In Army Ranger School, they have a saying: "There are Principles and then there are Techniques." There are 4 certain key tactical PRINCIPLES that your unit must adhere to at all times. Everything else you do on a mission is a TECHNIQUE. Violate a Principle while attempting to accomplish your mission (maintain security at all times, for example) and the leader being evaluated will get a No-Go for that operation even if he accomplishes the mission that time, no matter how small a violation it is. If you screw up while attempting some Technique (which is anything NOT one of the 4 principles), the leader can still get a "Go" rating for the mission. What the 4 principles are is not important on this forum, but the idea is the same at Philmont.
We all seem to agree that the PRINCIPLE at Philmont, RE food, is to eat everything they give you in a manner that respects the use of resources. What I love to read is all of the various TECHNIQUES people have developed to accomplish that goal. There is no "one way" to do it. We found a key resource at Philmont was TIME. Lots of the techniques y'all discuss here save that resource so the guys can do other things like RTB&D, or look at the stars. That they also save the resources of fuel, water, etc., is a BONUS!
Mike, RE cooling in the bowl, per Tony's suggestion. In our Phil prep hikes, our crew attempted that method of rehydration as we worked to refine our "in the bag it comes in" technique and found the food did cool to an unpleasant degree in the re-hydration time. Not enough that it was inedible, of course, but not a warming experience that we like supper to be. That is why we stay with using the bags the food comes in because a bulky mass of green beans/stroganoff/mashed potatoes will still be relatively hot after 8 minutes. It's also just easier on the cooks to rehydrate ONE bag of beans, and TWO bags of entrée then trying to put consistent amounts of dry portions in 12 bowls, then add a consistent amount of water to each of those 12 bowls.
But hey, it's all just a technique!
Dave Parmly
Advisor Venture Crew 506
Knoxville, TN
I used to be a Bobwhite...SR424
IWTGBTP!
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An alternative Cooking Method
This is bound to stir up some controversy among purists - but here's what
804-H did in 2003:
Boil water for cooking and cleaning. Rehydration directly in the serving
bowls. Everything that was opened was eaten. Cleanup was just the bowls,
spoons and cups.
There were no packaged meals that did not correctly rehydrate and taste as
well as freeze-dried can taste. In fact - everyone actually liked the food.
An additional benefit was that each person (actually two-people) could
tailor individual meals to their liking.
It worked out very well for us. I've adopted this for my own backpacking
trips. It may not work for you, or not fit your idea of the proper method of
patrol cooking. Don't flame me - have your group work out whatever fits
their own needs.
The boys worked this out and tested and refined the method over a number of
shakeout trips, using food purchased from the Philmont Commissary. The boys,
all 15 to 17 years stated goals of reducing trash and waste and making
chores and cleanup as easy as possible. One was vegetarian which complicated
group cooking chores.
-And yes, our Ranger agreed "whatever works best for your group."
Regards,
Tony Tissot
'70 and '03
IWTGBTP
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Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:55:48 -0600
From: Michael_J_Conkey@nbc.gov
Subject: Re: [Philmont]: An alternative Cooking Method
Tony-just curious, how did you overcome the cooling of the food? I have
tried your approach before and found that after waiting the 5-8 minutes to
rehydrate, the food chilled down to "warm" at best. At high altitude, the
heat just radiates so darn fast..... The "instant" stuff (like mashed
potatoes) was good this way, but those dehydrated veggies (like corn and
beans) needed some quality time rehydrating to increase their edibility
quotient.
YIS.
Mike Conkey (76, 02 and 04)
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Received on Thu Aug 26 06:17:12 2004
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