Patrol Cooking: Not Your Typical Summer Camp Meal

[Eagledad]

I'm saddened that the write up is looked as old school or nostalgic. Maybe its because cooking is becoming a lost skill that it's being recognized as a primary means of building teams, self confidence, and even character. Could be what this discussion really exposes is that we are loosing the art of patrol method. While preparing meals and KP is an excellent method of patrol method, its not the only method. Do scouters understand the applications and benefits of patrol method?

 

For our troop, summer camp has always been about improving our patrol method habits and skills, not about advancement. Of course we push fun first and advancement second to the scouts, but for the goals of developing growth in character, we purposly are pushing the scouts to function as a patrol 24 hours day for about eight days.

 

We do this also on regular camp outs, but 8 days of living together at a more intense pace pushes everyone outside their comfort zone where the Scout Law really has to come into play for everyone to mold as a team. Experts say that a group needs at least 36 hours of working together to gain a benefit of growing as a team. That works out well for weekend campout. But summer camp just adds that little extra stress to polish a patrol. It also can break it as well.

 

But I think my original point is that many if not most adults don't quite understand the real objective of using patrol method to apply it better and more efficiently and effectively way of developing citizens of character and leaders of integrity.. The scouting game is a fun way of teaching scouts how to react to stress using the Scout Law. That is really the basis of it all. The behavior habits they learn in scouting should be carried with them the rest of their lives.

 

Are we short changing our scouts when they dont cook breakfast or the adults cook for the scouts? Cooking and clean up should be complex enough that almost the whole patrol is required to get it completed in the limited time given. That is the old way and I think what the write up was all about.

 

Good discussion. I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

 

[Tampa Turtle]

Cooking, not reheating in a microwave, is a real life skill. Locally cooking classes are full for kids, especially boys in part of TV chef shows and in part because of the economy. Cooking is again seen as a valuable skill. I do not think it is nostalgic at all.

 

I know my boys after cooking over a fire or camp stove find cooking in a kitchen with an electric oven a breeze.

 

I agree that summer camp is an excellent opportunity for a patrol to learn to work together cooking as a team.

[Tampa Turtle]

Cooking, not reheating in a microwave, is a real life skill. Locally cooking classes are full for kids, especially boys in part of TV chef shows and in part because of the economy. Cooking is again seen as a valuable skill. I do not think it is nostalgic at all.

 

I know my boys after cooking over a fire or camp stove find cooking in a kitchen with an electric oven a breeze.

 

I agree that summer camp is an excellent opportunity for a patrol to learn to work together cooking as a team.

[Stosh]

I'm surprised that "cooking" for a lot of troops consists of re-hydration, plastic bags and boiling water.

 

Even the complete pancake mix of just adding water requires no more effort than venting a can of beans and putting next to a fire.

 

Boys think they are learning to cook, but for the most part only reheat previously prepared meals/mixes.

 

At least one of the MB's does require a boy to catch, clean, cook and eat a fish. At least it's a start, but that is at the MB level. Basic cooking is a T-FC requirement which most boys fudge enough on that they actually can get "credit" for not really cooking at all.

 

None of this is all that difficult, but it does take time to teach and actually cook.

 

How many boys actually know that any 9"X13" can be adapted to two 9" pie pans and cooked in two standard dutch ovens?

 

A real stew can be made with fresh ingredients prepared at home, put in plastic bags and dumped into a dutch oven and cooked easier than most re-hydrated meals? Taste better too.

 

A mess kit is really cook-ware, not dinner-ware? How many scouts/scouters have ever noticed that the cup in a mess kit is marked as a measuring cup?

 

A mess kit is really a mini-dutch oven?

 

Etc.....

 

By the time most scouts get to Eagle rank, never having had to actually start a fire, can actually cook for themselves?

 

When I was SM we attended a summer camp that provided stoves. When the boys realized it wasn't gas stoves but the old shepherd's stoves they were really bent out of shape. They played with the fire, etc., but cooking didn't go over very well. They put the griddle on the stove and did 6 pancakes at a time. I suggested they clean off the top of the stove and oil it up. They did and then all of a sudden they could do 20 pancakes at one time. For the rest of the week, it was a battle as to who got to cook! And yes, they did figure out that one can make a cobbler in a fry pan.

 

Last time I cooked while primitive camping (sandbar camping on a kayak trip) it was, steak w/sauteed onions , rice, corn on the cob, coffee using only mess-kits and a lighter. The breakfast was fresh blueberry pancakes, sausage and camp coffee. It was a luxury having a kayak carry a small cooler because it really made a wider variety of options for meals.

