Cooking and Wild Foods
  When I think of a place I call home my thoughts will eventually roam to the kitchen. Not just to the food but to the conversations and people that I associate with it. Food preparation is a unique human ritual that is done in the kitchen of a home. It brings us together and makes us appreciate the bounty we are fortunate enough to have. In most cases when you are in the wild, your camp is your home and your fire pit is your kitchen. The fire will cook your food. It will also mirror similar associations like the ones you have from your kitchen at home.

   A group of people sitting by the entertaining display of a fire while grinding acorns into flour, roasting meat on a spit, or boiling wild root stew with hot rocks, will feel like the group of friends whose company you enjoy during the preparation of a Thanksgiving feast. Your family or group will be very surprised at how comfortable they feel cooking up nutritious handmade treats by the fire; even if they have never done it before.

Activity: This is a camp fire oriented program, where we will explore the many ways to use fire to cook our food, while learning about wild edible foods and how to collect and prepare them. Activities may include. -Pit cooking (a ground oven heated by hot rocks -Rock boiling (using hot rocks to boil water) -Open spit cooking (cooking meat on an open spit), -Ash cakes (Flour cakes baked in hot ash) -Drying meat into jerky and preparing acorns, cattails or grass seed into flour.

Ages: 10 & up
Time: 1/2 - 1 day
Difficulty: Medium
Location: Anywhere fire is permitted
Physical labor: Medium