It’s Fuel – Eat and Get Moving

After having taken first two steps toward getting ready for a 2020 field season (developed at COVID-19 safety plan and worked out what want to try to accomplish), can now turn to one of my least favorite but essential pre-field tasks.  Getting the food.  This has changed quite a bit during the GRSLE project from a team cooking approach with a fixed, planned menu1 to the current reliance on freeze dried food and individual food preparation.  Changed from stoves and camp cooking to boil water, add to foil pouch, soak, and consume.  I much prefer the new, quick and lean system, which it now based on several of my field food biases:

  • Food is fuel, nothing more;  
  • Preparation time needs to be minimal – the working GRSLE rule is “if it takes more than 20 minutes to prepare, consume, and clean-up it’s a waste of field time”;
  • Do everything possible to limit cooking smells, food waste, and garbage – “pack it in, eat it”.
Footnotes:
  1. Made from actual, purchased ingredients – some of them perishable and some even required preparation and cooking for sometimes over an hour — time that could have gotten another 30-40 pieces of chipped stone coded!