Breakfast For Cub Pack Overnight

[SeattlePioneer]

The Pack I work with as UC is having it's annual spring campout Saturday-Sunday.

 

The Cubs will be making foil pizzas with the assistance of the Boy Scouts for dinner.

 

Breakfast is going to be for the whole camp, adults included. 21 Cub Scouts are registered, six Boy Scouts ---I haven't been given a count on adults yet, but figure fifty or so for breakfast? (not everyone is staying overnight).

 

In line with BALOOO training, the plan is to keep things simple, with hotcakes, sausage, hot chocolate milk and orange juice being on the menue. With a large group, I'm planning to bake all the link sausage in a Dutch Oven which would be simpler than frying them up.

 

My original plan was to have the Boy Scouts and newly crossed over Webelos Scouts do the cooking for breakfast. Breakfast for fifty should be a good experience for them.

 

On the other hand, I'm wondering if I should make an effort to let the Cub Scouts do some pancake flipping on their own. We are going to have several stoves and griddles for pancakes, and there is no reason one of those couldn't be reserved for Cub Scouts who'd like to bake their own. A second possibility would be to let those who want seconds cook the additional pancakes they want. Of course, such cooking will be supervised by either responsible Boy Scouts or adults.

 

Ideally, each Den would cook their own breakfast, but that seemed too complicated.

 

Advice from those who are veterans of Cub Pack overnight camping trips is solicited.

 

One type of camp breakfast for large groups involves baking hashed brown potatoes, eggs, meat and everything for breakfast together in a Dutch Oven. That simplifies cooking and would make this less labor intensive, but pancakes sounded more fun this time. Has anyone used this kind of meal for a Cub Pack breakfast or have other menue recommendations?

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

 

[WDleader]

We allways did eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes at all ot our Cub Scout overnighters. We usually didn't let the boys do any of the cooking at breakfast, but that was because we usually started before most of them were even awake. I don't see a problem, with this one stipulation, that the stoves and griddles are at a hetght that all of the Cubs can reach yjem with out have to strech or reach to far. Most adults do not think about this. My son when he was a WEBELOS Scout pointrd out that he would not be avle to cook on my grill because it was to tall for him at the time. Go and have a great time we did.

 

 

Robert L. DeWitt

WEBELOS II Den Leader

Pack 49 Den 1

WEBELOS to Scouts Chair

Ogeechee District

ASM Troop 12

Chickasaw District

Georgia Carolina Council

Augusta, Ga

I used to be a good Ole Bear SR-691

[Oak Tree]

I had to laugh when I saw that you said that cooking by den might be too complicated. Not because you're wrong, just that we did exactly the opposite. We have dens do their own cooking because we find that cooking for the pack can involve some logistical challenges. Most dens devolve the meals even further, and have families do most of the meals at the family level.

 

I suppose it will depend on what types of campers you have in your pack. We do encourage the Cub Scouts to help out with the cooking, and they do, depending on their skill level. Cub Scouts can certainly flip pancakes, with proper supervision.

 

Oak Tree

[ScoutNut]

Pack camping is Family Camping. The whole family (even sibs) should be involved in EVERYTHING.

 

Once we get a firm list of who is going to be at camp when, we make up kaper charts. The families of every den are mixed up so that they get a chance to know each other better. Set-up, preparation, & cleanup for each meal all weekend is included on the chart (along with various other duties).

 

It is not up to either the Pack BALOO trained person, the Pack leadership, or the Unit Commissioner to be the cook for everyone.

 

Breakfast on Sunday depends largely on what we will be doing & when we are leaving. If we don't want to spend a lot of time on breakfast we will have cold cereal, juice, coffee, milk, fruit & muffins. If we have more time we will do a more involved breakfast like Eggs in a Bag, Breakfast Burritos, or pancakes & sausages.

[jteamnmj]

Hi Everyone,

When our pack goes camping , we always do breakfast burritos for our morning breakfast. We usually precook the sausage needed so it cuts down on cooking time and use either real eggs or the liquid eggs. I prefer the liquid eggs cause we don't have to worry about them breaking. We put all fillings (sausage, cheese, salsa, bacon, small chunks of cooked potato, sour cream, eggs and of course cheese) in pans so the kids can put what they want on there burritos. All of the kids really enjoy this. It's fairly quick to cook up and really easy for clean up.

