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Reviews > Cook Gear > Cook Sets > Light My Fire Outdoor Meal Kit > Roger Caffin > Field Report
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Reviewer Details
| Reviewer: | Roger Caffin |
| Age: | 60 |
| Gender: | M |
| Weight: | 63 kg (139 lb) |
| Height: | 167 cm (67") |
| Email address: | r dot [surname] at acm dot org |
| Home: | Sydney, Australia |
Backpacking Background
I started bushwalking at 14 and took up rock climbing at University with the girl who became my wife and my permanent walking partner. Ski touring and canyoning followed. Winter and summer, we prefer long hard trips by ourselves: about a week in Australia, up to two months in Europe/UK. We prefer fast and light in unfrequented trackless country. We would be out walking and skiing for at least three months a year. We have now moved to lightweight gear, much to our backs' relief. I designed and made much of our lightweight gear myself.
I am also the maintainer of the Australian aus.bushwalking FAQ web site www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/.
Product Information
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Notes:
All items are polypropylene except for the Spork which is polycarbonate.
Weights and volumes quoted are my measurements, taken right to the rim.
The company describes the cup as 300 mL, while I measured it as 350 mL to the rim - fair enough.
Two URLs were found for the company: both are quoted above.
Product Description
I suggested in my Initial Report that these are (sort of) a variation on the well-known 'Tupperware' plastic containers, with additions. However, the lids for the big bowl and the cup don't seal; only the small round box has a sealing lid. The lid for the cup has a hole in it for drinking. There is also a Spork and a colander / cutting board.
Preamble
I have been carrying some old Decor plastic crockery from the local supermarket for many years, but was looking for something better. In particular, I would like a slightly larger dinner bowl, a better 'plate' for buttering biscuits on, a lighter soup bowl and maybe a slightly bigger coffee cup. So my interest in this Kit was to see whether it would be better for my needs than the cheap supermarket items.
Field Experiences
Bits and pieces of the full Outdoors Meal Kit have been taken on both day walks and overnight trips. I have not taken the whole Kit with me at one time: that would have been a serious overkill for an ultra-lightweight enthusiast.
Big Bowls
These were taken on overnight trips for buttering biscuits and for stew, and I also experimented with using one of them tipped upside down as a flat plate for the biscuits. As bowls they seemed to work quite well for stew, having ample capacity for a large dinner. However, I did notice that the surface did not seem to clean very easily: the plastic seems to have a high surface energy and stuff clings to it. I mention this below for the cup as well.
Using the bowl upside down as a plate for buttering was not a success: the crumbs went everywhere. It seems that the surface area was not large enough, the surface rather slippery for crumbs, and the rounded edges encouraged the crumbs to slide off. On the other hand, the width of the bowl was large enough that buttering biscuits inside it was fairly simple, even in mid winter when the butter was like a rock.
The surface of the bowl seems to be fairly scratch-resistant to Lexan cutlery. I haven't (yet) tried a sharp metal knife on the surface as I don't carry one when walking. This may yet happen during the Long Term Report period.
Bowl Lid
I looked at using this for several things, but nothing proved very weight-effective. If I had wanted to carry some cake or other crushable food inside the big bowl it would have been a good lid - but I don't do that when walking. It wasn't big enough to hold the wholemeal buns my wife makes for us, so we continue to use a largish 'Click-Clack' box for that on day walks. I tried using it as a flat plate for biscuits, but the walls were a bit too high one way to justify the extra weight, and the other side was no different from the base of the big bowl. It makes a nice lid for the big bowl, but a lid is something I didn't need.
Cup
This was tried out for two functions. It is of a 'standard cup' capacity, but it is very flat and is not as nice for drinking tea and coffee out of as an ordinary cup. The picture by my Bio shows me drinking coffee from it on a day walk at Pumpkin Point Creek. I found it had a tendency to slosh and spill the drink contents rather easily in the field, especially on uneven surfaces. Also, I found it hard to clean fine coffee grounds out of the base: once again they seemed to stick to the surface.
