In the June 2009 edition of CW, we invited readers to describe their worst camp cooking disasters in 30 words or less, for a chance to win one of five copies of the Caravan Chef 2 cookbook by Eva Stovern.
Caravan Chef 2 contains 50 new and easy recipes for on-road travellers, with just 30 essential ingredients. Your response was overwhelming; we received enough recipes for disaster to create a recipe book of our own.
Snack on our prize winning entries below.
“We were cooking an unopened can of baked beans. After a little while the can exploded like a bomb, and there were baked beans everywhere,” says Phillip Cunningham, Mount Druitt, NSW.
Judy Marsh’s disaster was a bit of an all rounder. “While cooking on the campfire, my son rushed into camp – his friend had been bitten by a snake. Returning from hospital five hours later, the omelette was ‘well done’!” Judy reveals.
Kelly Laidlaw’s experience, of Bundaberg, Qld, wasn’t too great either. “Attempting to cook under the ground, I ended up with burnt feet and burnt food!”
Paul Buttie says his wife cooks for a good reason. “I splashed extra oil onto frying fish on a gas cooker. Oil hit the pan resulting in a flame but I got some on the tent too, which caught fire.”
Jennifer Geerling, The Basin, Vic, says that when she saw the question, several cooking disasters came to mind. “That’s why I’d love a copy of the book,” she says, but admits that the worst would have to be, “when my partner opened up the camp oven to check the roast without clearing all the ash and dust off the top first! No need for Gravox in our campsite!”
And finally, CW found an extra copy for Bruno Corletto, who surprised his wife with a camp-oven chocolate cake for her birthday. “That’s until she took her first bite and realised that I’d used salt instead of sugar,” Bruno says. Because, as CW editor Max Taylor puts it, “Who hasn’t done that?”
- Congratulations to all of our prize winners and thank you to everyone who participated; your candour and good humour was appreciated.