Camping with Omnivores: Part II - Equipment

Equipment

Before a menu can really be decided there are a few questions to be decided. Knowing what equipment you have available makes food and menu planning much easier. I have become unapologetically protective of my camping cookware. My coffee pot and grilling gloves are among the few things I am willing to share. Keeping things separate can feel stressful when all you want to do is relax with friends or family in the great outdoors, but it doesn’t have to be. Plan ahead and let the good times roll. Time by a campfire is well spent and not eating meat shouldn’t make it seem harder than it has to be. We usually take a propane camp stove for backup, but rarely use it, preferring to cook over an open fire. I always back a small hiking style stove as a backup in case of rain, wet wood, or the need to cook without fighting for fire space.

               
Honestly, I hold a little bit of envy for the vegans and vegetarians who camp with others like them. I’ve watched the videos on youtube and seen the plans for couples and families heading to the woods. Occasionally, there will be someone else, but mostly I am planning for one. It creates a few added challenges along the way when planning food and how to prepare or serve that food. I tend to pack small and over the years I have added to my collection to make my trips more efficient and more enjoyable.

A Few Suggestions (things that have made my life easier)

• Aluminum foil – a campfire classic to use to line the grate, make foil packets, or to make clean up easier. Foil packets were a staple growing up as a Girl Scout and can be filled full of just about anything from breakfast to lunch, dinner, and even desert. (I like the heavy duty made for grilling & cooking, but you can always double layer if needed.
• Mess kit – it may bring back memories of scouting days and ideas of backpacking, but when being the only vegetarian or vegan among a bunch of omnivores it can prove to be just enough for one person. If worried about cooking something messy and the clean-up, line the pan with foil. They can be picked for a s low as $10 and perfect for lighting camp cooking.
• Plate, bowl, cup, silverware – my family, and other families often camp with paper plates and plastic silverware that can be easily disposed in fire or trash, but I still pack a single set of enameled dishes – a plate, bowl, cup, and silverware. I don’t like sharing very well. (I keep mine in a mesh bag for storage 
• Saucepan or medium sized skillet- fire safe – a basic and versatile piece of cooking equipment. 
• Can Opener - Everyone forgets how important a hand can opener is until you are sitting there staring at an unopened can. These can be picked up cheap and are helpful at a camp site or during a power outage.
  
• Fire safe coffee pot – for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or heating hot water for oatmeal, mine gets used by everyone. 
• Heat & fire safe cooking utensils – tongs, spatula, wooden spoon, metal serving spoon for cooking and serving – No one wants to pull a steaming baked potato or foil packet  from the flames with their bare hand or flip veggies with a plastic silverware. 
• Knife and cutting board – I keep a small cutting board and sharp knife in my camp box for cutting and chopping fruits, veggies, or whatever. Keeping things separate and becomes more important when camping and cleaning options more limited than home. 
• Dishpan, soup, sponge or wash rag – It’s good to have a way to clean up before or after a satisfying meal. 
• Oven or grill gloves – Cookware gets hot when cooking over the fire or on a camp stove. Even removing a saucepan or coffee pot after heating needs protection for hands from the heat. Not everyone packs these, but they are handy for anyone camping and cooking in the great outdoors. 
• Cast iron pie iron – I grew up cooking with these and they are definitely not just for the meat-eaters. Pizza pockets, grilled cheese, breakfast, hand pies, and hot grilled peanut butter are just as easy veggie style as not. 
• Small cast iron Dutch oven – it took me awhile to find the right size at a decent price, but I have not need for a regular sized one and not desire to use the one my family used to prepare chili and roasts in. It is definitely not a necessity, but it is a nice bonus for chilly camping weekends. 
• Hot Dog/Marshmallow stick - you can always use a fresh stick, with the end tapered, but I pack my own expandable one to keep it separate from the ones my family uses. Mostly mine is used for the vegan marshmallows and s'mores, a camping tradition, but occasionally used for veggie brats or vegetables.
• Option - food storage containers - I like being able to pre-chop veggies or have a way to have things prepacked for ease of use. I often pack a food storage container with three separate sections as a s'more making kit with vegan marshmallows, white chocolate (I can't have caffeine), and graham crackers. It's very handy to have everything accessible when roasting marshmallows at the campfire by the light of the fire and a lantern.

 
For keeping everything need and orderly I pack my cookware and dishes in a plastic picnic basket, a plastic tub for my dry food stuff & not refrigerated stuff, and a split the rest between the larger family cooler and my own smaller one. Keeping everything separate helps me easily & quickly find what I need, as well as protect it from accidentally being used for meat or meat products.

Everyone has their own preferences for cookware and menu, but being the lone vegetarian or vegan doesn’t mean or should be limited only to a jar pf peanut butter and raw fruits and veggies, unless that’s what you want.

Camping with Omnivores: Part I

Tent Life Can be Best Life

            In honor of an upcoming fall family camping trip, I've started this series to give a glimpse into the world of camping as a vegan or vegetarian surrounded by meat-eating omnivores. I'd love to hear about your own experiences, questions, or requests. Enjoy!

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.

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.

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?

           Over the years I have worked out my own system. I try to work with my omnivore family and work with the menu they plan. We are constantly learning to work together. If my mom is planning chili or stew a night, I will plan to make a meatless chili or stew to go along with it. If my brother is planning on burgers and brats with grilled corn and baked potatoes, I plan accordingly. I have a small picnic basket to keep my tools, a small plastic bin for my dry food stuff & spices, and a small cooler along with negotiations in larger cooler. Not everything I eat is separate, somethings are loved by all of us. It doesn’t have to be perfect.