pack camp out food suggestions

[RememberSchiff]

@Tenderfoot7083  welcome to scouter.com

[John-in-KC]

1 hour ago, Tenderfoot7083 said:

As a tenderfoot, in warm weather camping, Friday night the leaders make quesadillas. In cold weather, they make chicken noodle soup. You could make  walking tacos, meatball sandwiches, or burgers, assuming you have access to a grittle/fire with grill/ grill.

Only one problem.  This is about Cub Packs. I expect Patrol Leaders to guide the patrol to a decision on menus in Troops. 

[Tenderfoot7083]

@John-in-KC  It really doesn't matter. You can do the same things (food wise) with a cub scout pack that you can with a troop.

[Terasec]

On 3/19/2019 at 7:54 PM, Tenderfoot7083 said:

@John-in-KC  It really doesn't matter. You can do the same things (food wise) with a cub scout pack that you can with a troop.

not so,

Pack are youngsters more geared to family scouting, pack leaders more responsible for the meals, for the scouts and for the parents.

many times theres cabin and whole lot more gear, 

leaders planning meals for 10-40 people,

pack outing utilize cabins, refrigerators, coolers, etc

troop,  they are on their own, older scouts should be teaching the younger scouts about camp meals, food and equipment should comfortably fit in their packs to hike to the site.

patrol really shouldn't be more than 10 or so scouts,

 

 

[perdidochas]

On 3/12/2010 at 2:32 PM, bear dad said:

Hi, we are trying to plan for our pack camp out and would like to get a few ideals on the easiest, cheapest way to feed about 40-50 people if all show up?

Let me say that cost will some what a factor as pack will spend some, and probaly families will have a small cost aswell. We don't have enough funds within our pack, for the pack to flip the bill for this all together.

Someone has donated a bunch of hot dogs for trip as it was on sale and they could buy a lot fairly cheaply to help feed the packs.Which the pack could he other stuff, chips, etc. which could take of 1 meal. Need to mentioned it would a friday nite thru sunday after noon trip. families would have to eat before they left friday, probaly have a snack that night.

 

For the pure ease of cooking for all people,and everyone trying to get to eat close to same time, would something like tacos, which could be made fairly cheap be a way? Just wanted to get a ideal of what others have done in past.

Chili cookoff, where you get the parents of the Pack to provide the chili.  The Pack buys hotdogs. 

 

We generally would do lunch on buddy burner stoves--a large can (gallon?) with some venting done by an old fashioned canopener (that makes the triangular holes), and a cutout to put the buddy burner, which was a homemade candle, made with a spiraled piece of cardboard in a tuna (or small pineapple) can covered with paraffin.  Need 6 or 7 spatulas.  The Webelos II (now known as AOL) den was in charge of making the buddy burner stoves. Buy the frozen hamburger patties, and put them in a cooler the night before. 

We generally did breakfast either by dens or on their own. A lot of the dads wanted to break out their campstoves, and show their stuff.   When I was WDL, the Webelos made ziplock omelettes, which was a favorite of my oldest son. 

Edited March 26, 2019 by perdidochas

[perdidochas]

On 3/19/2019 at 6:54 PM, Tenderfoot7083 said:

@John-in-KC  It really doesn't matter. You can do the same things (food wise) with a cub scout pack that you can with a troop.

Only if every den has a stove, etc.  It's really a different situation.  Cooking for 50 is different than cooking for 8 groups of 6. 

[FireStone]

On 3/12/2010 at 3:51 PM, mkarlinm said:

we have made taco in a bag. you purchase the small doritos bags. a couple of families buy ground beef and then others can be assigned onions, sour cream, cheese, lettuce. tomatos ect. the meat can even be prepared ahead of time and just warm it up or just bring some skillets and prepare it. i just crush the bags up after opening so the chips are small then top it with what you like. clean up is so easier since the bag is your dish and you just throw it away.

Our Pack does that as a dinner option but it often gets mixed reviews. I love it, especially when we do chili in the bags. Hot chili over chips is great. But there are always a few parents (especially newer ones) who won't even try it and think we're barbarians trying to feed their kids dinner out of a Doritos bag. 😅

The funny thing is our Pack does incredible food and the taco bags are just one option. We've done steak, potatoes, dutch oven deserts, all kinds of delicious stuff. The joke is that we often eat better in camp than at home. But somehow the taco bag is what people remember and discuss, as if that's all we feed the kids all weekend.

One thing I'll add to the original question here:

Cook whatever you want, but if you ant to make it easier on yourself, invest in some good cooking equipment. Our Pack menu hasn't changed much but meal prep got so much easier when we upgraded to some nice Camp Chef stoves. We run 3 of the 2-burner stoves for breakfasts and dinners, cranking out food fast and easy. A good, organized kitchen setup is key. Don't dump all of your utensils and tools into a bin. Get an organized camp kitchen box, good stoves, cutting boards, whatever you need to make prep and KP easy. It's an investment, but it will last for many years if well-maintained, and it will make life a lot easier for everyone, much more so than what specific food items you choose for meals.

Edited March 27, 2019 by FireStone

[ParkMan]

9 hours ago, FireStone said:

One thing I'll add to the original question here:

Cook whatever you want, but if you ant to make it easier on yourself, invest in some good cooking equipment. Our Pack menu hasn't changed much but meal prep got so much easier when we upgraded to some nice Camp Chef stoves. We run 3 of the 2-burner stoves for breakfasts and dinners, cranking out food fast and easy. A good, organized kitchen setup is key. Don't dump all of your utensils and tools into a bin. Get an organized camp kitchen box, good stoves, cutting boards, whatever you need to make prep and KP easy. It's an investment, but it will last for many years if well-maintained, and it will make life a lot easier for everyone, much more so than what specific food items you choose for meals.

Just wanted to second this recommendation.

Our pack has a small assortment of gear focused at pack cooking.  Two Camp Chef stoves, a large gas powered griddle, several restuarant size pots, large cutting boards, large coolers, drink containers, a pretty good assortment of tools, etc.  We've partitioned this into a small number of the plastic containers to make access easy - knives in one, utensils in another, etc.  We purchased it over a few year period.

We regualrly cook for 100 or so and it works really well.  The pack buys all the food and organizes the meals.  Because the equipment is consistent, it also makes it easier for people to help out because they know what we have.  Pancakes - sure, because we have the big griddle.  Chili, spaghetti, soup - no problem with the large pots.    

We did also tailor some of the gear such that our Webelos den could take a subset of it for a Webelos camping trip.