RE: [Philmont]: Cooking Philmont Meals

I've watched the discussion about Philmont cooking and would be amazed if you did it any other way than the attached "crew 506" method. Dave Parmly had this on the net Dec. of '04. We did it, with some minor changes, in June '05 and have some additional suggested changes for our Venture crew going this July. Our ranger said "I won't waste your time or mine showing you the Philmont one pot method" since he could see we had perfected the system and it was easy for us. Dave sent us the pictures in a seperate posting and thats what we used. The only dishes we ever washed were our personal ones - brain dead easy. We ate everything and never put anything into the swap boxes, kids loved green beans with added onion flakes.
   
  Changes we made:
  -use a Fair Share mug, sturdy plastic cup available at backpacking stores and Tooth of Time traders instead of pouring hot water into water bottles and then into the bags - spilled too much on prep hikes. Bring the big pot of water to a boil and then scoop the correct amount of water into the bags. The Fair Share mug then held all the small bottles of spices during the hike, the cook had all the stuff with him
  -use 3 or 4 alum. bread loaf pans to hold the bags instead of the rocks in camp, they are cheap, light weight and are "bendable" in the pack
  -bring bunch of 1 gal. freezer bags to put the dry food into - they are sealable for the rehydration process and some of the Phil bags had nicks, tears in them that caused a couple of minor leaks-no big deal but the kids wanted me to pass this tip forward. Seems like we used 4 or 5 bags (pack extras- no weight) per meal and remember that one night might be a chuck wagon dinner, you don't cook
   
  Final words: Practice your system, make meals enjoyable - our crew loved the Phil food, they were still raving about it on a recent hike.
   
  From December 2004:
  GANG, I APOLOGIZE FOR THE LENGTH OF THIS REPLY BUT IF YOU NEVER SPEAK
TO ME AGAIN, AT LEAST YOU'LL KNOW "HOW WE DID IT". I CAN ALSO SEND THIS
VIA E-MAIL AS A WORD DOCUMENT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. PM ME AT
"parmlyd@pilottravelcenters.com".

Dave Parmly
VC 506 Advisor

Cooking is very easy if you do it using the "Crew 506 technique". Our
crew developed a cooking technique in summer '03 on the Appalachian
Trail that worked very well, and which our Phil-ranger in '04 considered
one of the most innovative techniques he had ever seen. He turned it in
to the staff on his evaluation of our crew, so Philmont might be
looking at it more. It has the advantages of turkey bag cooking without the
turkey bags.

Philmont currently emphasizes "One pot cooking" where all the
dehydrated ingredients are essentially combined in, duh, one pot. This
technique has many advantages but some disadvantages as well. At Philmont, our
crew noted lots of side items discarded in porch swap boxes, like green
beans or mashed potatoes that crews had evidently decided just would
not work mixed with the beef stroganoff, etc. Ergo, food is wasted or
the nutritional value of it is lost to the camper. Given the limited
nature of the diet, we found that consuming everything was helpful to
maintain regular, firm bowel movements, including green beans, corn, etc.
The issue is mixing them in a single pot. Even the new, trendy "turkey
bag technique", still tends to mix many not-normally-together foods in
one bag. That can make meal times somewhat of a morale suck. I know,
some Phil-psychos will probably say "Why come to Philmont then? Suck it
up and mix your cheesecake with the stroganoff and be a man about it
while carrying a packboard wearing a wool sweater and a bearskin sleeping
bag." But our intent was to live comfortably as possible even in the
backwoods, and that means enjoying meals. The fact that we use less
water and generate no additional trash while avoiding the cleaning of a
pot...well, I didn't come to Philmont to scrub pots.

Our crew's technique saves time and water, and is faster to clean up
than most methods we've seen. It encourages total menu consumption. The
principle is simple: No Phil-Food requires extended simmering or
cooking: It only needs to be re-hydrated with boiling water. Rehydration
does not need to be done in the pot. For purposes of illustration, I'll
use the Supper # 6 Stroganoff, mashed potatoes, Bread Sticks and
Snackin Grahams.

Step 1. Light the stoves. We put two Coleman stoves side by side in
the fire ring and rest the 8 quart pot, filled most of the way to the
top, on the stoves and resting against the metal bars that cross the fire
ring, for stability. (Two stoves with full bottles lasted all the way
to Day 5. We had two spare bottles, and refilled the empty ones on our
day 6 food pickup at Baldy Town commissary.) Tightly cover the pot
with a lid or aluminum foil. This gives enough water to do all the dinner
re-hydration, plus for coffee for advisors and dish water.
Step 2. Get out the clear bags. Notice that the Phil-bags are heat
sealed on one end, and have perforated bottoms on the other end. Turn the
bag upside down so the end with the holes faces up. IT IS REALLY
IMPORTANT TO CUT THE END WITH THE HOLES! Carefully cut along the end with
the holes from one side of the bag to the other. Remove the contents of
the bag and roll the bag down a bit to give it some strength. You will
usually need two bags to be used for the entrie, and one bag for the
side items.
Step 3. Gather logs or rocks and arrange a support structure into which
the empty bags are placed. The rocks/logs need be big enough only to
hold the bag upright when the contents are placed inside it. These will
be the re-hydration bags. Do not use rocks that have been used for
porta-potties (Phil-vets, you know what I mean, and it goes without
saying, but my boys told me to tell y'all that.)
Step 4. Open the smaller, usually white plastic, bags that holds the
main entrie. For beef stroganoff, the instructions on the bag say each
two diners need 16 oz. of boiling water. With 3 bags of stroganoff in
each of two of the re-hydration bags, we calculate that 16 oz. per pouch
means a total 48 oz. of hot water per re-hydration bag.
Step 5. Pour the side items, in this case mashed potatoes, into
separate re-hydration bag(s). Usually all of the side items fit into one
bag.) Calculate the amount of water needed to re-hydrate these.
Step 6. Once the water in the pot is in a rolling boil, cooks sanitize
last night's washed dishes by dipping mesh bags with bowls and spoons
into the boiling water.
Step 7. Once the sanitizing is 100% complete (when in doubt, sanitize)
get a small measuring cup (preferably with a spout), gloves and an
empty, non-smellable Nalgene. Hold the Nalgene with gloved hands as it
will get hot. Cooks retrieve the appropriate amount of hot water for the
recipe, measure it into the Nalgene and pour it into the re-hydration
bags. Once the right amount is poured, roll the bag shut and let it sit
for between 5 to 8 minutes in most cases. Stir the contents before
rolling it shut. (See ILLUSTRATION 4.)
Step 8. Use remaining big bags to organize cookies, breadsticks, etc
into a buffet line, then tell everyone to come sanitize hands, retrieve
bowls/spoons and then all say grace. By this time, the contents should
be re-hydrated and ready to serve.
Step 9. Campers come down the line while cooks portion out food to
each. The buffet line keeps it organized, encourages portion control and
gives a nice "homey" feel to the meal. Encourage everything to be
eaten.
Step 10. Once all contents are eaten from the hydration bags, roll
them up tightly as part of trash. Beans/corn, etc., need to be sumped
because there was always too much water when cooked by the recipe. Use
remnants of big pot of boiling water in one pot, add some to a smaller
second pot then some purified water to make enough warm water for dish
washing, done per Philmont procedure with green scrubby, etc..

Terry Pogue
490 E Quail Ridge Dr.
Manchester, MO 63021
636-227-1215
terrencepogue@yahoo.com

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Received on Tue Mar 21 08:31:30 2006