Julie

[SeattlePioneer]

I appreciate the comments offered in reply to my post.

 

My background is primarily in the Boy Scouts, where a lot of emphasis is placed on having boys responsible for cooking, and emphasizing cooking by patrols as a general rule. Neither I nor the rest of the Pack leadership has led a Pack Overnight before.

 

So I come to this with that bias, plus the recommendations made in BALOO training.

 

As I read the Cub Scout Program, there is a distinction made between Pack Overnights and Family Camping. This campout is a Pack Overnight, which as I understand it means that the Pack has the primary responsibility to provide the leadership and program, not families. In a Family Camping situation, families would have the primary responsibility for providing leadership and devising their own programs for the most part.

 

In that spirit, we are doing foil dinners for the Cub Scouts and any of their siblings ---foil pizzas to be exact. The aim here is to encourage Scouts to develope some cooking experience and skills, and to have the Boy Scouts providing as much of the training and support as possible, with adult Scouters always present to make sure safety and cleanliness rules are observed, and to help out if needed.

 

From the comments offered, our breakfast plans seem a little less learning oriented. Part of that is that we will be cooking for adults as well as Cub Scouts, which places more emphasis on production. Also, people are likelier to be HUNGRY in the morning! Adults and Cub Scouts may be impatient with too much Playing Around With Pancakes.

 

That's one reason that setting up a stove and letting Cub Scouts make their own pancakes for "seconds" seemed like something to consider. Having been fed once, Cub Scouts who want to fix more pancakes for themselves or their parents would have a place to experiment and learn the art of pouring out pancakes.

 

WDleader makes a good point that this stove position could be set at a height that would be suitable for Cub Scouts, and of course suitably supervised.

 

Oak Tree reported that his Pack does most cooking at the den level, apparently with families taking a lot of the responsibility. We considered these approaches, but rejected them. Frankly, I just don't know who has the skills and equipment to do this kind of thing, and relying upon families might not work very well. Also, with the Pack in charge, we can run the program to give the Scouts the opportunity to do and learn as much as possible (one of my main aims). Family camping is usually about parents doing for children, in my experience.

 

Perhaps Oak Tree can describe how dens and families are used in cooking meals in more detail, and the advantages and disadvantages of that approach.

 

Scout Nut suggests that families from different dens should inteionally be mixed together. I react rather negatively to that. My theory is that Cub Scouts and their parents are used to working together as a Den, and that this history should be encouraged and strengthened when possible. I'd prefer to have Cub Scouts and their parents eat together as Dens, and do other program activities together as Dens whenever possible. My theory is that that will reinforce habits of cooperation and self discipline learned in the Den program.

 

We are going to be encouraging Cub Scouts and their parents to camp more or less together, for the same reasons.

 

 

Any comments on whether we should place more emphasis on having Cub Scouts flipping pancakes even if that migh slow breakfast somewhat? We might try to work Cub Scouts into the production process once we get things working properly.

 

Part of my uncertainty is that I'm not used to having the responsibility of fixing breakfast for fifty people or more. I want to feed people properly AND have it a good Cub Scout experience as well. I don't have sufficient experience to be confident of how to do all those things with confidence.

 

I again solicit more comments and ideas on our meal plans, and I thank those who have offered comments so far.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

 

[WDleader]

One thing to consider is the menu, cooking sausage and or bacon, is time consuming and they both produce grease, which is a potential burn hazard. In our pack we all ways started breakfast and hour earlier than we would start to get the boys up, so that we could cook the bacon and sausage.

 

We usually had two or three grills going to cook bacon, sausage and the pancakes, as well as two Coleman stoves going to cook the eggs, and we only did scrambled eggs. As cooking to order just took too long. We usually had a dedicated core group who did the cooking for the pack at breakfast time, and we developed a system that worked for us.

 

You are right to worry about the abilities of the parents, in the camping and cooking aspect of this endevor. As you will find all levels of experience, from no experience to advanced and everthing in between.

 

If you are lucky you will have some experienced campers in the group that will be able to provided you with a good core group to help get everyone up to speed and help make the experience a good one.