I tried the cups out as soup bowls for 'Instant Soup'. We normally have some as the first course for dinner when walking: it serves as an electrolyte replacement, and in winter sometimes helps to warm us up if the day has been a little 'off'. A packet of this makes a '1 cup (250 mL)' serve, although I usually increase the volume to about 300 mL as we need the liquids. However, the very flat design of the 
350 mL cup makes this a somewhat hazardous operation: the edge of the soup is very close to the edge of the cup. Things were just safe enough if I kept the cup inside a bowl: the bowl would catch the sloshes.
The inside of the cup has little bumps: these are visible in the photo of the coffee grounds. They are meant to indicate 1/4 cup increments in the volume. I found these quite annoying. When mixing up the soup, and when mixing milk powder for breakfast, the flat tops of these bumps collects the powder and makes it hard to get it all mixed. Also, while I can normally go around the base of a cup or bowl with a spoon to collect any lumps, these bumps stick out, get in the way, and risk making me splash the surface if I forget they are there. Getting all traces of stuff off these bumps can be difficult, even at home in a large bowl of hot washing up water. I found dried traces in the corner above one bump a day later after my wife had washed them. These bumps are not a good idea.
The inside of the cup has the logo embossed into the base on the inside. This is visible in the coffee grounds photo. Getting stuff out of the shallow recesses formed by the lettering can be a bit difficult if the stuff is sticky - like milk powder for instance. It is not clear why the logo was placed here, and I question whether the designer did the washing up.
I found the handle sticking out the side usable, but in general I preferred to hold the cup by the base. This is a minor preference: I just felt things were more stable when I held the cup in the middle rather than out at the side. Using the flat handle seemed to allow more scope for wobbles. It is possible to hold the handle while cupping the bowl in the same hand: this seemed quite stable, but the corners of the rim under the handle then dug into my fingers.
Cup Lid
I tried using this once, and so did my wife (at the same time). We both came to the conclusion that it was like one of those cup tops used for feeding very little children. In addition I found it positively dangerous with hot coffee - I could get a mouthful of very hot coffee far too quickly. With an ordinary cup I tend to cool the coffee by inhaling across the surface of the coffee as I drink (quietly of course!). With the lid this was not possible. It may be a nice design, but in my opinion it is highly non-functional.
Cutting Board
I guess the draining holes in this board are supposed to make it into a colander for draining excess water off rice of noodles. However, I have yet to meet a light-weight walker who cooks his food with so much excess water that it needs draining off. It uses too much fuel to heat the extra water. Certainly, I never need a colander in the field. So that feature has not been field-tested.
I have tried using the board for buttering biscuits. It works, but it often seems a just a little bit small, especially with the triangular shape and the rounded edges. That's half a round wholemeal bun my wife makes sitting on it (I had already eaten the other half). Trying to cut a more conventional loaf on it showed it was definitely too small. I also tried using the underside of the big bowl as a cutting board as it is a bit larger, but it had the same problems. Being rather thick the cutting board (43 g, 1.52) is much more rigid than my old polyethylene (PE) cutting board (62 g, 2.19 oz), so it may be of some use on trips overseas where we have to cut up large bread loaves and salami-style sausages. However, the larger size of my old PE board makes it much more useful.
At one stage I must have had this cutting board packed against the metal clip on the 'Click-Clack' box we take our food in on day walks. I noticed a metallic rub mark on the plastic. It was not severe and not a worry, but the plastic is not indestructible. Well, nothing is. This is not a criticism, just an observation.
Round Box
I found the lid could come off this if it was shoved around inside my pack. Perhaps I am a bit rough, but when I am looking for a snack inside my pack in the pouring rain, things do get pushed around a bit. I just wasn't game to risk putting jam and honey in it. I could put dry goods in it, but I find a plastic bag inside a nylon stuff-sack works just as well for that, and is a lot lighter. The box is a nice idea, but not quite good enough for my needs when walking. It may be useful in the kitchen for holding things: I will how this works during the Long Term Report period.
Spork
I tried buttering bread and biscuits with both ends of the Spork, but this was definitely not a success. I think spreading butter and jam is one of those things for which it was not designed. I would add that changing ends while experimenting is a good way of getting messy hands! I had a bit of trouble getting the 'handle' end clean when swapping ends: the surface of the plastic seems strangely sticky for food, as I have mentioned above.
I have also used the Sporks for cooking and eating stew on overnight trips. Eating with the spoon was OK, although the mouthfuls were a bit small. Well, one can tolerate that. