Camping Cooking disasters

[Overlandman]

Its been a while since the last post, putting this back on the front page so we can have the pleasure of reading about others disasters

[dannnnn]

standing over the top of a campfire to light a whole bunch of shellite was a pretty dumb move... but thankfully only a close call!!

i think the dumbest one has to go to a car camping meal -- we were going kayaking up the noosa river from harry's hut and he'd made up an excellent risotto in the morning, spent *&%$#! ages on it and had it in a cast iron pot ready to go on the stove when we got to camp hungry for dinner. thoughtfully, he'd even brought along a six pack for us to share! unfortunately the lid of the cast iron pot bumped off on the dirt road, and smashed the six pack into the pot. we had no beer, and we had glass in our dinner. so sad!

[Tortoise]

Ok, so maybe the time has come to 'fess up to somebody - why not the world?!

Some decades ago...a few of us took turns to organise/cook some dinners on a long walk. It must have been the first day after a food drop (someone joined us at a forestry road with the next week of food, someone left with the said car, our rubbish etc.)

I had the brilliant idea to use tinned ham in a dish that night (NOT spam btw) - take it out of the tin, carry in billy, send tin out with rubbish. Well, apparently I didn't notice the blow fly that snuck in. Took lid off billy a few hours later, to find the ham crawling with maggots.

Choices:
1. Serve up a protein-free dinner of quite small serves and less flavour.
2. Remove maggots, cook well, and keep mouth shut. Perhaps even a little extra protein.

So technically not a disaster in the end - nobody was any the wiser, nobody had any ill effects, apart from the sinking feeling in my own tummy.

[Onestepmore]

A few fresh maggots don't eat much

[Lizzy]

On a camp with a bunch of school kids it was the final night feast where they got to cook roast lamb in a camp oven- yum! Unless of course the use yellow dish washing detergent instead of oil :O

[PTCB]

Some time ago I was a White Water Rafting guide. We often did overnight trips and tried our best to cook great meals on the riverbank for our guests.
There is nothing better than Rafting all day in absolute tranquillity and beauty, setting up camp and relaxing.
On one particular trip the BOSS decided to come along. We used Trangias most of the time with big woks. On planning for the trip the BOSS decided to get the
supplies for the trip which I usually did. He came back with everything we needed and we started packing for the trip the next day!!
On packing I found "sheltie" instead of metho. I fronted BOSS and he assured me that is what we used in Trangias! Well I said!!
Mate, Shelite isn't the right fuel for Trangias. As you could imagine BOSS won the argument with me muttering my "your #$*@ Company"
as my last words of protest!

We had a great first day, every one was hungry after a big day.I knew what was coming and felt really bad for the customers.
As soon as we fired up those Trangias Great big Billowing black clouds of soot flowed everywhere! Giggle Giggle to myself and
suddenly BOSS started looking worried!! The food tasted like kerro, it was inedible and the punters were disgusted. The pots and
everything were caked with black soot and went through everything!

Thank god we were only on an overnight trip and got through ok in the end. I pride myself on the way I present myself to people and on this
occasion I had to do a fair bit of swallowing. It took days to kleen up after the trip and BOSS really never recovered from the embarresment!!

To his credit he did half the price of the trip for them. So as we all know "the BOSS isn't always right"

[Lophophaps]

A mate had a birthday in the bush, and had a lovely tin of plum pudding. Simple. Boil for 20-30 minutes, open, serve with custard. Trouble was he forgot to keep adding water; the billy was on a fire. Then he just forgot. It was probably the red wine and singing that led to this.

Finally he muttered something on the lines "Excrement. I think it's hot." Well it was. He took the billy off the fire and there was no water left. He then poured water in, much steam and grinding of metal, and watched some water come out the hole at the bottom of the billy where it had melted. Bummer.

He tipped the tin onto the ground and opened the tin. Whoosh! Much steam escaped. With the tin opened the contents looked ... dark. Tip the pud onto a plate and it was still dark. Charcoal in fact. "Okay" he sez, "just needs a little trimming." This was done until he came to the perfect pud in the middle. About as big as a stock cube.

There was unhappiness.

Another trip, SW Tassie. In food drops, never use the store bottle for shellite . They break. Food tasting of shellite for a week does not appeal.

[Pongo]

I'll have to remove a little bit of detail from this story so forgive its brevity.

A group of inexperienced hikers head out into the bush with everything they need to be self sufficient. The appointed cook of the group fronts up with a whole chicken - frozen! Of course by the time they reach camp it will be nice and defrosted. Nom, nom, fresh chicken. The problem with this of course, is that when hiking, there are very few places to store a frozen chicken...

So off into the wilds they head with a frozen chicken secured on the back of their pack tethered to a piece of guy line, chicken swinging like a pendulum.

The cook takes a fall... the chicken follows through and collects the cook square in the face. A concussion and an evac later, the chicken is still rock solid and no one gets dinner.

I still PMSL thinking about this story. Hahaha

[perfectlydark]

I just laughed out loud accidently and im here beside my daughter in hospital. Thats a cracker of a story.. lol just tie the chicken to your bag. She'll be right...

