Cooking

It's hardly a novel observation but wherever and however I get to places I certainly love my food and food cerainly plays a part in scouting not least when you're at camp because cooking and eating are basic social functions.

Over the years a variety of publications have come out to help with not just building the fire to get our cooking utensils over but what makes for bestest most practical things to cook while at camp over our fire.

Good food plays are part in keeping spirits up and ensuring you've enough energy for the day's activity so this Guides handbook is really quite useful.

Here's something similar but by Girl Scouts, the American branch although I suspect the fire may take a bit more to really get going.

Cooking a meal

I always loved the outdoors especially a camp with friends around who all muck to make things happen.

Having got our fire lit, we are entrusted to keep it going while we are cooking our meal which I suspect will be a stew of some kind or other in the pot.

Fires bring out primeval elements  and teaching a boy how to prepare and light it is a sensible  move in teaching him independence and maturity having to be responsible for something others depend on.

Fixing a meal

A shade of the past from when you cooked using a small tin your rations and ate them from it saving on the washing up afterwards mirroring what was prevalent in the armed services and to which you could often find in the military surplus stores cheaply.

With the trend particularly in the younger sections toward the use of self contained facilities that may even have catering it isn't something all scouts today have experience of. 

Anyone for hot dogs?

Still at camp on what looks very much like a warm bright summer's day, sat on a plastic box, a cub helps out a scout doing fried sausages possibly for hot dogs slicing the rolls ready insert the sausage and onions.

I can tell you know now whenever I've been camping or a similar activity with others away, there's never been a hot dog or burger left which isn't about my appetite but rather the universal appeal of cooked meats on a flame so there's no waste. 

Camp food prep

The pack and its leader are altogether at on logs that are like improvised benches armed with the pans and billy cans ready to chop and peel food into in groups ready to go on the big fire to cook their meal.

Fresh food stuffs are generally speaking much healthier so provided you get from on location it makes sense to use them preparing yourself which is also a skill worth teaching through scouting even if it is just how to peel and cut carrots and potatoes. 

Enjoying our food

Camp food while not being the focus nontheless plays an important part in camps in scouting because eating isn't just about getting the right sort of food to sustain you, it's also very much a social thing that requires you to take turns in making food, sharing and eating collectively as that pack unit.

Here this boy is enjoying a hot dog which given his alpine shorts, is almost certain to be a Germanic type of sausage

The great outdoor cooking challenge

Having got a fire going, it is time to get some old school cooking done so given we've no controls, you have to sit by turning things over to ensure through cooking, removing when properly cooked ready for the remainder of the pack.