 

Where did I learn all this? I can guarantee everyone it wasn't by eating in a camp mess-hall.

 

Stosh

[GKlose]

We found a camp, in an adjacent council, that is truly patrol-oriented. When I told my old DE about it, he asked, "why not go to our camp? you can do patrol cooking there..."

 

I answered that patrol-oriented is way more than just patrol cooking. I also asked him if he'd ever visited the camp. He said no, and basically asked why he'd want to. Silly me, I thought checking out your competition would be routine. It certainly is in my world.

 

Anyway -- patrol cooking at this camp. Works well -- there is a standard menu, and also a commissary list where you can choose deviations if you'd like. I noticed this last year, though, they are somewhat stingy with the protein. Equivalent of 1 egg for breakfast, or 3 ounces of protein (per person) for lunch/dinner. You have a patrol of teens, though, and they're going to feel underfed.

 

On the other hand, I've run into many SMs who basically say "I don't want my guys to spend their time at summer camp cooking and cleaning." But I counter with the idea that absolutely no program time or free time (open swim, etc) is lost in this camp. What you lose is what I call idle time. That's the time where nothing is going on in camp, and Scouts are usually in their campsites. During those times, two Scouts might be cooking, two might be working on sweeping the latrine, or refilling fire buckets. That sort of thing. Or just sitting around. There's less of that than when we went to a regular program camp.

 

Another big difference about this camp -- daily program areas are visited by the patrol, not by individual scouts. They do not cater to individual merit badge class schedules. Instead, the patrol might choose a daily program based on either a merit badge they'd like to work on, or just on fun. For example, this year our guys worked on four merit badges (over five days): Horsemanship, Wilderness Survival, Watersports and Climbing. They didn't complete requirements in any single MB, but they made fairly good progress in each. The fifth day was something like a low COPE course. Teambuilding games and exercises, and an obstacle course to run. They had a great week, and worked together well as a group (because they'd done this last year, they could typically cook, eat and clean up in about the same time as they'd wait in a morning assembly, meal time and announcements afterward). Did they miss the campwide assembly time? No, because we had an assembly prior to morning program and prior to evening program, every day. About the only thing they didn't get is the after-meal singing/shouting that happens in a dining hall. But they did get some of that at the campwide campfires.

 

I've been to five different camps, and I'd rate this one patrol-oriented camp as the best I've ever experienced. I couldn't possibly argue that it is one of the best camps in the country, or even in the area, but I think it is the best I've seen.

 

Guy

[Tampa Turtle]

Guy,

 

I think you have a good argument there. My two camp experiences were that there was a lot of idle time wasted marching to the dining hall, waiting to get in, waiting to get served, etc. Time spent is probably a wash.

[qwazse]

BPT, why don't you think Summit and patrol cooking go together?

 

Logistically, would it be any harder to provision raw ingredients at the beginning of the week (include vouchers's for the perishables) and allow the boys to plan their meals for the week according to their preference?

 

I suspect Jamboree will operate more along the lines of commissary style, where ingredients are picked a half hour before meal times. Still I'm sure the boys will have plenty of time to enjoy the day's activities.

[Tampa Turtle]

Commissary style could be kind of fun to see what different things Patrols could make with the same ingredients.

 

I think a week long camp trip would make for a VERY educational experience in planning food for a week without refrigeration. I do think it is doable for the boys though toting would be a major challenge without some sort of food drop/resupply.

[Stosh]

The camp I used to attend allowed for the boys to do their own menus and bring their own food. The menu was sent in early. It was verified by the camp as nutritious and approved. The boys then packaged up 3 boxes for each meal. One non-refrig, one refrig and one frozen if needed. If they did not need refrig/freezer they would pick up just the one box. They were marked accordingly and then they went up to the commissary and picked up their boxes for the patrol and took it back to the camp to prep. They received a discount on their fees accordingly.

 

Stosh

[GKlose]

I really like the system at the camp we attend -- sure, our council has "patrol cooking" (with a commissary list; and I'm sure that if we just wanted to bring our own food, they'd assist us in anyway possible). And I would agree -- in that system, you miss out on the communications at assemblies and in the dining hall after meals. The place where we go -- the assemblies/flag ceremonies are at different times (8:45am, just prior to morning program start, and at 6:45pm, just prior to evening program start).