[jickham]

Not really bushwalking... but was camping with my girlfriend and my mate and his girlfriend at the Aire River campsite off the Great Ocean Road and we were using the coleman gas cooker. All of a sudden in the nice clear night the regulator starts spitting fire everywhere. I stare stupidly at a potential MOAB in the making yelling at my friend while running away "Turn it off TURN THE GAS OFF".. I didn't play the hero that night.

Luckily the gas cylinder was near full and there was no risk of negative pressure

Could have been worse...

[Onestepmore]

Not a bushwalking cooking disaster story, but a broke student story. We were in a shared house in Newtown, Sydney, with it's mice and attendant cockroaches. We were able to afford one meat based meal each week, and had a tasty skirt steak casserole simmering on a cold weekend. For Botany we had had to collect 25 weeds and identify, dry and press them. We had, among others, castor oil bush specimens drying in the kitchen. Unfortunately the seed capsules burst, and the highly toxic seeds went everywhere, including in our stew. We contemplated eating it, but sensibly decided our lovely carnivorous dish must go down the loo. A very sad day. Castor oil bush contains ricin, which is a potential chemical warfare poison!

[perfectlydark]

Ah yepgood old ricin. Heisenberg would be proud

[Orion]

Not really a cooking disaster, but a friend with a lot of skiing experience but not much (if any) snow camping joined me for a 4-5 day winter ski trip to climb a 3500m peak in Yosemite NP. The first day he pulled out some baked potatoes from his pack for lunch. I thought this was rather extravagent as potatoes are kind of heavy. But he said they were his favorite food for endurance sports. Ok, good enough. Except that the next morning I learned that he'd packed enough baked potatoes not only for lunch but breakfast too for the whole 4-5 day trip! Needless to say they were frozen solid by then and not too edible in that state. We didn't make it to the peak.

[Moondog55]

I just remembered my only real disaster and it didn't include cooking. Camped at Blue Lake [ remember when we were allowed to do that?] and decided to have instant pudding for dessert, 1 pack chocolate 1 pack caramel 2 cups full cream milk powder dash or whiskey mix and leave to set; only thing was I forgot to triple the amount pf water needed and it was totally inedible

[SteveJ]

In an attempt at saving fresh drinking water I boiled dried pasta in sea water one night....it tasted more than a little salty and ruined the meal for the four people I was cooking for, worse part of it ...I'm a chef by trade

[perfectlydark]

Haha! Funny I would have thought that might almost work, given I add salt to water for pasta..obviously very different quantities

[Overlandman]

Its been a while since the last post, putting this back on the front page so we can have the pleasure of reading about others disasters

January 2014 was the last post, there must be a few more Camping Cooking Disasters out there to bring a smile to our faces

[Zone-5]

Don't fry bacon naked!

[walk2wineries]

Empty ALL your pack at the end of a walk... You don't need details, do you?

[vicrev]

Don't fry bacon naked!

More info please...!....

[north-north-west]

Empty ALL your pack at the end of a walk... You don't need details, do you?

Just tick one of the options:

a) Wet clothing now gone mouldy
b) Snack food now eliminated by local rodent population
c) Rubbish (including food scraps) now gone all smelly and yukky
d) Wet waterproofs still wet
e) Other (please specify)

[andrewa]

My brother in law came ski touring with me one weekend. He bought a frozen curry for dinner, in a ~20cm square container. Our billy was ~15cm diameter. Frozen food doesn't thaw out so well in the snow, nor do square things fit in smaller circles. Amazingly, he continued to do this on several occasions over the years, always with failure.

A

[Orion]

That's pretty funny, Andrew. :o)

[Zone-5]

...nor do square things fit in smaller circles. Amazingly, he continued to do this on several occasions over the years, always with failure.

...easy solution here, buy a square billy!

Evernew of Japan even has a 280gm titanium square pot.

[Overlandman]

Its been a while since the last post, putting this back on the front page so we can have the pleasure of reading about others disasters

It's been over a year since the last post.
Come on tell us about your disasters.

[Lukey]

Thanks, I've learned how to rehydrate my Dahl and will start sprouting immediately.

[pulseevents]

Mmm. This is hard to admit considering i am that guy that has everything packed, planned and thought out.
The last thing you want to find at the end of the 1st day on a 12 day hike when you remove the plastic cap on a gas can to screw the stove on is no thread. Some one grabbed the wrong gas cans. Hopefully i can be forgiven for lighting fires in a place where open fires are banned.

[MickyB]

Mmm. This is hard to admit considering i am that guy that has everything packed, planned and thought out.
The last thing you want to find at the end of the 1st day on a 12 day hike when you remove the plastic cap on a gas can to screw the stove on is no thread. Some one grabbed the wrong gas cans. Hopefully i can be forgiven for lighting fires in a place where open fires are banned.

So this happened on your first day but you continued on for 12 days knowing that you would have to light fires in an area where open fires are banned?

[pulseevents]

Not quite. We managed to get some arranged to be dropped for us where we could pick up on the third day.
And yes after driving 3000kms to alice springs and being transpotrted out to the end of the larapinta trail to walk back to alice, damn straight i was continuing on my trek.

[walk2wineries]

! pretty sure you could find a safe bit of sand or gravel for a fire on that track