Storing cooked food

[mdskids]

This is more of a food hygiene question, but related to cycle touring.
I like to cook 'proper' simple meals while touring, eg stews, chilli, curry, sauce for pasta. However, it's easier to cook food for two than for one - for example, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of beans, onion+peppers will make enough chilli for two (with rice). I hate wasting food, so was trying to think of a way to keep half the food I cook for next days evening meal.

The idea I came up with was a simple form of 'canning'. I plan to bring along a medium sized glass jar. I could then sterilise jar and lid (in the water I was boiling anyway for my rice/pasta) add half my meal while still piping hot, seal immediately and keep for the next day, when it would be properly heated to boiling point again. I'd only do this with veggie meals, so no meat issues, and only ever keep for one day. And I'd be cooking my carb (pasta, rice etc) fresh each night.

Any thoughts on the safety and practicality of doing this. Googling food hygiene and storage brings up lots of (imho) rather paranoid (American?) advice that suggests leaving any food at room temperature for more than 2 hours is madness (I guess they never eat packed lunches?). Any other suggestions? I've done something similar at home to store tomato sauce in jars and it seems to keep for weeks, but I have had a couple of jars go bad. I also read somewhere that filled jars should be inverted - possibly to kill any bacteria in the air trapped in the jar.

An alternative idea was to bring a food thermos flask to store the meal in. It's obviously not going to stay hot for 24 hours, but maybe keeping it hot for longer is better from a food safety point of view. This would be heavier than a glass jar though.

[Jdsk]

You're probably not going to run into problems with this. But that process will get nowhere near "sterilising" conditions and you won't have preserving levels of acidity, sugar, salt, dryness or alcohol.

I'd add the desirability of getting the prepared food as cold as possible as quickly as possible.

You're very wise to exclude cooked rice, because of Bacillus cereus.

And it's worth reading about botulism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism#Prevention

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

I'm really interested in this subject too, ever since I began to camp in warmer months - my first forays towards life under canvas tended to happen over winter, for reasons I won't expand on. Thus it came as an unpleasant surprise when I began to camp out in summer months, to find things like butter & milk don't last at all well when warm.
To turn to your Q. mds, a lot depends on the variables. What's the climate like where you camp? What sort of food do you tend to cook? Some ingredients spoil much quicker than others. Beware too of trying to emulate established ways of preserving food - the correct way to carry out canning or bottling, for example, is quite particular and an incomplete attempt may actually promote the growth of elements you certainly don't want to be eating!
There's quite a lot on the 'net on this subject these days, what with 'preppers' beadily eyeing up our future, an' all...

[Galactic]

I could then sterilise jar and lid (in the water I was boiling anyway for my rice/pasta) add half my meal while still piping hot, seal immediately and keep for the next day

I like this! Seems a bit of a faff and carries a risk of burning your fingers, but still perfectly doable, and I think much better than putting it in a thermos where it'll stay warm (perfect breeding ground for bugs), but almost definitely not hot enough to kill off said bugs (>70C).

I'd suggest trying out your plan on a purely plant-based meal, ie no eggs (salmonella!) or milk products (go off easily), and also avoiding rice (also salmonella!). If you do this and trust your nose and taste to tell you if it's gone off then you're not running much of a risk.

Personally, I can't imagine having the problem of cooking enough for the next day. I'm usually ravenous after a day in the saddle and have often cursed the small size of Trangia pots! Having said that, I do often have bits and bobs of cooked food that I carry around - the half-eaten pot of humus or spread, the block of tofu I haven't finished, maybe an opened jar of cooked vegetables (like that weird mix of carrots and peas you find on the continent, or some sauerkraut or whatever). I try to eat those things up by the second day because it gets very hot in panniers during the summer and have so far (wood, touch) not had a dodgy belly from anything I've been trucking around in my cycle bags.

[mdskids]

Thanks for the replies. All useful info. Maybe you're right and it's too much faff, and I'm trying to find a solution to a problem that isn't really there. Like you Galactic, I do eat a lot on tour, but even so sometimes find myself flagging at the bottom of the pot. It amuses me that the Trangia 27 set is sold as 1-2 person and the 25 set as 3-4 person - I have both and they are definitely 1 person and 2 person respectively. Maybe I just need to get more creative with my cooking, or cut down on the carbs (half a bag of pasta is probably a bit excessive for one).

One thing I will definitely do on my next tour is bring a spare leakproof food container. Then if I'm lucky enough to stay in a campsite with a communal freezer, I can freeze a spare portion of food overnight (and, knowing me, probably forgot to collect it in the morning before leaving).

