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| Tent Life Can be Best Life |
I love watching youtube videos of vegan & vegetarian friends and
families camping together. Camping with other vegans and vegetarians is a
luxury many of us are not privileged to. It can feel overwhelming &
challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. The first few camping trips with my
omnivore, meat-eating family was a definite learning curve. I wasn’t raised
vegetarian, it was a sometimes difficult decision that came later in life and
one that put me as a minority in my own family. There was frustration, limited
food & cooking choices, an at least one nasty argument when someone used my
skillet.
I love camping, I love the
outdoors, and I love my family. I was a Girl Scout much longer than most of my
friends, spent teen years camping with my friends, worked at a summer camp
& a camp ground, and spent the earliest years of my childhood at my grandparents’
camper. I had to rethink food to take with me, but I thought I was otherwise
prepared to camp with my large, busy, omnivore family. I had a full set of enameled
cookware that included metal cooking utensils, a griddle, enameled dishes,
silverware, and odds and ends from my years roughing it during the summer. I
had an entire camping kitchen tub ready to go.
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| An evening fire |
The first hurdle came when it
seemed excessive to take and entire kitchen tub and full set of cookware for
the lone vegetarian. I had to minimize and drastically downsize for truck
space. The second major hurdle came when I awoke one morning to find my mother
cooking breakfast. Bacon sizzled in MY LONE SKILLET. Frustrated, outraged, and
a bit sick to my stomach – I freaked out. Our primitive camping site would make
it nearly impossible to clean the bacon grease from the skillet to use safely.
I’m extremely careful of cross contamination and have suffered from the
unfortunate results. I wasn’t taking any chances. I wasn’t sure how I would
cook my breakfast as the pan I brought was now contaminated. I hadn’t made a backup
plan for cooking. I had started off the
weekend planning worrying mostly about I would pack and eat, but hadn’t put
much thought about the cooking process. I got through the rest of the weekend
cooking everything wrapped in foil, a classic standby, but without being able
to use the skillet I had brought. There were a number of arguments the ensued
the rest of the weekend, resulting from the skillet issue. A griddle followed a
similar route on a following camping trip when it was left to cool. I learned
the hard way camping with omnivores put me at a disadvantage and put my
cookware and dishes at risk for contamination.
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| Camp Dinner |
I needed a plan. I needed a plan
for what food to take to eat, but also for food storage and food preparation.
It would take a few trips to even some of the details. It’s important to figure
out a plan ahead, and gets easier with each trip. It works together, planning
everything together- the equipment, the menu,
the cooking options (campfire or camp stove), and the food storage available.
Before you start planning there are some questions to ask:
- What do you like to eat? And what will everyone else be eating?
- What are your cooking option? Fire? Camp stove? Camper?
- What food storage options to you have? Is there a refrigerator? Cooler? Are you going to be sharing a cooler?
- What preparation & cooking equipment do you have available?
- How much are you willing to share with the non-vegetarians?
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