Which reminds me, I owe memquay a new pair of underwear.
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Happy Ride of Lady Godiva (1040)! 🎠🦵🫣🇹🅾️🇲
I once had a whole meal of plain butter. Never done that again. But even worse: burned porridge of buckwheat. Don't try it.
ForestMoan, despite your eating history, welcome to site membership! I'm sure we all would be interested learning more about canoeing in Norway.
Spam is fine in small amounts.
The bad meals usually come in a foil pouch or MREs.
Some people really can't cook, but most people I travel with are excellent cooks.
The bad meals usually come in a foil pouch or MREs.
Some people really can't cook, but most people I travel with are excellent cooks.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Once people paddle for 5 days they usually eat whatever you put in front of them.
We were in the deep forests on the Trinity River of No CA. I cooked some chicken but it was kind of bland. It needed something. We found some blackberries and made a sauce. The berries were not very ripe and sour. My friend pulls out a package of "Blue Meany Kool-Aid". It overcame the sourness and it was delicious. After dinner a black bear came down the hill towards camp so he must have thought so too. My two herding dogs turned him around and we never saw him again.
We were in the deep forests on the Trinity River of No CA. I cooked some chicken but it was kind of bland. It needed something. We found some blackberries and made a sauce. The berries were not very ripe and sour. My friend pulls out a package of "Blue Meany Kool-Aid". It overcame the sourness and it was delicious. After dinner a black bear came down the hill towards camp so he must have thought so too. My two herding dogs turned him around and we never saw him again.
I noted a number of posts commenting on Spam. My youngest daughter‘s military family was posted to the island of Guam for three years about 10 years ago. The on-base McDonalds restaurant had an entire menu of your usual favorites featuring Spam as the meat, in addition to it’s usual beef based items.
When I commented on this I learned that the locals developed a taste for this Homel product during and after WW2 when they were sustained on it by the US military. I also learned that a significant portion of Spam production continues to go to the Pacific area even to this day. On a visit to Australia during a visit with my daughter I enjoyed a mutton Big Mac in the airport McDonalds.
When I commented on this I learned that the locals developed a taste for this Homel product during and after WW2 when they were sustained on it by the US military. I also learned that a significant portion of Spam production continues to go to the Pacific area even to this day. On a visit to Australia during a visit with my daughter I enjoyed a mutton Big Mac in the airport McDonalds.
I remember as a kid eating c-rats left over from WWII, it was known by the term bully beef but was actually spam. I still enjoy it fried up with eggs and hash browns once in a while.
As an aside spam actually saved my bacon on one winter trip- we'd had 3 days solid of freezing rain and ice fog, and literally everything had 1/4" of ice on it, we struggled for over an hour to light a fire to dry out with no luck, then I remembered a story about soldiers making coffee by lighting a can of spam on fire, so I took the can, inverted it on a stick over the tiny flame we did manage to keep going, and let the hot fat drip onto the wood, we had a raging bonfire in about 5 minutes, and a bonus meal of hot, fried, spam...
Spam now comes in little foil packets around 4 ounces. For a backpacking trip or portaging canoe trip it really livens up some boring meals by just by adding a small amount.
Butch Welch well known Dutch oven cook, used to say "if you can't smell it, its not done. If you can smell it, it is done and if it smells burnt, you over cooked it.
I was in a restaurant in Germany a couple of years ago and had a hankering for the meat loaf featured on the menu. When it came it was nothing more than a very large slice of what had to be nothing more than Spam with a fried egg on top.
While visiting a distant cousin in Poland, I was served a large gray bowl of what I believe was likely mushroom soup with a chunk of potato and also a slice of spam plus a chunk of home made head cheese that I recognized from years ago. Didn't taste bad, but I was saved when the vodka bottle labeled 95% came out. It is impolite to have an empty glass.
For some fun, google spam haiku. There are several versions
How to cook spam over an open fire as I have taught to wilderness guides and Boy Scouts:
If you happen to have a campfire with nice hot coals, just find an acceptable green leaf (maple or birch impart a nice flavor, just be careful of any unidentifiable or poisonous plant leaves). Thinly slice said porcine and place one slice on a freshly picked single green leaf, thence place together directly upon hot coals, leaf side down. When the leaf edges begin to blacken and the pink mass browns and sizzles around the edges, flip over onto another fresh green leaf, repeat til leaf chars again.
When done, some say to discard the spam, eat the leaf.
No, No, don’t do that, campfire spam is quite good cooked this way.
While visiting a distant cousin in Poland, I was served a large gray bowl of what I believe was likely mushroom soup with a chunk of potato and also a slice of spam plus a chunk of home made head cheese that I recognized from years ago. Didn't taste bad, but I was saved when the vodka bottle labeled 95% came out. It is impolite to have an empty glass.
For some fun, google spam haiku. There are several versions
How to cook spam over an open fire as I have taught to wilderness guides and Boy Scouts:
If you happen to have a campfire with nice hot coals, just find an acceptable green leaf (maple or birch impart a nice flavor, just be careful of any unidentifiable or poisonous plant leaves). Thinly slice said porcine and place one slice on a freshly picked single green leaf, thence place together directly upon hot coals, leaf side down. When the leaf edges begin to blacken and the pink mass browns and sizzles around the edges, flip over onto another fresh green leaf, repeat til leaf chars again.
When done, some say to discard the spam, eat the leaf.
No, No, don’t do that, campfire spam is quite good cooked this way.
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Pasta. We were on a barrier island trip and fresh water was precious. Cooking pasta usually involves throwing out the cook water. Wasteful, right? So, I just used bay water. I mean, I always salt the water before the pasta goes in, so bay water is just pre-salted water. The pasta came out way, way too salty and I couldn't eat it. Somehow food on a canoe trip always tastes great, even though it might not be. Not this pasta. Had to throw it out.
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