cooking gear for UK camping..who needs it ?

[DaveK]

Camping cooking gear is one of those things you really need to try once or twice to decide if its for you.

I've never actually taken cooking gear on a bike trip but i did once when i walked the west highland way a year or so ago. Weight is even more critical when you are carrying it on your back. With the amount of calories being burned a day i ended up having proper meals in pubs etc. I would rather save the weight and buy good grub to compensate. If no hot food is available then cold sandwiches etc will suffice for a day.

I wont be taking cooking gear with me on my next cycle/hike trip!

 

[saoirse50]

Just back from a ten day trip on Skye and a bit of the West Coast. Eating out every evening would have made this trip ( and all my cycle touring trips) unaffordable. Added to that, I would not have wanted to miss sharing a fresh fish and mussel bouillabaisse cooked outdoors together with my daughter on a beautiful sunny evening overlooking the Sound of Sleat and Knoydart, or even the hot chocolate brewed up inside a cosy warm tent after a wild wet windy ride down from Portree the day before.

 

[Crankarm]

On my first camping tour of the Lake District and Scotland ( many years ago ) I found that cooking gear was not worth the space/weight ... stove/fuel/pans/oil/seasoning/cutlery/extra water/ingredients etc.

In the UK we are never far away from a hot meal, often cheaper and more substantial than one small stove can muster, especially if butane is being used.

I never took the cooking gear again and I have since been to most parts of the UK and a few parts of Europe. The only thing I sometimes missed was a brew in the morning ( but I managed to cadge one on many occasions !! ). A cafe or pub meal once or twice a day supplemented by sandwiches/fruit etc always did me just fine, and it gave me a chance to meet the locals.

It would be interesting to hear your arguments for and against taking cooking gear, especially in the UK.

Frequenting cafes, greasy spoons, pubs and restaurants is obviously your thing. Great if it works for you and you like cardiac arrest inducing levels of salt and saturated fats, but you miss the whole point about cooking for yourself and being self sufficient whilst cycle touring.

 

[bigjim]

Good luck with finding a cheap meal in the UK. I have found that prices of a meal on the road have soared recently. Last week on a club run we stopped at one of our usual haunts. It had been taken over and updated, beans on toast was £3 and a cup of tea £1.80. We pass many pubs with signposts stating lunch at £12 etc. Unless you are in large urban conurbations where there is plently of
competition, eating out is not cheap. Down the chippy a fiver goes nowhere. Gas costs me about 20p to boil water and esbit about 10p. A tin of stewed steak with a tin of beans thrown in and heated up, with a yogurt for afters, lovely. Nothing more substantial than that. I could invade Russia after eating that lot.

 

[psmiffy]

Totally agree with bigjim about cost of eating out - however not with his philosophy wrt ingrediants (if he can recommend a brand of stewed steak that does not look and taste like dog food that is available in most of europe pls do )

I tend to actually buy better quality ingredients than I would at home (I am on holiday so I might as well treat myself ) - ie. thinly cut fillet, et.al and fresh vegetables to make cooking easier - I am still way ahead compared to buying the same meal in a restuarant/cafe - often better cooked than I can find in the establishments that would be available - higher value in refuelling the body - totally more satisfying both physically and mentally.

 

[Bodhbh]

but you miss the whole point about cooking for yourself and being self sufficient whilst cycle touring.

Well the point is there is no point, everyone does things there own way.

I'm not rolling in money, but for me touring has mostly been limited by time available not money (as it's a cheap as chips way to travel anyhow). So I like to go to the pub, eat a meal there, people watch, have a few pints, etc. If I was going on a 6month tour I would not carry on like this, but for 1 or 2 weeks in the UK or Europe, when it's my main holiday of the year anyhow, no problem.

Like DavidK above spent 2 weeks walking the Cape Wrath Way without cooking gear, prefered just to munch museli and powdered miik and stuff ourselves silly whenever we passed civilisation.

 

[psmiffy]

As an aside - when I am on tour I tend to eat more or less what I eat at home except that the variation comes with what I find locally.

Do you change your basic diet when you go on tour? I read with horror the accounts of many of our transalantic brethren that seem to survive (and horror is probably the correct word) on an diet exclusively composed of pot noodles (not cooking as I know it) and peanut butter sandwiches - many threads I see on this side of the Atlantic seem to discuss the pros and cons of various dehydrated products that would never be seen crossing the threshold of chez psmiffy in normal circumstances.

