SpEdScouter Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 I'd like to ask our international friends what unique foods they eat around the campfire that we might not see in the USA. For example, we sometimes cook food in foil. This is where you put your meat and vegatables in foil, wrap them up, and put them in the fire to cook. Then you eat right out of the foil. Do you do that? Do you cook in what we call a "Dutch oven"? Do you cook in cast iron? A common breakfast is what we call a "hobo meal". That is shredded potatoes, sausage, eggs, topped with cheese cooked in a dutch oven. What would you call that? Do you do s'mores? Do you do marshmallows? If your Scouts were to skewer or somehow attach a piece of food on a stick (like Americans do hot dogs) and then hold it over a fire to cook it, what would it be? Have your Scouts ever caught fish, then ate them that night for dinner? Do your Scouts cook from the basic ingredients at a campsite or do they bring some food pre-prepared? For example raw biscuit dough from a can? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambridgeskip Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 Food glorious food! Happy to oblige with a view from the UK..... Cooking in foil..... very common. Sometimes referred to as a "Cowboy meal". What we often do is put a slice of bread in the bottom of the parcel to stop the bottom of the meat or fish from burning. Most commonly done with pork chops or salmon steaks. Typically this is something used as an introduction to backwoods cooking leading onto more complex types of backwoods cooking using things like grass cuttings for steaming. Dutch oven - varies from group to group. It is less common now than it used to be. When I was a scout you would see it quite regularly but less so now. Hobo meal - not had that, sounds amazing and one I will be suggesting to the kids! Marshmallows - there would be insurrection if there weren't any marshmallows at camp. Personally I prefer jellie babies but the kids all think I'm a bit weird The kids though lap up the marshmallows. Smores are becoming more common. They are done by Girl Guides more than scouts, it's something we're seeing more and more of though. Skewers - Like you we'd do sausages. We also do dough twists. Popular with the kids are kebabs which typically have cubes of pork with mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and haloumi. Catching and cooking fish is sometimes done at the coast. It's less common inland where the restrictions on fishing in freshwater are often strong and expensive to get around. Land owners typically charge a huge amount for a permit to fish particularly in rivers. Basic ingredients - As it happens this is something my troop are doing more of recently. We baked our own bread on summer camp this year and on other camps made our own pizza bases. The site we were at wouldn't allow us to dig and build a clay oven so the work around..... we put a fire grid over the fire, pizzas on top of the grid and then put a sheet of foil over the top to reflect heat down to cook the toppings. Photos towards the bottom of this page here. Other favourites..... chocolate cakes cooked inside an orange. Bannanas with chocolate buttons in them. Apples, cored and stuffed with your preferred filling. Traditionally raisens and brown sugar. You might also see them stuffed with mars bars. Anything involving haloumie! Does that help? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vumbi Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 Try this: http://www.practicalprimitive.com/ashcakes.html Ash cakes can be made using many different recipes and is just doesn't get more 'campfire' than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pint Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 You could try a search for backwoods cooking a few things here http://www.nhscouting.org/openrosters/DocDownload.aspx?id=94626 While ive seen S'more mentioned, ive never tried them, or even seen them ( had to google them ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalicoPenn Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 Ok - what's haloumie? (yeah, I could google it, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one wondering). Bread on the bottom of the tinfoil packet to help keep the meat from burning.....ever have one of those moments where you see or read of something that should have been obvious for years? Perhaps you heard my hand slapping my forehaed just now! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwazse Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Arab American in the room here ... There's a dish called kibbee made of cracked wheat and ground meat (traditionally lamb, beef will do, but if you've caught a deer well with grinding a pound for this recipe). Spices/fillings include garlic, onions, pine nuts or cashews, and peppermint. It cooks up quite nicely in a foil pack or in a shallow D/O. Also stuffed grape leaves are pretty awesome if picked in the spring! Lots of recipies for that too. Oh, and then there's the pizzelle iron. I have a short-handled one that fits in my camp-box. On the bucket list: learning to grind spices (wild anise, etc ...) on the trail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattR Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Bread on the bottom of the tinfoil packet to help keep the meat from burning.....ever have one of those moments where you see or read of something that should have been obvious for years? Perhaps you heard my hand slapping my forehaed just now! Try onions with some butter or oil. As long as there's enough liquid I don't burn stuff. We're going camping this coming weekend. Maybe I'll try the kibbeh. Sounds like a great lunch plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambridgeskip Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Ok - what's haloumie? (yeah, I could google it, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one wondering). Bread on the bottom of the tinfoil packet to help keep the meat from burning.....ever have one of those moments where you see or read of something that should have been obvious for years? Perhaps you heard my hand slapping my forehaed just now! Halloumi (Got the spelling wrong before!) is a Cypriot cheese made specifically for cooking. You can theoretically eat it cold but it's like eating a salty lump of rubber. If you grill it, BBQ it or fry it it becomes absolutely delicious! It's popular among vegetarians as it's salty and fiberous in a way a lot of replacement protein sources just aren't. It was actually the scouts that introduced me to it when it started appearing on their menu plans. There's been no looking back ever since! