Survival Has Never Tasted Better

Baked beans, bacon, hot dogs, s’mores, banana boats, and flap-jacks are all culinary staples of camping, but they’re not exactly gourmet cuisine. Though most think that roughing it in the woods means having to rough it for food, Johnny Nix disagrees.

While traveling the Appalachian Mountain trails on horseback with his wife, Nix learned how to whip up amazing meals. His outdoor cooking skills became so renowned that he eventually got to appear on two TV cooking shows, and now gives cooking demos in state parks. He even has a website with all of his recipes, which is aptly named: Y’allEatYet.com.

“That’s what I ask campers who wander over when they smell the food I’m cooking in a park demo,” says Nix. “And I always share.”

His dishes include everything from good old Beer and Garlic Pot Roast to Fresh Plum Tart and Coconut Pineapple Custard. He can even whip up an elegant salad, like a Shaved Asparagus Salad with White Wine and Prosciutto.

If you possess some cooking skill, you can follow Nix’s recipes the next time you’re cooking over an open flame for outdoor gourmet success. However, if you’re a less-than-talented cook, you may have a little trouble.

Thankfully, there’s another route people can take if they’re sick and tired of the same old camp food — the freeze dried route. This option is great not only because freeze dried food has has a good shelf life, but because it’s often healthier, too. One cup of freeze dried fruit is only about 100 calories, while a cup of regularly dried fruit can be as much as 300 calories.

If you can think a little bit outside of the box and are willing to try new things, then you won’t have to worry about eating the same old things each time you decide to adventure out into the wild.