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The basics: I've seen people come to a week-long war with a loaf of bread and a chunk of bologna. But if that's not your style, then bring something to store your food in (cooler); cook your food on (firepit grate, hibachi, grill, camp stove); and eat your food with (wooden or pottery feastgear, tableware, paper plates).
Aurthour (in green) working up an appetite
battling across a barrier in a tournament.
Best idea: Build a camp kitchen. You get storage space and counter-height work space, and you only have to pack your kitchen gear once! Our camp kitchen has padded compartments for pottery mugs; a drawer for utensils; shelves for plates, bowls, spices and cookware; and a removable countertop that fits back inside the kitchen box for storage and transport. Click here for a drawing of our camp kitchen. It's also visible in the picture of our camp on the home page.
For long events, use one cooler for food, one for beverages, one for frozen stuff (mostly meat). Refrigerate or freeze everything that goes into your coolers. Then the ice only has to keep items cold, not cool them down.
To use a cooler as a freezer, wrap dry ice in a towel and put it in the bottom of a cooler. Everything that goes into this cooler should already be frozen. The dry ice will keep it that way for 3-5 days, if you only open the cooler once or twice a day. After the dry ice is gone, add regular ice.
Cold air sinks. Stack your freezer cooler so the cold (from your sort-of expensive dry ice) sinks into another cooler instead of into the ground.
Don't add warm items to your cold cooler. It not only shortens the life span of your ice, it can bring down the temperature of everything else in the cooler and shorten the lifespan of your food, too.
Keep your coolers in the shade if you can. Cover them with a light-colored cloth that reflects sunlight. At the Lilies War, we keep our coolers in a small arming pavilion.
Cut a piece of styrofoam or foam rubber to fit inside your cooler. Move it down as you empty the cooler, so the ice only cools the contents, not the empty space.
Fill gallon jugs or 2-liter bottles with water, iced tea or lemonade, and freeze them. Leave 3-4 inches of space at the top so they don't burst. This will help keep your coolers cold, and as the liquid melts you can drink it.
Block ice will last longer than cubed ice, but I generally don't have room for block ice until later in the week, after we've used up some of the food & drink.
Cook at home, ahead of time, as much as possible. It will save you time at an event. Precooked meat keeps better, and only needs to be heated through; there's no worry about whether it's done or not, even in the dark. You can make BBQ beef or pork in the crock pot, grill hamburger patties, and bake or smoke ribs, chicken or turkey; then freeze them prior to the event.
Do as much preparation as you can at home. Cut blocks of cheese into chunks. Cut up pieces for kabobs. Slice onions for burgers. Boil eggs. Peel and/or slice melons; if you don't have rinds in camp, they won't draw bugs.
Don't overlook convenience foods, even if you don't normally use them. Things like packaged salads, pre-cut broccoli, pre-cooked breakfast sausages, pudding or fruit cups, or even fried chicken from the deli can save you time and energy.
Plan your menu around the "life span" of food in your cooler. Whole cuts of meat last longer than sliced or ground meat. Mayonnaise-based items like potato salad should be eaten the very first day (or maybe the second, if you feel lucky). Hot dog/hamburger buns mold very quickly! Use fresh food first; frozen food later.
Sliced bread and buns usually end up smashed. Use more durable alternatives (hard rolls, bagels, pita bread), or protect fragile bread and chips in a plastic bin. If you have room, you can freeze bread and keep it in a cooler.
Plan at least a few no-cook meals for days when it's too hot or you're too tired.
Consider your cooking gear when planning the menu. Steaks are great on a grill or hibachi, but probably not so great on a propane camp stove.
Tupperware-style bowls are not watertight when immersed in a cooler. Neither are the easy-zip plastic bags. To keep water out of pickles, olives, strawberries, etc., use glass jars. It also keeps the pickle juice out of the water in your cooler.
For chocolate that can survive the heat, try Oreo cookies or Tootsie Rolls.
Bring a washbasin for washing your dishes, or use an empty plastic bin. Antibacterial dish soap is a good choice for camp.
Hang a shower bag on a shepard's hook or a shade fly pole to rinse dishes (or children, or pets, or empty homebrew bottles). Catch rinse water in a bin, or be mindful of where it drains.
Consider the clean-up factor. It's tough to wash oatmeal off wooden feastgear!
Stash a stack of paper plates in your kitchen gear for guests. We had 10-15 dinner guests nearly every night at the Lilies War this year! Our hungry visitors didn't mind the paper plates, and it made less work for me.
If you bring homebrew, rinse empty bottles to avoid drawing ants and to make cleanup easier later. (Homebrewers recycle their bottles.)
Don't forget things you already have in your home kitchen, like condiments, spices, foil, plastic bags. Or buy a separate set of these items for your camp; this cuts down on packing time because you don't have to raid your kitchen.
If you bring too much food, get together with your neighbors (they've also brought too much) and have a feast on the last Friday or Saturday night!
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