On the subject of food storage - the furthest I've pushed it was hiking in NW Spain. I bought some very strong blue Cabrales cheese (which in retrospect was probably unpasteurised) and kept it for a couple of warm days in my rucksack. Decided it was probably time to ditch it when it started to smell strongly of ammonia

[pjclinch]

There's nothing obviously wrong with what you propose, and it's further than I'd go.
As long as you don't have any toxins in there heating it up the next night should kill any nasty bugs that might be in there.

When I was a student heading out for a weekend with the mountaineering club I'd typically make myself a curry on the Thursday evening and pop it in a tupperware box and put that in the fridge (didn't have a freezer). I'd pack it Friday night when we headed off to wherever and take it out on the Saturday to reheat and eat it with pitta bread. This was standard practice for years and it never caused me problems.

Pete.

[simonineaston]

That strategy worked well for us, too - except that we did have a freezer, into which the curry went, whenever we could be bothered to make it, under the principle that as everybody know, any sort of stew tastes better the day - or several... after it was cooked. As we outdoors types know, too, a bothy or hut may or may not, have a fridge, of varying efficacy and so the meal starting off as a frozen brick seemed to us a sort of nod towards food hygiene. AfaIk, nobody died of us being wrong.

[Paulatic]

Just the thought of a glass jar sounds heavy extra weight to me. Also seems like a faff and if something does go wrong that’s a cycling trip spent sitting near a loo . Kidney beans, chick peas all under 50p a tin is it worth the risk ?
I’d suggest dried tomatoes and without any meat, when I’m cycling, I can certainly eat a full tin of beans.

[Navrig]

I have no scientific background but for back to back days I think you'll be ok with this method but it will depend on your opportunity to thoroughly clean the jar before starting and the ambient temperature of where you are. Obviously the less clean the jar and the warmer the weather, especially night time, the greater the risk of problems.

As an aside here is some anecdotal evidence that we are too cautious in the west. I have friend who teaches in Saigon. His daily routine is up at 0600, shower and dress. Leaves his apartment at 0630 and immediately buys a banh mi from the street vendor outside his apartment. Typically bread, grilled pork or chicken, pork pate, vegetables and chilli sauce. The banh mi goes into the top box on his motorbike, It's a 45 min or so ride to school so he is there 0730. Classes start soon after. The banh mi goes into his drawer. The classroom is not air conditioned. Eventually he eats the banh mi around 1200 so it has been out of refrigeration for over 5 hours in tropical weather. He hasn't been ill from the process (yet).

[axel_knutt]

How about a nice plate of pagpag?

[mdskids]

I dare say we also (in the Western world) have pretty pathetic gut biomes. I'd like to think I have a fairly resilient digestive system as I'm the person in my household who generally finishes up old.left-overs and out of date food, rather than see things go to waste. I've even considered the option of 'dumpster diving' as a means of getting food on tour, but am too much of a coward to go rooting around the back of supermarkets.

[simonhill]

I'd have no problem with saving "for example, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of beans, onion+peppers will make enough chilli for two " till the next day. I wouldn't use a glass jar as heavy and fragile. Something like Tupperware or even reused plastic takeaway container.

I'd bury a bit in my pannier to avoid direct sun on the tops.

I do think many people are far too risk adverse nowadays. I spend months each year in more basic countries in the tropics and there are plenty of things I see and do that would horrify the average Brit.

[PH]

I no longer cook when camping, when I did, any leftovers would be the following days lunch rather than dinner. Packed in a re-usable Ziploc bag, and eaten straight from it without reheating. In hot weather, the bag would go in a pan, with a damp cloth around it.

[simonineaston]

I no longer cook when camping, when I did, any leftovers would be the following days lunch rather than dinner.

I developed various strategies to deal with the multiple challenges of food prep on the road. I had a gentle introduction as indicated above. Of particular help was a cookery book, long lost unfortunately, that was written specifically for touring cyclists, albeit by an * American...
I adopted a number of ways to deal with dairy products relative readiness to spoil, but my master stroke, I think was simply to favour touring in France, which simple act allowed me to abandon self-catering - and thus the need to carry any cooking equipment at all! - completely.
As for the dairy, I took to using milk in its dried form. Nestlé's dried full fat milk powder is very tolerable on muesli or the winter equivalent, porridge. Italian hard cheeses can last well, even in hot weather, and grate readily onto savoury dishes. As for butter, this seemed the hardest nut to crack, if that isn't mixing metaphors rather badly... So I just took to doing what they do in olive producing countries, that is using olive (or rape-seed, given the price these days) oil instead.
* I have nothing against America per se - my 2 cousins are US citizens after-all, but them and their recipes can be a challenge what with all them cups they use for measurement and a liking too, for the nuclear weapon of camp cooking, the multi-fuel pressure burner...

[simonhill]

Powdered milk is good for cycle touring.

I use condensed milk in a tube added to the water for my porridge and occasionally in coffee. Not easily available in UK, but you can buy in France. It is very sweet so no good if you don't want things sweetened.