Got a case before we went in 02.
Never again.
burning man foods you never want to eat, ever again
Dinty moore beef stew
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Sobretta Franjipan
- Posts: 130
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:57 pm
- Location: Los Angeles
We started a camping tradition at last year's burn by my bringing the Giant Can Of Tuna, the 5 lb. one from Sam's Club...I had threatened to buy it for months, solely due to my curiosity about what it looked like in that can. Finally bought it, and it sat on the shelf for months. It went to the Playa. It came back, unopened. (I think I used it as a stepladder to hang a pine tree air freshener in the dome- that's all the mileage it got.)
Now the members of Kamp Kalamazoo are engaged in a war to hand off "The Can", and soon I'll have to actually OPEN IT, empty the long-expired contents out and give them a Viking funeral. I'll be the guy at this year's burn with the hat made out of a #10 tuna can.........
Now the members of Kamp Kalamazoo are engaged in a war to hand off "The Can", and soon I'll have to actually OPEN IT, empty the long-expired contents out and give them a Viking funeral. I'll be the guy at this year's burn with the hat made out of a #10 tuna can.........
Howdy From Kalamazoo
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juanicoheal
- Posts: 167
- Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2004 4:47 pm
- Location: British Columbia
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webapalooza
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2004 8:29 pm
- Location: Rochester, NY
Maybe it's just me...
... but I actually LIKE the Tasty Bite entrees (can I call them that?) In fact, I actively sought them out in Reno in preparation for BM, and was ecstatic when I finally found them at Trader Joe's.
Okay, so maybe you got tired of eating them, but they really are close to the perfect BM food (gosh, that doesn't sound right now, does it?!) They're like the civilian version of military MREs. No refrigeration needed, unbreakable packaging that collapses easily for disposal, a variety of healthy delicious dishes to choose from -- what more could a veggie want?
The only trouble I had was cooking them (okay, heating them) on a Sterno stove. First, even a slight breeze blows the heat away, so I had to put the whole contraption in a lidless cardboard box. It also took a good 30 minutes to boil enough water to cook the rice. A propane Coleman stove would have been great, but they're not conducive to traveling via plane.
If you go this route in 2004, here's my tip: put the rice bag in the pot and then add just enough water to cover the rice bag (you'll need to hold it down with a fork because it will float). The less water the faster it will boil. Take out the rice and put the lid on the pot and light up that Sterno, baby! Check it periodically, and as soon as you see bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot, put the rice in there, replace the lid, and -- here's the big trick -- put the food bag on top of the pot. No, you won't be boiling the food bag like the directions say. But you're only interested in getting it hot enough to eat, and boiling it in water is overkill. Use the heat you've already generated on the lid of that pot. It also keeps the food in sync with the rice, so you're not cooking one after the other and letting the one that's already cooked get cold.
After 5 minutes, turn the rice bag over (it will have soaked up some of the water and no longer be completely submerged. That's okay -- it'll still cook as long as you flip it once halfway through cooking and keep the lid on to steam it a bit. Also flip over the food pouch on top of the lid to make sure you're getting the contents heated through (squishing the pouch to move the food around inside a bit inside helps, too).
I'm telling you, this process saved me from having to cart a giant cooler full of perishable foods out to the desert. And when you're flying, you're leaving anything big like that behind, so why invest in a giant cooler that you don't need? I had a medium-sized cooler for beverages and snack bars (a 20-quart Igloo on wheels that I boxed up and shipped back to myself because I liked it so much!)
Your neighbors might be grilling up burgers and chicken fillets, but they're also gambling with e-coli, salmonella, and having to store all that grease and then thoroughly clean up anything the raw meat has touched. Food poisoning on the Playa is not my idea of a fun way to spend my burn, thank you very much!
Oh, and I snacked on pretzels and peanut butter between meals. Sure, I was sick of it all by the time I left, but it's only 6 days and I've had worse (I spent 10 days backpacking in New Mexico as a Boy Scout and eating nothing but dehydrated foods the whole time -- gack! My BM menu was a veritable feast compared to that!)
