It is almost time for Burning Man. Two years in a row is more burning than a Bostonian probably needs, but a friend pressed me into it.
We have the opportunity to load up part of a container here in Boston with whatever heavy non-perishable items that we want to have with us (but not liquids unless in cans, I think). So that leads to the question… what to bring?
We’ll be camping with the Pongo Lounge folks, which means that we will have a field kitchen and water supply, but I don’t imagine that it will be easy or simple to cook or clean up. It will be fairly easy to heat stuff up to lukewarm at least by leaving it out in the sun but tough to cool anything except perhaps by consuming it in the morning after a cold night.
If you had to live on canned and/or dry food for a week, what would you choose?
[Of course we will try to bring in some fresh food and keep it on ice but I have a feeling that after a couple of days we will be reduced to canned items.]
Related:
- Best way to visit Burning Man: work for the government (I want their menu!)
Simple and cheap: Campbell’s Chunky Soups… delicious meal in a can.
You can feed a lot of people with these kits and whatever’s leftover can be used in the bomb shelter!
http://www.wisefoodstorage.com/index.php?code=WISEFREESHIP5OFF&CJPID=7558856&ref=cj&afsrc=1&PPCPN=
If you have access to running water, why not freeze-dried MREs, or their equivalent? These will last an eternity if uneaten:
http://www.mountainhouse.com/
These guys have tasty stuff. A little pricy but you can pack a lot into a container.
http://www.mountainhouse.com/
I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be able to bring in at least a camping gas stove or alcohol stove – some of these weigh just ounces.
Obviously it depends a lot on your taste but I would try to bring things that you might eat at home. If you don’t like an item already, you are unlikely to start liking it now. Some of the nonperishable things that I like – canned fish (tuna and sardines). Dried fruit. Nuts. Trail mix. Crackers. Cereal (they sell shelf stable milk in juice boxes). Canned fruit – peaches, fruit cocktail, etc. Dried salami (labeled “shelf-stable”). Turkey Spam (Thanksgiving in a can!) Indian food in MRE pouches (would benefit from warming up – the rest of the stuff about can be eaten cold) – these are sold in every Indian grocery store in the US. M&Ms (will not melt like regular chocolate). Beer & wine – Red wine more pleasant if not chilled.
Avoid – freeze dried food, survival rations, etc.
Remember to calculate roughly 2,500 calories/day/person. It’s pretty easy to add up calories from the nutrition labels that are on every item. Unless you make some sort of calculation along those lines, it’s impossible to know whether you are bringing too much or too little.
Honey. Will last for ever!! 🙂
Fasting, energy drinks and drukqs.
Consider also pouches, lighter than cans. I cribbed my toddler’s “Plum Organics Baby Just Fruit, Peaches” as an on-the-go snack when she refused to eat from pouches. As a bonus, you get to feel play astronaut. You can get all sorts of stuff like tuna or soup in pouch form.
I could live on tuna for a week.
Phil I would recommend plenty of beef jerky. I think that would be an ideal playa food!
I have mostly brought fresh but cooked food for Burning Man trips up to 10 days, and usually have to bring some longer-shelf-life stuff home. Ice is available.
To answer your original question:
– Tasty Bites or the Thai equivalent from Trader Joes
– rice in grape leaves
– crackers and dry salami
– canned stew
– spagetti-O’s
– dried fruit
Keep the ideas coming!
Izzie: we do have a full kitchen as part of the camp. We don’t have to bring a camping stove.
Freeze-dried fans: we can load up a shipping container with arbitrary amounts of weight. Does it still make sense to choose foods that backpackers carry on the Appalachian trail? Isn’t canned food better than freeze-dried?
I third Mountain house – it is light, but it’s also really tasty, try Lasagna, Fireroasted Vegetables and Chicken Breast with mashed potato (I was amazed that there are two real whole chicken breasts that tasted great), I think it’s better than any can. Of course you need water, don’t know if that’s a problem at burning man. If you do want to bring a personal stove, for a dessert (mountain house berry cobbler, coffee), “JetBoil Flash” is super quick and easy. I’d caution only that they do have a lot of Sodium for trekking and hard dehydrating activities, which may be good for a hot dusty place too, but not if you want to limit salt.
