and how. Camper full menu/backpacking nuts/dry goods, jerkey,

 

[Diver97]

I usually eat better car camping then I do at home. I like to cook but between work and all the activities my kids are involved in I don't have time to cook as much as I would like at home. So far I have camped out about 35 nights this year and I am happy to say I have only eaten one hamburger while camping and have avoided hotdogs altogether. Beer brats don't count as hotdogs do they? Some of the food I have eaten this year includes: Omelet's, Stuffed French Toast, Fajitas, Chicken fry steak, Fried Catfish, Crawfish, Maine Lobster, Shrimp and crab boil, Steak, and Smoked prime rib. I also usually do a desert of some kind such as Bananas foster bread pudding or cobbler with homemade ice cream (If we are someplace with an outlet). Last month camping with the Boy Scouts I roasted 2 whole hogs in a pit. Even after hiking 5-10 miles a day I still somehow manage to gain weight while camping.

I often will write a menu to coincide with the time of year I am camping, I will do German in October, Mexican in May for Cinco de Mayo, Last year I did corn beef and cabbage with Irish stew for St Patrick's day, I have even fried a turkey in November and will do fish for lent.

I am camping this weekend and I am still working on the menu. I expect low temp to be about 25 so I am thinking venison chili for lunch and a pot roast for dinner.

The only problem I having preparing a good meal when camping is that I need a bigger truck to haul my camp kitchen.

Camp often and remember, Life is to short to eat crappy food.

 

[dinosaur]

Definitely. Diver97 is right. NEVER EAT CRAPPY FOOD. It destroys the meaning of existence if you can avoid it. Never settle for something less than you wish. unless you are so exhausted that you cannot move to get a good meal. God gave us food in infinite variety. Taste it all! I have. I don't think there's much on this planet I haven't eaten. Some of it I wasn't that thrilled with but it was interesting. Maybe what we need is a thread on the stuff we've tasted. I think I'll do that right now.

 

[briansnat]

If we are canoe or car camping, we have a cooler that will usually be stocked with eggs, some sort of breakfast meat and hash brown potatoes. We'll usually have some chicken, pork chops, burgers, or some sort of sausage (kielbasi, brats, knockwurst, Italian, etc) for dinner along with sides like pre made mashed potatoes, fresh corn, rice. We'll have cold cuts and bread to make sandwiches. Maybe some pasta and sauce.

Backpacking, if only for one night we may have any of the above and freeze it. By dinner time the meat is thawed and ready for cooking. For multiple day trips, lots of instant mashed potatoes, Minute Rice, angel hair pasta. That along with cheeses, dehydrated meats, those foil packets of fish steaks, canned seafood along with various spices and dehydrated pepper, onions and fresh garlic etc can be combined into some really light weight and satisfying meals


For breakfast, oatmeal, powdered eggs (actually pretty good if you add some cheese and maybe a little reconstituted dried onion and/or peppers), those individual foil packets of Spam, pre cooked bacon, etc.

GORP, jerky, cheddar cheese, canned sardines, peanut butter, oysters, crackers (Triscuits, Weat Thins) etc for lunch on the trail.

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...
Usually nothing fancy...might be eggs (fave for outdoors)...pre-cooked bacon (cooked at home by me...not that store bought pre-cooked stuff)...foods that can be re-constituted with hot water...pre-cooked sausage...even MREs on occasion, and cheese...!!

When I buy bacon...I cook up the whole pound...then it's readily available whenever I want it...!!

 

[Pathwacker]

It depends on how you camp. I backpack, canoe camp, car camp, popup camper, and hybrid camper

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...
Is the 'hybrid' pictured there...??

 

[ponderosa]

I keep it pretty simple, even when we're car camping. I use the dutch ovens at home far more often than camping. I spend hours a week in the kitchen, cooking meals for my family from scratch. Camping is my time off, too, and I don't want to spend it all preparing and cleaning up meals. Besides, we're very likely to be out paddling or hiking or biking or boating until dusk, and I'm usually preparing dinner in the dark. Dinner might be grilled cheese, something prepared at home and reheated, or something from a can or box. Lunch is sandwiches or just plenty of snacks. Breakfast might be cold cereal, or breakfast sandwiches/burritos, or a full spread of pancakes, eggs, & bacon depending on our mood and plans for the day. The exception is our annual camping trip with extended family. There I take the time for really good food, and with the dutch ovens and campchef/grilll, it could be absolutely anything.
Backpacking meals are made from ingredients dehydrated at home. It's pretty quick/easy to put together good BPing meals that way...pizza, spaghetti, burritos, soups & stews, shepherds pie, or standard meat+veggies+starch+sauce combos. Trail lunches are rehydrated hummus with crackers & cheese, hard preserved meats, maybe a rehydrated salad or couscous.

 

[sampaater]

its depend where your are camping and i think you should bring your home made food items.

 

[ppine]

I would enjoy camping with Diver97. Camping is a great time for some recreational cooking. The men always get involved. I don't camp with many big groups like I did when I was younger, but really only camp with other people that are good cooks. We usually throw all the rules out the window when it comes to diet and make lots of high fat and flavorful meals.

When I think about it, my Mom used to make real food on camping trips and on the boat where we spent most weekends. She was farm raised and knew how to pack up a kitchen and take it anywhere. She made us eat a salad every night, and really loved fruit and vegetables at a time when they were not that popular.

Canoe trips and late fall car camping trips seem to be the trips with the most elaborate meals. The best was a February canoe trip on the lower Colorado River. We took turns trying to out do each other. The combination of long days of exercise, cold weather and great food made for some serious eating. I am proud to be an outdoor foodie and wish that all the Dinty Moore eaters could stop by for some buffalo enchiladas.