Okay, so maybe you got tired of eating them, but they really are close to the perfect BM food (gosh, that doesn't sound right now, does it?!) They're like the civilian version of military MREs. No refrigeration needed, unbreakable packaging that collapses easily for disposal, a variety of healthy delicious dishes to choose from -- what more could a veggie want?
The only trouble I had was cooking them (okay, heating them) on a Sterno stove. First, even a slight breeze blows the heat away, so I had to put the whole contraption in a lidless cardboard box. It also took a good 30 minutes to boil enough water to cook the rice. A propane Coleman stove would have been great, but they're not conducive to traveling via plane.
If you go this route in 2004, here's my tip: put the rice bag in the pot and then add just enough water to cover the rice bag (you'll need to hold it down with a fork because it will float). The less water the faster it will boil. Take out the rice and put the lid on the pot and light up that Sterno, baby! Check it periodically, and as soon as you see bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot, put the rice in there, replace the lid, and -- here's the big trick -- put the food bag on top of the pot. No, you won't be boiling the food bag like the directions say. But you're only interested in getting it hot enough to eat, and boiling it in water is overkill. Use the heat you've already generated on the lid of that pot. It also keeps the food in sync with the rice, so you're not cooking one after the other and letting the one that's already cooked get cold.
After 5 minutes, turn the rice bag over (it will have soaked up some of the water and no longer be completely submerged. That's okay -- it'll still cook as long as you flip it once halfway through cooking and keep the lid on to steam it a bit. Also flip over the food pouch on top of the lid to make sure you're getting the contents heated through (squishing the pouch to move the food around inside a bit inside helps, too).
I'm telling you, this process saved me from having to cart a giant cooler full of perishable foods out to the desert. And when you're flying, you're leaving anything big like that behind, so why invest in a giant cooler that you don't need? I had a medium-sized cooler for beverages and snack bars (a 20-quart Igloo on wheels that I boxed up and shipped back to myself because I liked it so much!)
Your neighbors might be grilling up burgers and chicken fillets, but they're also gambling with e-coli, salmonella, and having to store all that grease and then thoroughly clean up anything the raw meat has touched. Food poisoning on the Playa is not my idea of a fun way to spend my burn, thank you very much!
Oh, and I snacked on pretzels and peanut butter between meals. Sure, I was sick of it all by the time I left, but it's only 6 days and I've had worse (I spent 10 days backpacking in New Mexico as a Boy Scout and eating nothing but dehydrated foods the whole time -- gack! My BM menu was a veritable feast compared to that!)
If you try, you may fail. But if you do not even try, then you have already failed.
Re: Maybe it's just me...
Is it just me, or does this sound like some vegetarian preachin goin on here?webapalooza wrote: Your neighbors might be grilling up burgers and chicken fillets, but they're also gambling with e-coli, salmonella, and having to store all that grease and then thoroughly clean up anything the raw meat has touched. Food poisoning on the Playa is not my idea of a fun way to spend my burn, thank you very much!
Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die!
Could be, but I am an enthusiastic meat eater yet discourage casual raw meat usage at BM. Many camps do very well at grilling up large quantities of the stuff and I'm all for that. The problem is people who pack a few steaks into the cooler (or as happened last year, in MY cooler without a waterproof bag around it) and it often does not go well. Either the cooler runs out of ice some afternoon and suddenly everything in the cooler is potentially contaminated or nobody wants to go through the hassle of cooking the stuff cause it's too hot during the day and too fun at night. It all ends up to more stinky trash to haul home. Come to think of it, even if you do consume it you'll usually have some stinky trash/cleanup issues.Is it just me, or does this sound like some vegetarian preachin goin on here?
Either do raw meat right (carefully stored and prepared) or don't do it at all. I was quite happy with my precooked delicacies. Just thaw, heat, and serve. No fuss.
totally
Of course I wasn't dissing veggies... didn't want it to sound like that.
I totally agree, if you can't keep your meat sealed, don't bring it to the playa. And yes, that goes for every other "meat" reference your dirty little minds are snikering at right now... WRAP IT UP!
I totally agree, if you can't keep your meat sealed, don't bring it to the playa. And yes, that goes for every other "meat" reference your dirty little minds are snikering at right now... WRAP IT UP!
Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die!