Expo 2008/Food

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Current discussion

What to buy in UK

This is from Djuke's email sent 29 Jun.

Curry paste --> am lost as to how much

I think 2 of the giant Patak's jars is what we normally go for. I was in possession of 1 of these jars, which I've left in the expo food cabinet. It is about 70% full. Since it's a relatively small expo, I would go for one more. The one I put in the t-store is Tandoori, so get something else- Rogon Josh perhaps. -Aaron

Oatso --> 20 each (i.e. on avg people do 50% caving, if avg person stays 3 weeks that's 10 days, with 2 oatso's per morning) * 20 people = 400 and we probably have some left(?)

I put a bunch of Oatso in the expo food cabinet a few days ago (before the t-store session that edvin organized) which came from Ollie Betts. If I had to guess, I would say 20 packets, some very nice flavours. -Aaron 21:38, 29 June 2008 (BST)

Peanut butter --> 15 pots (or 2 large ones)?

1-2 serving green dragon type Instant FLAVOURED noodles --> 350?

Powdered cheese sauce?

Can you get tubs of right type of hot choc out in Austria?

By "right type" I think we mean that it only needs water rather than milk- i.e. already has powdered milk in it. -Aaron 21:39, 29 June 2008 (BST)

We have some dried veg do we need to get more?

The Tortellini appears to be only available from 1 supermarket (according to Martin I think) so should we get some here if we are relying so fully on tortellini for topcamp meals.

Other discussion

Small update: I currently have Olly Betts'; cash and carry card (as it's not much use in New Zealand!).Edvin

Just got a propper set of scales in a sale, one with a big bucket on top to allow all the stuff for a loaf to be measured in one go. This will make making bread much less messy. --Frank 13:12, 27 June 2008 (BST) Ps is the bread maker OK, I can't remember????

Reference material

Rescued from last years expo preparation wiki, as it looked useful:

Introduction

Expo food is bought in the UK if it makes sense considering:

the time needed to prepare it
the cost and availability differentials between Austria and the UK
the feasibility of transporting it

Luggage space is at a premium, so it only pays to transport things that are too expensive or difficult to get in Austria. Don't go mad!

There are several categories, and sometimes it makes sense to spread the work over several people:

Top camp food
1. Ready mixed dinners based around rice/pasta/TVP & dried vegetables
2. Breakfast supplies such as Oatso simple, tea, musli
Cave food
1. FlapJack
2. Chocolate bars
Special supplies
1. Pataks curry paste (N.B.: paste, not sauce)
2. Yeast for the breadmaker
3. Two bottles of whiskey (reasonable stuff) gift for the toll road

Quantities

Jenny calculated what food was used during Expo 2006 to aid future expos in knowing how much food to buy. Expo 2006 was probably somewhat atypical (very small expo, lots of new-to-expo people) but it does at least provide a start point. It also relies on the correct numbers of things having been written down - I think that they haven't for choc bars.

Per Person per Top Camp Night:

0.8 top camp meals
0.8 cup-a-soup
1 flavoured Oatso
0.5 plain Oatso
2.4 pieces of flapjack
0.9 instant noodles
20g of custard powder
30g of hot chocolate

On average people spent 44% of the nights at Top Camp (though this ranged from 24% to 58%).

--Frank 20:12, 2 June 2008 (BST)=Some helpful facts=

There is a cash & carry in Salzburg. Hilde might lend you her customer card (needed to use the shop?).
Austrian musli is sold in small, expensive packets in local shops. In the past we have cut cheap Tesco Value Musli with nicer Tesco own brand, but does it make sense to cart such bulky stuff across Europe?

it is pretty cheap in Hofer (the Austrian Aldi) - there is one in Bad Ischl. If you do get it in the UK, Asda Smart Price muesli seems better than Tesco Smart Price. JennyB 03:11, 27 June 2008 (BST)

