RPCookin
Executive Chef
I always think of the movie Sling Blade when someone mentions potted meat!
It always amazes me the things kids will eat and do when they are out in a situation like your camping trip. It's fun to watch them make a breathless report to an amazed mom when they get back home!
I took two canoe trips into Canada's Quetico wilderness when I was in high school, back in 1962-63. We didn't exactly pack light, but that's because there was no freeze dried anything - we had to use the sorts of foods that travelers had been using for centuries - everything had to be able to survive without refrigeration for 8 days - no coolers on those trips. We took a good bit for summer sausage and salami for meat, plus the occasional fish that we caught on the trip. We ate a lot of oatmeal and dried fruit for breakfast, PBJ sandwiches for lunch, rice and cheese and salami and summer sausage for dinners on those trips (plus Hol-Ry, the rye crackers that were a staple part of any trip out of Charles L. Sommers Canoe Base on Moose Lake). One highlight was camp made blueberry pie, made with the blueberries that grew all over many of the islands we camped on. We also had apple pie made with rehydrated dried apples, both were heavenly after 4 or 5 long days of paddling and portaging.
My point with this was that on the last night before we got back to Sommers Canoe Base (Boy Scouts of America) we had what we called border stew. This consisted of all of the remaining rice, meats, and cheese left in the food packs, cooked until it reached the right consistency, which means until the spoon would stand straight up in the pot. That was the gauge for most one pot meals. The food may not have been exotic, but it was hearty, and I never heard anyone complain. Those trips were my first introduction to Cayenne pepper - one year our guide was from Del Rio, Texas, and Cayenne went into every one pot dinner. (My mom was born and raised Minnesota and never had any experience with anything spicier than black pepper.)