I follow the practice of folk who live in the mountains well away from daily or even monthly shopping and rely on dried sausage of the chorizo type. Being highly spiced and full flavoured, a little goes a long way and it can be eaten hot or cold, on its own or as an addmix. I find myself eating a lot of couscous because it takes only a little fuel to prepare and is delicious with chorizo and nuts. I pick things that use little fuel in cooking and are light to carry but bulk up well, hence the couscous. Instant noodles are also a standby although I'd never dream of eating them at home.
My camping cooking if I am travelling on food differs a lot from home and campervan cooking. For instance, I take sachets of instant coffee in the one-day ration packs I prepare at home but only ever drink top quality coffee made from freshly ground beans at home. As a wise friend remarked, "Just think of it as another drink and call it instant instead of coffee." I organise each day's food into a Ziplock bag. That way you don't end up with a lot of couscous but nothing to go with it. It also makes it easy to calculate how much of everything you are going to need. I try to vary the contents of the bags for variety, but a typical bag for one day will have in it:
A pour and store bag with a portion of muesli to which has been added dried milk powder and sugar to taste, two instant co**ee sachets, two green tea bags, two packs oatmeal biscuits, two cereal bars, a baby bell cheese (bad cheese but keeps well), a packet of tissues ( because I have a horror of running out of loo paper), a packet of flavoured couscous OR a portion of instant mash OR a packet of intant noodles each in a pour and store bag (convenient to just add boiling water), a piece of smoked sausage OR jerky OR small tin of tuna, OR a Look What We Found sachet OR a commercially produced just add water instant meal a little bag of salt and one of pepper pinched from a motorway caff.
When we did a long journey across the Rockies years ago, we used to take a bag of dampermix beacause my wife was a dab hand at cooking it over a campfire and our boys used to like it with peanut butter on it- although they were usually so hungry they'd eat anything that wasn't still moving. They still tease me about the muesli I used to make and only recently told me they used to have a competition every morning call "Hunt the Peanut". I thought they were feeding the ground-sqirrels, but it seems they were trying to catch them to eat.
For me, the trick is to not expect to eat the same way as at home. I find this easy when I'm on my own, but after 50 years of marriage, I still haven't convinced my wife to do likewise even though when we camp, I'm the cook! She always insists on taking French milk-bread rolls, which isn't really a bad idea. They last very much longer than ordinary bread, don't make crumbs, are high in calories and can be squashed into a pack easily without breaking. In the campervan we always carry a reserve of tinned stew picked up in France.
Since writing the above I've read John Fenna's review of MX adventure foods. I'm definitely going to try these next time out.