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwilkins Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Another view from the UK here... As it happens, we camped at the weekend, and a meat and veg in foil was done. Breakfasts we try and do a full english most mornings, fried bacon, sausage, egg, tomato, and cooked baked beans, maybe some black pudding. It's always a bit tricky with lots of people as it's almost all fried, and that takes up lots of space, some sometimes it's scrambled eggs instead. Over the last few years we've got into dutch oven cooking more and more. We do one called South African Chicken Stew, no idea how authentically south african it is, as it's spiced with "cajun" spice, but anyway, always goes down well, as well as a chicken/chorizo in tomato thing we made that didn't have a recipe. "raw biscuit dough from a can?" I'm not sure we even have such a thing. We did have a phase of making flatbreads over fires, making the dough, and cooking it on a flat bit of steel (or frying pan) over the fire. Oh, pitta pocket pizzas, look like a car crash, usually taste great. "Have your Scouts ever caught fish, then ate them that night for dinner?" Yes, like CambridgeSkip says, sea fishing, over here, most lakes are small, and you go to all the trouble of catching a fish, then have to put it back, and if you did eat it, they'd probably taste like the bottom of a pond, not sure about rivers, fishing not my bag. Anyway, we did go sea fishing at summer camp a few years back, and caught enough fish for not just us, but all our neighbours too. We have a problem with American Signal Crayfish, escaped from captivity, and are spreading across the country rapidly, killing all the native species of crayfish...oversized, oversexed, and over here! Anyway, last year we camped at a local site with a river, put a trap out, and caught some, which you aren't legally allowed to put back, so we had to eat them Just looked at last summer camps menu... Gammon, veg, jacket potatoes Minced beef cobbler Spicy chicken Fish & Chips (bought) Beef Stroganoff and rice Chicken Fajitas It's all done from ingredients rather than pre-prepared stuff. And yes, at some point, marshmallows have to be cooked on the fire. Last week we had a curry night, but that was on gas in the hut, then again, no reason you couldn't do that on the fire in a dutch oven. The main problem we have in the UK is you look on the internet for dutch oven recipes, and so it's all a cup of this, and a cup of that, whereas we tend to use weights and volumes. On the other hand, you can buy your american cup measures over here, and I guess on camp it might be easier, we certainly don't take scales, though we might have a measuring jug, so things can be a bit vague at times. And it's probably a personal thing, but all this "8 briquettes on the bottom, 12 on top" business? Stick it on the fire! stop mucking about! Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpEdScouter Posted October 19, 2015 Author Share Posted October 19, 2015 Thanks for the replies so far. We had a camporee this weekend and I thought it would be interesting to give demonstrations about doing traditional Asian or at least non traditional foods on the campfire. For example it would be interesting to see what Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or Indian Scouts would eat on a campfore. But also say Pakistani, Russian, Polish, French, or Italian scouts would eat. You can get kind of an idea when you watch videos of the World Scouting Jamboree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpEdScouter Posted October 19, 2015 Author Share Posted October 19, 2015 Arab American in the room here ... There's a dish called kibbee made of cracked wheat and ground meat (traditionally lamb, beef will do, but if you've caught a deer well with grinding a pound for this recipe). Spices/fillings include garlic, onions, pine nuts or cashews, and peppermint. It cooks up quite nicely in a foil pack or in a shallow D/O. Also stuffed grape leaves are pretty awesome if picked in the spring! Lots of recipies for that too. Oh, and then there's the pizzelle iron. I have a short-handled one that fits in my camp-box. On the bucket list: learning to grind spices (wild anise, etc ...) on the trail. Kibbee sounds interesting. Hmmm. stuffed grape leaves. Only had that at restaurants so should be interesting at a campfire. Pizzelle? I looked that up. Is that a kind of waffle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpEdScouter Posted October 19, 2015 Author Share Posted October 19, 2015 "raw biscuit dough from a can?" Try this link: http://www.pillsbury.com/products/biscuits The main problem we have in the UK is you look on the internet for dutch oven recipes, and so it's all a cup of this, and a cup of that, whereas we tend to use weights and volumes. On the other hand, you can buy your american cup measures over here, and I guess on camp it might be easier, we certainly don't take scales, though we might have a measuring jug, so things can be a bit vague at times. And it's probably a personal thing, but all this "8 briquettes on the bottom, 12 on top" business? Stick it on the fire! stop mucking about! Ian Well for a Dutch oven you often need as much heat on the top as you do on the bottom so thats why you put some coals on top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwilkins Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Well for a Dutch oven you often need as much heat on the top as you do on the bottom so thats why you put some coals on top. Yeah, just seems very specific. I could understand it with the cobbler, as you had to brown the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stosh Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Just putting the DO on the fire is nothing more than frying with a cover. Not a problem if that's all one is doing. However, the DO is intended to be an oven with heat sources both on top and bottom. Too much neat on the bottom burns on the food, no heat on the top does't brown the top, The measured number of briquettes is just a way of regulating the actual baking temperature. 3 up and 3 down method (#12 oven uses 15 on top and 9 on the bottom) will give one a 350o oven. It's just a starting reference. If the recipe calls for a cool oven, take away briquettes equally and a hot oven add briquettes equally. If using wood instead of charcoal, just do an eyeball estimate of the briquette amount of heat using wood coals. Remember charcoal lasts twice as long as wood so the briquettes need to be changed out every hour, but wood needs to be changed out every half hour. For those who use weights instead of volumes, it might help to pre-measure the ingredients before the trip. I do that all the time anyway just to cut down on prep time and measurement hassles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdidochas Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Ok - what's haloumie? (yeah, I could google it, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one wondering). Bread on the bottom of the tinfoil packet to help keep the meat from burning.....ever have one of those moments where you see or read of something that should have been obvious for years? Perhaps you heard my hand slapping my forehaed just now! We put tater tots in the bottom of a tinfoil packet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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