Camp Cooking: The Black Feather Guide: Eating Well in the Wild

Whilst running a session on expedition catering over a fire at the UK Canoe Symposium the other weekend, I got asked the question I dread the most……  ’Have you got this written down in some notes?’

The truth is that yes I have some notes, some menu’s from trips and some recipes but it was not all in a easy to access manner, and I was kicking myself slightly for not having something pre-prepared.

Upon getting home, I decided that I would start writing up my thoughts and doing some research as to what texts are currently available on the subject.  As I suspected there is some pretty average and not well thought out books out there, but when I stumbled across ‘Camp Cooking – The Black Feather Guide to Eating Well in the Wild’ this attitude quickly changed.

Written by seasoned expedition guides Mark Scriver, Wendy Grater and Joanna Barker, this book guides you through a journey for developing thoughts, attitudes and behaviours you need to have whilst catering for yourself and/or others whilst on a trip.  It is practical in content and full of useful efficient, effective ideas for producing good wholesome grub.

With chapters on ‘Kitchen Equipment’, ‘Cooking Skills’, ‘Menu Planning’, ‘Packing  the Food’ and ‘Recipes’, the book goes to great effort to ensure that you are comfortable and informed, when dealing with most conditions.  Great thought is places around the practicalities of camp selection, management of water, management of food and what food to eat when.

The book doesn’t go into pit cooking, making clay ovens, cooking whole animals, trapping etc and I for one am grateful for this.  As these things very often can require the inexperienced person using more calories in energy to do these activities, than they actually gain from them.  My friend Jed Yarnold often points out that we have a lot to learn from the Japanese, who cut up there food in to small strips, and cook it very quickly using little effort or fuel.  Maximum bang for you buck, although when you have a little time and more fuel this obviously isn’t the only answer.

So would I improve anything?  In my opinion this book covers everything you need to consider when cooking on camp or on expeditions, I might add a few other tips I use and possibly some more recipes, but I guess you can just get creative on that front.  Perhaps some more focus on using a upturned wok & a oven tray as a camp oven over a fire, for example as opposed to taking the additional weight of a campoven with you may have been useful.  Maybe this is splitting hairs however.

I short, this is a well packaged, presented, informative and useful text, that will set you up (with a little practice at home) to eat like a king, no matter where you are

For my part, I am going to leave the idea of compiling notes, using this text as the answer for many people.  I am going to continue to run great expeditions, offering people superb fresh imaginative food (even on day 14) in amazing settings.  In terms of my notes, I will start taking better care of writing down my culinary creations and then publicising them on here for you all to enjoy.

If you would like a copy of this great book, please consider buying via this Amazon weblink it is linked to the great canoeing web forum Song of the Paddle, with a small amount of money from the book value going towards the running of the site.  The book details are:

Name:  Camp Cooking: The Black Feather Guide: Eating Well in the Wild

Cost:    £14.20

ISBN 978-1-896980-31-7

Happy Cooking, Camping and Expeditions Folks

Tags: Black Feather, Canoe Expeditions, cook book, Expeditions, Food, Lifestyle, Recipe, Rob Yates, Travel

• 22/11/2011
• Uncategorized
• 3 comments