 

If you are real lucky you might even have some military parents in the group, they will have experience in camp set up and cooking for large groups, ask and see if there are any in the pack, and ask if they will help with the palning and execution of the overnighter.

 

Robert L. DeWitt

WEBELOS II Den Leader

Pack 49 Den 1

WEBELOS to Scouts Chair

Ogeechee District

ASM Troop 12

Chickasaw District

Georgia Carolina Council

Augusta, Ga

I used to be a good Ole Bear SR-691

 

[ScoutNut]

Be very careful when allowing Cubs to cook outdoors. According to BSA's Age Appropriate Guidelines for Scouting Activites, outdoor cooking is restricted to Webelos level & higher.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello, Scout Nut!

 

 

Thanks for your comment. I've reviewed the Guide To Safe Scouting Camping Section with respect to Cub Pack Overnights. I see nothing there that places blanket restrictions on Cub Scout cooking.

 

The BALOO training I took last month used foil dinners as an example of a good program activity for Cub Scouts.

 

I'm not familiar with the reference you cite which places blanket restrictions on cooking by Cub Scouts. Unless I am missing something G2SS permits Cub Scout outdoor cooking. Of course, supervision is critical and good judgement on what is done is necessary. Supervising Cub Scout pancake cooking closely seems like a good and safe program unless I am missing something in G2SS.

 

WDLeader --- thank you for giving me the benefit of your experiences. I agree that cooking meat for breakfast is time consuming, so my plan is to use link sausages, dump them all in a Dutch Oven first thing, and expect they will be cooked after an hour or so. By reducing the charcoal, the sausages should remain warm and ready to be served until the end of breakfast. So the primary thing to be cooked will be pancakes. I'm expecting to get up to do that at 5:30, getting the Boy Scouts and Scouters up at 6 Ayem, with the aim of having breakfast ready to serve at 7:00 Ayem, and probably serving until 8 or so. Comments on this schedule are solicited.

 

I am an experienced Dutch Oven cook.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

 

 

 

[ScoutNut]

The Age-Appropriate Guidelines for Scouting Activities is an appendix to the Guide to Safe Scouting.

 

http://www.scouting.org/pubs/gss/ageguides.pdf

 

If you look under Outdoor Skills, Cooking Outdoors & Fire Building are both recommended for Webelos & above.

 

Personaly, I would not have Tigers, Wolves or Bears cooking pancakes on camp stoves. Not only is it against BSA guidelines, but even with their parent right next to them, there is to great a possibility for a bad burn to happen.

 

The Cubs can help prepare the food for cooking. They can crack eggs, mix batter, carry stuff, set tables, set out food, tear off foil, etc. Foil packets are fine. They can make up their foil packets and hand them to a Webelos Scout or older to actualy place them on the fire. They should not do the actual cooking.

 

Cub Scouting is family oriented & age appropriate progression. Let the Cubs wait until they are Webelos to do camp cooking. It will give them something to look forward to.

 

(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

[SeattlePioneer]

Thank you for the aditional referece, Scout Nut. Your point is well taken, and you make a good point in distinguishing between conventional cooking around fires and heat, and preparing foil dinners, which can be done at a distance from that added risk. I hadn't appreciated the reason why foil dinners might be favored for Cub Scout meals ---now I do.

 

And you let me off the hook of accomodating Cub Scouts while cooking breakfast. I wasn't really eager to do that, but it seemed like it might be a good Cub Scouting practice.

 

So what I'll aim to do is to involve the Webelos Scouts in helping to cook the pancakes. The Pack will have a passel of new Webelos boys Sunday morning, and giving them the privilege of helping cook breakfast would be good.

 

Unless we recruit a new Webelos leader at our parent meeting Saturday, we wont have an official leader for me to consult. My preference would be to have the Webelos acting as a Den while cooking, under the direction of their adult leader. The Boy Scouts and adult leaders could then work the Webelos into cooking in a structured way.

 

As I think about it, we could probably come up with some other breakfast tasks for Cub Scouts, such as mixing up concentrated Orange juice and perhaps helping to serve food. That should give the Cub Scouts the sense of participation I'd like to see and still keep them away from the fires.

