Camping Food

for information on more camping food, see Outdoor Cooking, Grilling and Barbecue.
Backcountry camping food are the types of ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and backpacking. They differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen. The primary differences relate to campers' and backpackers' special needs for foods that have appropriate cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutrition alcontent.
In order to address these needs, camping food is often comprised of either freeze-dried or dehydrated ingredients. Many campers use a combination of the two.
Meal and ingredient requirements
Due to the difficulty of carrying large amounts of cooking fuel, campers often require their meals to cook in a short amount of time (5-20 minutes). Many campers prefer a ‘just add boiling water’ method of cooking, while others enjoy a more involved, and therefore often more gourmet, meal. The amount of cooking time can be disregarded if campers are able to cook over a campfire, however, due to the possibility of a burn-ban being in place, campers do not often rely on this option.
Shelf-Stable Food
Backcountry campers normally require their food to be shelf-stable, that is, require no refrigeration. They are often out for days or weeks at a time and do not want to risk spoilage of their food. Campers will sometimes take fresh food that can be consumed in the first day or two of a hike but will usually not risk carrying fresh food beyond that timeframe. The exception to this rule is for campers hiking in the snow or other cold conditions or if they will have access to a cold water source. The food can then be stored in the snow or secured in a mesh bag and kept in the cold water to act as a refrigeration source.
Lightweight
Backpackers must carry everything with them so they require all of their gear and food to be as lightweight as possible. Campers often turn to freeze-dried and dehydrated meals and ingredients for this reason, but they will also sometimes take a pouch of tuna or some other ingredient with a high water content with them as a treat, providing that the item packs a nutritional punch.
Nutrition Content
Backpackers, canoeists, climbers and other outdoor enthusiasts often cover many miles everyday, consuming thousands of calories in order to keep their energy level high. Backpackers require an average of 480 calories per hour as well has higher sodium levels. In order to make sure that their bodies are properly fueled, campers must pay close attention to their meal plans.
Ingredients
In order to prepare meals that work well in the outdoors, campers have begun to employ a variety of techniques.
Dehydrated Meals & Ingredients
Many campers and backpackers have purchased a home dehydrator in which they dehydrate individual ingredients or full meals. Removing the water content of food via dehydration can reduce the weight of the food by sixty to ninety percent, making a few hours with the dehydrator a good investment for many campers.
There are two primary methods of dehydrating used by campers - dehydrating full meals or dehydrating individual ingredients. Campers choosing to dehydrate an entire meal usually cook the meal in their home (perhaps a chili or a batch of spaghetti sauce) and then layer the food in their dehydrator to dry. After drying for several hours, the cook will have a ‘chili leather’ that requires no refrigeration. When at camp, the backpacker boils their chili-leather and enjoys chili on the trail in under 15 minutes.
The second method is dehydrating individual ingredients for use in many different recipes. Campers often choose to dehydrate an entire batch of one ingredient in order to give them more flexibility when cooking on the trail. Backpackers with a large amount of dehydrated tomatoes, for example, can use them in soups, pasta sauce, eggs, tacos, etc.
In order to address this unique audience, several cookbooks and online grocery stores are available to fill this need. A Fork in The Trail is a cookbook that focuses on dehydrating full meals while One Pot Wonders provides recipes using a variety of dehydrated ingredients. For campers wishing to save time, Packit Gourmet is one source that provides dehydrated vegetables for use in camping recipes.
Freeze-Dried Ingredients
Freeze-drying requires the use of heavy machinery and is not something that most campers are able to do on their own. Freeze-dried ingredients are often considered superior to dehydrated ingredients however, because they rehydrate at camp faster and retain more flavor than their freeze-dried counterparts. Freeze-dried ingredients take so little time to rehydrate that they can often be eaten without cooking them first and taste something like a crunchy chip.
Small amounts of freeze-dried ingredients are sometimes available for sale from emergency supply outlets or from stores specific to camping. Freeze-dried ingredients that have not been combined into a meal are often hard to find, however, and are often sought out by campers.
Common Ingredients
The final type of ingredients available to campers are those that are typically found in the grocery store. Some examples of these types of food are polenta, grits, quick-cooking pasta (such as angel hair pasta), ramen, instant potatoes, dried soups, jerky and pouch meats such as tuna, SPAM or salmon.
When using these common ingredients, campers often repackage them in order to reduce packaging or combine them into a meal-ready package, therefore reducing prep-time at camp. The main requirement that campers look for in these types of ingredients is the cook-time with 20 minutes being the longest amount of cook-time that most campers will tolerate.
Backcountry Cooking Methods
There are a large variety of camping stoves on the market ranging in specialty from being extremely lightweight to focusing on using very little fuel. The majority of campers rely on a stove for their cooking needs as they boast several advantages over cooking over a campfire.
Controllable Heat
Since most camping stoves have an adjustable heat source, they can be much easier to use than a campfire. The ability to quickly adjust the flame to reduce your pot from a boil to a simmer, for example, is considered invaluable to many campers.
Easy Access
Campfires can take a long time to start and get to a point where they are suitable for cooking over. Since a cook-stove can be ready in minutes, this is an advantage for many campers.
Availability
Wilderness areas can often have a burn-ban on, prohibiting people from starting a fire. If a camper were to rely on the campfire method as his only source for cooking heat, they could find themselves in an unlucky situation.
Cleanliness
Cooking over a campfire can lead to pots and pans darkened with soot. Soot can be extremely difficult to remove and, if left on the pan, can easily rub off onto clothing or the inside of the backpack. Campers have discovered methods of preventing this problem, such as coating the pans with cooking oil, to make the soot easier to remove.
Environmentally Sound
Leave No Trace discourages the use of a campfire as a source of heat. Campers making a campfire in the same location time after time can deplete the available wood in the area, which impacts the natural habitat of the animals. Campers are also more likely to inadvertently leave food scraps around the fire pit, which could attract animals.
Campfire
Lightweight
Campers relying on the use of a campfire do not have to carry the extra weight of a cookstove and may rely on a campfire in order to reduce their pack weight.
Warmth
Campfires provide a great amount of warmth while cookstoves provide none. On cold days, a campfire is often welcome.
Ambiance
There is nothing quite like a campfire while in the outdoors. Many campers feel their trip is incomplete without a campfire and often feel the need to build one.

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