 

[bigjim]

I'm no cook and I don't think I have an educated palate. My likeness for stewed steak goes back to my camping days as a teenager when I also used to mix a raw egg in it. I never eat it at home [my wife would have a fit]. On the road I fill up with fruit for Lunch and cook my porridge for breakfast. I'll throw any leftover fruit in the porridge. In France last year, I picked masses of blackberries on my route which were delicious thrown in the morning porridge. I do also eat out in the evening but not every night as I am quite happy with whatever is in the tin I find in the nearest shop and maybe some nice bread to mop it up, plus a decent bottle of Red. A deprived [of food] childhood comes in useful enabling you to eat almost anything. My kids think I'm very strange. Whats wrong with Dogfood?

 

[Bodhbh]

Do you change your basic diet when you go on tour? I read with horror the accounts of many of our transalantic brethren that seem to survive (and horror is probably the correct word) on an diet exclusively composed of pot noodles (not cooking as I know it) and peanut butter sandwiches - many threads I see on this side of the Atlantic seem to discuss the pros and cons of various dehydrated products that would never be seen crossing the threshold of chez psmiffy in normal circumstances.

It seems a madness unless you're going somewhere without food for several days, just to eat rubbish for the sake of calories. I met someone on my last tour going across europe lugging about a 5kg bag of museli for rations and surviving off a 10 euro a day budget (wild camping with tarp, hammock, and lots of ticks). I travelled with him a couple of days and didn't mind sharing a bit, but come mealtimes eventually the sitution got arkward for both of us so I left him too it.

I eat the same stuff as home just moreso. Only difference is after a day on the bike seem to have a craving for huge slabs of meat in my evening meal. Not sure if there's any nutrional reason for this. Plus some cold beers.

I have to admit, when I've stopped in hostels or other places with access to a kitchen it is very satisfying cooking from whatever you can rummage up on the hoof.

 

[bigjim]

Define rubbish?

 

[Crankarm]

Define rubbish?

Sh*t food. Not healthy food. Processed food. The sort of pies that pubs and cafes serve that look like soggy cardboard or would bounce if you dropped them.

 

[Crankarm]

I'm no cook and I don't think I have an educated palate. My likeness for stewed steak goes back to my camping days as a teenager when I also used to mix a raw egg in it. I never eat it at home [my wife would have a fit]. On the road I fill up with fruit for Lunch and cook my porridge for breakfast. I'll throw any leftover fruit in the porridge. In France last year, I picked masses of blackberries on my route which were delicious thrown in the morning porridge. I do also eat out in the evening but not every night as I am quite happy with whatever is in the tin I find in the nearest shop and maybe some nice bread to mop it up, plus a decent bottle of Red. A deprived [of food] childhood comes in useful enabling you to eat almost anything. My kids think I'm very strange. Whats wrong with Dogfood?

Nothing .............. if you are a dog .

 

[Crankarm]

Good luck with finding a cheap meal in the UK. I have found that prices of a meal on the road have soared recently. Last week on a club run we stopped at one of our usual haunts. It had been taken over and updated, beans on toast was £3 and a cup of tea £1.80. We pass many pubs with signposts stating lunch at £12 etc. Unless you are in large urban conurbations where there is plently of
competition, eating out is not cheap. Down the chippy a fiver goes nowhere. Gas costs me about 20p to boil water and esbit about 10p. A tin of stewed steak with a tin of beans thrown in and heated up, with a yogurt for afters, lovely. Nothing more substantial than that. I could invade Russia after eating that lot.

Yeah practically blow them away having eaten a tin of beans .

 

[Bodhbh]

Define rubbish?

What I mean is dehydrated food, energy bars, spoonfeeding peanut butter and cereal. All the energy dense stuff that you wouldn't normally eat unless you had too because you are burning a bunch of calories in the middle of nowhere. I can't see why anyone would want to eat that stuff if they can either eat a proper meal or cook something in their tent.

 

[compo]

People keep on about cooking in their tent. I have been a keen backpacker for much of my life and have camped and wild camped throughout Britain. I have never cooked in my tent. I often lie on my stomach with just my shoulders out of the flap but my cooker is always outside. I appreciate that modern fabrics are much more fire resistant than they where years ago but tent fires are not uncommon. the tent also gets full of fumes and muck carried by the steam. I prefer to cook outside and keep my tent clean and fresh.