 

Thank you for contributing to our Cub Pack overnight, Scout Nut.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

 

 

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Seattle Pioneer,

 

We've done the den cooking in a variety of ways, and we've seen many dens be creative with their meals. Some will do foil packets, some will do cardboard ovens, some will do dutch ovens, some cook on camp stoves. And some will do hot dogs. Sometimes the Cubmaster will walk around and have a little contest to see which den has the best meal, adding in some factor for how much help the Scouts provided - graded against their age expectations.

 

In your case, it appears that one of your concerns is that you don't have a good sense whether your dens/families are all that experienced in the process. I don't have that concern, since I've been through many campouts with my group and I know what all the experience level is. Sure, the Tiger dens tend to do simpler meals than the Webelos, since they're just getting the feel for it, but that's fine.

 

We've also done pack meals. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The advantages I see for the den meals are that it's easier on the pack leadership - we don't have to find people to cook at the pack level. It's easier for each den to plan, based on their attendance, to have the right amount of food. You don't end up with a bunch of extra food to deal with, or, heaven forbid, not enough food. It builds den camaraderie. It allows the dens to experiment with meals (like cardboard ovens) without worrying about how to feed the whole pack if the experiment doesn't go so well. And it prevents the entire pack from hanging around the cooks asking when dinner's going to be ready.

 

Pack meals did build some more pack interaction, and they do let most people off the hook for the meal. They can also, if you have the right people doing the cooking, allow for better camping food than you might get with a set of inexperienced dens doing the cooking.

 

I've asked around the pack, and my den leaders have generally been in favor of cooking at the den level. But we might mix it up some.

 

Oak Tree

[SeattlePioneer]

Wow. Another excellent post. Thank you Oak Tree.

 

 

Your last post describes a really desireable situation in my view. Keeping Dens together and learning together ought to be the ideal.

 

Just how many campouts do you do per year, and where are you located? After we get done with the traditional campout, I'm probably going to be promoting the idea of a fall campout as well. My theory is that good Cub Packs probably do lots of camping. I'd like to see the Pack give that theory a try. And I'm sure with greater experience things would settle down and be easier to do.

 

A couple of questions, though. In your earlier post you said that Den cooking often becomes family cooking. That seems less desireable that the situation you describe in your last post.

 

And Scout Nut cites portions of the Guide to Safe Scouting which apparently discourage cooking by those younger than Webelos. Any comments on that?

 

Usually the G2SS has an explantion that backs up and describes the limitations on that summmary of dos/don't in the back. But I didn't see an explantion of limitations in the camping section where I thought it might be.

 

If you just read the bare faced portion refernced by Scout Nut, it would seem to rule out Cub Scouts roasting hot dogs, marshmellows and 'smores. I'd like to see more discussion on how that issue should be interpreted and applied.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[jens3sons]

We just came back from our very FIRST Pack camping. Our thoughts were to try and have the boys involved in some aspect of both the evening and the breakfast meal preparation. So for dinner, the boys made foil packets, and part of their dessert was a bannana foil packet. At breakfast the men fried up the sausage, but we used our dutch oven to boil water. Then we had the kids break an egg into a sandwich baggy, and then add some cheese if they wanted, and we dropped the bags into the dutch oven to cook. The guys also made pancakes for everyone, and we served the left over bannans from the night before. It was an excellent breakfast!

[Oak Tree]

Seattle Pioneer,

 

We do about 4 campouts per year. We're located in North Carolina, so the weather is fairly cooperative.

 

Even when we do a "family" meal, we're still camping at a group campsite, and we have a scheduled mealtime. So the dads fire up the camp stoves, generally around one picnic table, and the Scouts are around to help/play. It comes off kind of like a group meal, just with each family eating different food.

 

At the younger ages, I tend toward Scout Nut's interpretation - that the boys can help do all kinds of food preparation. They can cut things up, stir things together, etc. They can help serve and help clean up. I don't know that I've actually seen the issue about them cooking ever come up - the Scouts appear to assume that it's dad's job to handle fire.

 

But we do allow Tigers to cook marshmallows on sticks in the campfire. I think we'd have a riot if we tried to overrule that.

 

Oak Tree