I packed those for a 10 day Patagonia trek in Torres del Paine and Fitz Roy, and got a lot of awkward, quitely envious looks from all the Chileans and students carrying heavy inconvenient Primus stoves, pots and spaghetti with oil (it’s not just the budget, it’s just not available easily there even to the rangers).
Canned food is hugely better than freeze-dried. We took canned food even while we hiked the Appalachian trail a few months back – I’ve tried to eat it before the trip and it’s horrible garbage (we bought 8 different packs at REI (including mountain house) and had a tasting party, had to throw it all out).
Since ice is available, you can make deep frozen food (cooked or not, up to you) last for about 5 days easily. And after that switch over to canned.
Soups work really well on a playa. So that’s at least one big meal a day for us. We normally take a few packs of ramen, prepare them, and then dump a can of corned beef inside – makes for a really tasty and filling meal. Traditional russian camping food 😉
When I went last year, I pretty much lived on soup and light beer; good for staying hydrated. Most of it was canned, but I also brought some of larger, fancier cup-of-noodle soups and some in the flexible plastic packets. I also ate a lot of saltines and brought a flat of V-8.
I’m told the greywater from cleaning up tomato pasta sauce is super-putrid, so I avoided it. (we mostly tried to do our dishes with a splash of water and a paper-toweling out)
If anyone is joining your camp later in the week, get them to bring bagels, salmon & cream cheese.
I found myself not particularly hungry by normal standards, so a post-apocalyptic diet was fine. I carry about ten extra pounds, so as long as I don’t get dehydrated or electrolyte-deprived, I probably wouldn’t even need to eat for most of it.
No one mentioned peanut butter. And jelly and bread (the supermarket kind that does not go stale because it’s full of preservatives.
+ Tasty bite madras or jodpuhr dahl and some rice
+ king oscar sardines and unsalted crackers
+ chef boyardee ravioli
+ spam
I’ll offer a few more suggestions, some not quite in the vein of what you’ve asked — do realise I’m in the UK and I don’t know if you’ll be able to find some of these items …
Desert rehydration and compensation:
— Dioralyte packets
— Coconut water or coconut rehydration packets
— Fizzy vitamins (Berocca, etc.), Cal/Mag/Zinc/B tablets
— Deflatine or its equivalent for when food choices don’t work out
— Instant citrus granules (there’s a granulated powdered lemon product that comes in packets from the US whose name escapes me at the moment)
— Instant black tea granules (mix with the above to make instant Arnold Palmers, helpful in the desert)
Food in convenient sizes and forms:
— Instant soup packets (also good for replacing salts)
— Mug Shot or whatever passes for instant cup noodles
— Multi-portion plastic bean pots (such as Heinz, which don’t need a tin opener and can also be microwaved back home)
— Small tubs of gravy granules (such as Bisto or its non-branded equivalent, useful for making Western MREs more palatable)
— Restaurant single-serving jam/preserves/condiment portions (find a food service warehouse and see if they’ll sell to the public)
— Marmite 125g tubs (makes a good salty B-12 source in a pinch)
— UHT milk tubs (good for tea, instant coffee, adjusting the sauce in some Indian MREs, etc.)
— Biltong, droewors, beef jerky, or the veg/vegan equivalent (I find that typical SA spices in biltong and droewors have the benefit of making me want to eat slower, which can be a benefit)
— MREs that don’t include Charms (sorry Yanks) 🙂
— Black liquorice (also useful for lowering blood pressure in nasty situations that can happen in deserts and at altitude)
— Instant porridge with dried fruit (sold in plastic tubs with tear-off lids)
— Tabasco hot sauce miniatures (may help with some foods that are slightly off)
Other useful related items:
— P-38 tin opener (scatter a dozen across your gear, just in case)
— Fold-away scissors (for opening tough-to-open packets, have a few handy)
— Medium pipe wrench (for opening obnoxiously stuck bottles and wrenching open tins, will earn you instant friends in nearby camps if needed)