 

Just in case anyone is curious -- the patrol-oriented camp where we attend has a commissary, with fairly high A/C and large walk-ins, and tons of large coolers (100+ qt size). We get two deliveries a day, at a central site near every campsite. 6:30am, we get a cooler that contains breakfast and lunch food. Cooling is, more or less, provided by frozen milk half-pints and frozen juice containers. When they're set out, they typically thaw by mealtime. A frozen juice bag is meant to be packed with your lunch (I've made a mental note to bring an insulated lunch bag for next year -- forgot to do it this year). Breakfasts are standard camp breakfasts -- pancakes, french toast, egg sandwiches, etc. Or you can custom order from a commissary list. Lunches are usually some kind of lunch meat and cheese, apples or oranges, cookies, chips, something like that. We get a small delivery of paper bags and zip-locks to go with them. Every kid packs the lunch and carries it to their program area for the day. The staff member(s) at the program area have already pre-packed their lunch that same morning, and sit with Scouts for lunch, at their program areas. Adults don't get lunch out of the morning cooler, rather they meet at a central site, meet with commissioners and camp director or program director, and pack their lunch there.

 

The commissary staff comes in mornings only, I think. They pack dinner coolers and the next morning's breakfast/lunch coolers. They are very nice, and accommodating, and I've dropped in several mornings to do things like make modifications (one hot week, for example, none of us were drinking cocoa, so I removed it from our request list) or to check labels (we have a kid with a dairy/egg allergy that can't eat quite a bit of processed food or baked goods).

 

The commissioner staff takes care of the coolers in the afternoons and mornings. At 4:30pm, they pick up dinner coolers and deliver them to the "comm site" in the middle of all the campsites. They carry the empty ones back to the commissary later on, and then in the morning, they take care of loading and delivering the morning coolers. Honestly, the camp is small enough that they could make individual cooler deliveries at every campsite, but I like the system they have. With delivery to the central comm site, buddy pairs have to plan in advance to pick up the cooler at the right time.

 

Our first year doing this, it was awkward. Our Scouts didn't know what to expect. This last year went much smoother. With a food pickup by 6:30am, we were done with breakfast, and cleaned up, by 7:30am. The *only* awkward part was that we were to have a staff member or two eat breakfast with us, and they would show up any time between 7:45am and 8:15am. I talked to the camp directory about this, but he told us not to worry about the staff member. They always have a "plan B" when it comes to eating. I didn't like that so much. I'd rather that they were with us having breakfast at 7:15am. But the camp director has to worry about their off-hours (for example, a late night staff meeting might mean they are up late the next morning). We still had "idle time" from about 7:30am until morning assembly at 8:45am. Program starts at 9am.

 

Same thing in the afternoon. Food delivery at 4:30pm (the day's program ends at 3:30pm, free time -- open swim, etc, from 3:30pm to 4:30pm). There wasn't a single dinner that took longer than an hour to prep -- so it was a trick to time it so that we were done, roughly around 6pm, eat and then clean up. Evening assembly at 6:45pm, evening program at 7pm. There was plenty of time to get that all done.

 

Here's the thing, though, which I think I pointed out in the prior note. This isn't an advancement-oriented camp. They don't have individual merit badge classes. But patrol can work on certain merit badges in certain program areas. For example, I heard of a new Scout patrol that worked on Swimming merit badge at the waterfront. Our guys worked on Wilderness Survival, Climbing, Watersports and Horsemanship (earning 4 partials -- they're working on finishing them up with other counselors now).

 

Guy

[BDPT00]

"BPT, why don't you think Summit and patrol cooking go together?"

 

*** I'm not the one making the plans. Just stating what I think will happen.

And by the way, what "style" of cooking do you think Venturers will use? I think they detest the word "patrol."

BDPT00

[WVCubDad]

So at the risk of "exposing" these to others, who are these camps, what are the web sites and what else can you tell us about them (program, costs, negatives)? They sound very interesting, especially Guy's.

 

Good article BTW, thanks Kudu!

 

John

Scoutmaster

Troop 25

Shenandoah Area Council

[qwazse]

BDPT00 And by the way, what "style" of cooking do you think Venturers will use? I think they detest the word "patrol."

 

Well, I've been to enough gatherings to learn that there are "cabin", "tent", "hammock", and "maybe a tarp, when the rain gets heavy" venturers. Needless to stay, cooking style varies with each type. Because my crew has not expressed interest in Jambo or the national youth cabinet, I have avoided stepping in the ring to advise Summit's set-up. Maybe someone more involved will be able to give us a hint as to what they expect would happen.

