And now... for something completely different :) Long term food stuffs.

Get your butcher to cryovac your meat fish poultry sausages etc.
Will keep for many, many weeks that way in the fridge.

Mike,

Fray and Bentos canned Steak and Kidney pie is magnificent. I've only ever heated it at home in the oven. It needs all around oven heat as you take off the lid and bake it in the bottom of the tin. The pastry top is raw and requires full cooking. I suppose it could work in a camp oven.

Jim.

there is tinned Camembert ... not the greatest but it holds a while..
regards
gmd

How about Stagg chilli beans and beef? Cook up some rice on the side and voila. Not every night though, or it will end up like that campfire scene in 'Blazing Saddles'

Ah now this is a question that I feel experienced enough to answer. Firstly, catch the fish! LOL!, ok so seriously now, my advise is to go for a good stroll through the supermarket looking specifically at the wide range of foods that you can buy in vacuum sealed packages especially in the deli section - look at the usebuy dates and you'll see that you can buy ham, pressed chicken, proscuitto, pancetta, even smoked salmon in very thin packages that will keep for around 2mths in your fridge. There are literally zillions of things you can make with such ingredients - especially adding a tin of lite and creamy evaporated milk with some garlic, chopped onion, chopped mushrooms, makes quite a gourmet pasta sauce, or instead of the evap milk, make a similar dish with a tomato base (a tin or diced tomatoes with a dash of dried basil and perhaps a few black olives).

However, strongly suggest you give cryovac another go. I have never had off meat but there as some tricks to knowing firstly what to buy, and then in what order to use it. I've written up some of this in the Food & Water Article - see the Food Storage section here - http://www.exploroz.com/InfoPages/TripPrep7.asp#Storage

I have no problem taking all fresh produce and storing in fridge for a 3 week stay for 2 adults and 2 children using only a 40L fridge. Forget filling up the fridge with drinks - only chill a day's drinks rations at a time and each morning top up the supplies. If it's longer stays that are your issue, then I guess you're already using solar panels? so powering the fridge isn't the issue - the issue is not overfilling it with things are are not perishables thereby impacting upon your capacity to take perishables/cryovacs etc.

I would also suggest there is no need to eat animal derived protein foods daily so perhaps a good look at your menu might be the trick to minimising just how much you really need to take. Hope this helps?

We bought a Foodsaver vacuum packing machine & couldn't be happier, we have eaten red meat packed for 5 weeks, with no discernable change.
Be careful with chicken 7 - 10 days, casseroles or stirfrys if they contain onion, around 7 days.

I have also pre-packed (with grease) wheel bearings, for both vehicle & camper trailer & vacuum packed them also.

If you don't mind paying more (????) you can buy Freeze-dried food that tastes very good from Bushwalking suppliers.

The main meal in army ration packs is canned meals, the other parts seem to be supermarket stuff, condensed milk, sweets etc. But they are even more expensive than freeze-dried - I heard they are around $100 per day.

Before we had a fridge or esky, we used to take a cured salami.
Needs to be properly cured the traditional way.
Wipe it down each day to remove any excess oil, otherwise the oil may go off, turn rancid over time.
Usually hang it up in the tent. Lasts up to 2 weeks plus no problems.
Beware the midnight maruaders thought.
We used to find that the next day, the first few slices were rings from some one sneaking a nibble during the night.

Go for a stroll through an Asian supermarket. There's an amazing range of dehydrated products (some that don't resemble anything edible!). Much cheaper than the camping stores for the basics. Also lots of things in sachets and cans.

Try some at home first though just in case the taste isn't to your liking or for those eating with you - responding with "what do you mean you don't like chilli tofu with dried shrimp" doesn't make you real popular at the end of a long day!

Adrian

Your local (larger) supermarket should stock a large variety of ready made meals for one or two, curries etc. You simply drop the plastic bag into boiling water. Similiar stuff in a hiking gear shop cost a fortune these are around the $3-$4 mark and they taste good two.

I have no idea if these are still available but when i was a boy in the Scouts we could buy freeze dried meals from the Scout shops.

They came in a foil package that you simply openned a little and poured x ammount of boiling water into for it to re constitute.

The meals were a variety of baked dinner type meals and my memory of them was that they were delicious.

For a longer trip, I would also throw in a few suimins as well although having tried one of these recently they are not as good as when I was a boy..........well as far as meat content is concerned.............but they will keep you alive.

I guess much depends on how much you want to rough it.

Hi MIke

There's afew replies so will keep this brief.

We try to do these things right from both practical and nutrition point of view
and one thing they can be used very effectively is TVP, textured vegtable protien
, its sanitarium product.

Basically you can use it in all sorts of things, but two examples we use a lot show its versatility.

1st on recent trip we used some leggo's instant type pasta meals but they don't go far enough per serve. We add TVP which provides real bulk nutrients and makes these things much more of a decent meal.

Second , we something make vegetarian sausage rolls out of this stuff - the ultimate test of just how good it is was when we were at an outdoor bbq over xmas.

We all left the food for some presentations and while we were occupied, a dog
someone brought had a free reign of a large array of BBQ food.

The only thing it stole off the table was our sausages rolls.

Robin Miller

Wel, it seems to have been covered alright and Michelle has got the answers, but for what it's worth we (2) have just travelled for 6 weeks (Kimberley) with all supplies including cryovac meat bought in Melbourne , apart from fresh bread, chips with the drinks etc. Came back with 1kg meat- just fine. Butcher said that our choice of larger pieces, less mince etc. helped with long life. - I was happy to put money into the local shops etc., but wanted to do food this way as part of practise for a longer remote trip later. Chyeers. TonyT

Thanks for the replies everyone - some very good info provided, as usual :)