Pack cooking

[5yearscouter]

Yeah right now with 15 scouts plus siblings and 15 adults at least, usually closer to 20-30 adults, trying to get everyone around a campfire to cook a hotdog is an exercise in frustration. not everyone can get to the best coals, and holding your hot dog over the flames ends up with a sooty dog that barely gets hot.

 

of course you can make a bunch of charcoal in a charcoal chimney, make a shallow ditch in the dirt long enough everyone can stand shoulder to shoulder or so close to each other with 1 row on each side, line the ditch with the hot charcoal, and let everyone roast their dog that way and the hotdogs might actually get hot. but your ditch might get very long that way too.

 

we tend to do not much cooking for the dinner, we do it pot luck to save on how much a few voluteers have to do. That worked best when we were larger, 40 scouts plus 2-3 other people in each family does get large fast.

The pack usually pays for and makes the dogs or burgers on a grill in bulk, or if we are close to town buying 100 pieces of chicken from the local grocery store for 39.99. can't hardly beat that for bulk food for dinner.

 

Then each family brings a side dish or dessert. we encourage dutch oven cooking by making a few sides or main dishes in the dutch ovens to show people how to do it. pack buys paper products cause nobody ever brings washable plates.

 

For one breakfast we do the pancakes in bulk. with each den supposed to bring enough sausage, bacon, milk, juice, eggs, donuts, muffins, poptarts, or whatever else to feed their people so the pancakes are just bonus. but we put it all out and eat it all together, and end up with a nice breakfast feast. I like to do that sunday morning which slows people down enough that they stay thru scout's own service, flags and to help clean up everything. The kids are also very very starved on Sunday after playing all day long on Saturday.

 

[Eagle92]

We used to have a "Pack Cook Crew" with their pig cooker do the cooking. Did Saturday Dinner and Sunday Breakfast. When they moved up to Boy Scouts, while we tried to continue doing that, we had challenges.

 

I know I organized one event's meals, only to have people either not pay, show up, or leave early due to weather. Luckily the OA was camping the next weekend and they bought the unused supplies from us.

 

Another time we we had all this food ready to go, and severe weather hit causing folks to go home after dinner. We had a very hearty dinner that nite.

 

Last camp out, every family for themself. Kinda sad, but it worked out.

[njdrt-rdr]

We have one major pack campout each year and the pack adults do all the cooking. We start the outdoor camp cooking at the weblos level and start it when we go to Webelo level events where they can operate as a small group like a boyscout patrol would do. Our first one at the end of bear year we did cereal/oatmeal one morning, pancakes/sausage the next and dutch over lasagna for dinner. I precooked the meat and they mixed it and layered it in the ovens. It was a good first start.

[BigSprings]

Jumping in here because we just did our Fall campout last weekend...

 

Our Pack does individual cook for both breakfasts and lunch, but we do a Pack dinner. A few leader volunteers organize and make the main course, and all families bring sides, desserts, tableware, drinks, to share. We collect donations at dinner time, and usually offset the cost.

 

Last weekend we did BBQ pork skewers, BBQ chicken, 60 lbs of potatoes baked on charcoal in foil, and fresh salad to feed 100+ people. It worked out pretty well, but there was a lot of prep/pre-cooking ahead of time by a few adults. We did 'gourmet foil packs' in the spring, which was again a lot of prep work by a few, but we made and cooked 100+ foil packs with a lot of success.

 

I'm thinking of deep frying a few turkeys for our Oct2013 trip, doing a 'Thanksgiving in October' (Canadian?) theme with all families helping with the sides. Giant stock pots of instant mashed potatoes, stuffing, green been casserole in dutch ovens...why not!