 

You are right about "patrol"! I think the concept is okay with them on one level, but at that age they are trying to widen their social circles, so they don't want to feel "stuck" in an adult-fabricated structure (even if their little cliques are no great shakes)! So ...

 

I pull the old bait-and-switch with my crew. Since we hike in wilderness recreation areas, we traverse ground in "contingents" no greater than 10 (including the requisite two adults -- four if co-ed -- who I personally train ahead of time to act as observers barring imminent danger). As such, they must form their contingents months in advance and come up with hike plans, tour permits, supplies etc... They are free, but not obligated, to coordinate with the other contingents. The adults may help with the shopping or serving the youth as requested -- but they are not to veto or otherwise question the youth's menu. (I am generally extremely accommodating to my female adult leaders, but when they cross that line into "mom territory", they hear from me.)

 

The only practical difference between "contingents" vs. "patrols" is that the former are more ad-hoc and driven by the activity -- not the age or rank of the youth.

 

And honestly, I've never eaten better than when with a co-ed contingent who has been given full reign over the menu.

 

Your mileage will vary!(This message has been edited by qwazse)

[BadenP]

 

My crew uses the phrase the "Crew Cruise Cuisine Method". They all love to show off their gourmet skills on the various outings they plan.

[GKlose]

I wasn't trying to be coy, I was just hoping to minimize the "acting like a shill" part...

 

The camp we've attended the last two summers is Camp Bell, in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, which is part of the Griswold Scout Reservation, Daniel Webster Council. The website is here: http://www.nhscouting.org/openrosters/ViewOrgPageLink.asp?LinkKey=11456&orgkey=1812

 

Honestly, I am so enamored of the camp, that I am hard-pressed to think of a negative. Some people may be a little put off by it because it is so rustic (there are really only just a few structures in camp). Program areas are typically nothing more than a couple of picnic tables and a dining fly. There is no dining hall (there is an administration building, with a small trading post window, and a commissary and the nurse's office). There is a stable and paddock, a very nice climbing barn, and a relatively new shower house next to the campsites. There are a few staff cabins, which are also rented out in the winter.

 

I've repeated often, "I love the hill!". The campsites are all on top of a small hill, up from the main parking lot and administration building. Car-camping troops that like to drive in and out and unload equipment will probably be disappointed. The camp asks that you pack in and out (they provide pretty much all patrol cooking equipment, tables and flies) -- but they do allow one vehicle to drive up (and lots of troops do bring their trailers for the week).

 

Some troops will be disappointed that it is not a merit badge mill. There are about 20 possible day programs, in about 5 program areas, and not too many merit badges offered (and most merit badges would only end up being partials). The Camp Bell Leader's Guide explains all of this.

 

Camp Staff is "skeletal" for lack of a better word. Program areas are staffed by one or two staff members, and the commissioner staff tends to float from program area to program area as needed. A couple of examples to illustrate: the camp was planning on having two "wranglers" on staff this summer, but one got a better offer at the last minute. So there was only one wrangler. One member of the commissioner staff would accompany during trail rides. Another example: some days the waterfront is loaded up with patrols: some working on instructional swimming or swimming merit badge, some sailing, some kayaking or snorkeling, some building rafts for a "castaway outpost" that night. Since they don't do swim checks on Sunday afternoons, they open each morning by cycling everyone who needs a swim check that day. You'll find the camp director, the program director and other commissioners there, assisting with the morning swim checks. By 9:30am, they are all on their way to whatever else they had to do that day. All in all, I counted about 20 staff members total. For this camp, 120 Scouts in camp is a pretty heavy load.

 

I'm not sure how many total campsites there are, but as an example, we shared a campsite with another troop -- they had two patrols, and we had one patrol. Other adjacent campsites had troops with two patrols each.

 

Although we could have carted up a troop trailer, we didn't. We just brought the minimum that we needed: one lantern, a first aid kit, the troop flag, a couple of water containers. From last year's experience, I remembered to bring some extra zip-locks, a roll of paper towels and some extra vegetable oil (the camp-supplied griddle needed a little bit of TLC).

 

Anyway -- I love this camp. Of the camps I've visited, I think this is the best I've seen. But -- it will not be for everyone. There are some troops that only want summer camp for advancement, and this isn't necessarily the one for them. For building and reinforcing patrol spirit, and the patrol method, this is a great camp.

 

Cost is about on-par with other camps in the area. I think this year's rates were about $350 to $375 (there are all sorts of discounts available). In this area, regular program camps don't usually go below $300 or so. The northeast is expensive, no doubt about it.

 

Guy