Booker cash & carry (branches all over the UK, including Cambridge) will let you shop with them (thought they are not open to the public as an ordinary shop) but:
- You need a letter-head to prove you are a university club
- You need to fill out a form for a day permit at the office as you go in, then collect the food, then take it to the checkout, then pay at the pay window.
- Do one big trip - it's not a 'pop in' sort of place
- Some foods have more VAT than others
- They are very useful for certain top camp meal ingredients:
  - bulk (multi-kilo) packs of dried onions
  - big jars of dried mushrooms
  - and most importantly: the essential tubs of dried cheese sauce, dried curry sauce and bolognaise sauce
- Tesco/Lidl own-brand chocolate bars are better value than Booker Mars bars. Similarly, Tesco Value Oats for Flapjack are better value than Booker's Quaker oats.
- When buying drinking chocolate make sure it's the just add water Cadburys stuff. The add milk stuff is somewhat impratical at top camp, and it dosent work with dried milk.--Frank 20:12, 2 June 2008 (BST)
- Have a quick scan of the price per Kg in Tesco, some things arn't cheaper when VAT is added on, although they do come in bigger packets and it's convinent.
- You'll probably need transport!
Other useful food places include:
- Arjuna on Mill Road for Peanut butter in bug (2kg?) tubs
- Nasreen Dar on Histon Road for Pataks curry paste (not sauce!)
- Health food shops for TVP/soya mince (mince rather than chunks). The price varies widely, so shop around.

Flapjack

Earl's flapjack recipe:

In order of melting & mixing:

500g Stork margarine
500g Billingtons dark brown molasses sugar
4 large swirled desert spoons Tate & Lyle golden syrup
1/2 tsp salt
250g Tesco value mixed dried fruit
1kg Tesco value oats

Pressed and smoothed into two A4 trays lined with baking parchment, and baked at 150 degrees Centigrade in a fan oven (175 if no fan?) until (approximately) just the edges and rasins turn darker (i.e. about the time it takes to mix the next batch...)

Either the 150 degrees is a typo, or our oven is a lot more pathetic than Earl's (which is definitely possible). The last two years we did the flapjack at about Gas mark 7, which is roughly 220 degrees C. Otherwise they took about twice as long. JennyB 03:08, 27 June 2008 (BST)

Some tips from an email from Earl.....

I used A4 trays (which originally contained sponsorship fudge from Thorntons). There used to be a lot in the Tackle Store - at least 8 were clean enough to use. I lined the trays with baking parchment - doesn't stick and keeps the trays easy to clean.

I had a big pan and did two trays at a time. Each tray (a bit over 1kg) was cut into 15 pieces, each nearly square. The trick is to cut them when the flapjack has cooled a little (so it doesn't fuse together again) but before it sets solid. When cold, I did not remove the parchment, just slid the whole A4 slab into a large freezer bag and folded & sellotaped the top shut. With a clean preparation area and if well sealed and kept dry, spare flapjack can keep over the winter.

With at least 8 trays, you can have one pair in the oven, one pair being prepared and two pairs cooling off. Get a system going and you can really churn it out - and soon run out of flat surfaces! I've done 48 trays in two or three days before now, but that's quite intense.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Earl.

We found that dark brown sugar & golden syrup is almost identical to white sugar & a treacle/syrup mix. The later is quite a bit cheaper. JennyB 03:08, 27 June 2008 (BST)

If you don't have a huge saucepan a wok works well too. JennyB 03:08, 27 June 2008 (BST)

Food in the tackle store

Mostly out of date, but probably ok :)

1.5 tub cheese sauce powder
1kg mushroom soup powder
2.25 kg leek/mushroom soup powder
2.25 kg minestrone soup powder
14 * oatso packets
6 medium tubs salt
24 jars pesto (180g each)
12 cup a soup packets
1/2 tub tandori paste (1kg?)
400g curry powder
400g pepper
20 stock cubes
650g dried onions
1.5 kg lentils
various sauce mixes
1 large tub hot choc (add water)
1 large tub hot choc (add milk)

Also found some measuring spoon type things and soem trays for flapjack making.

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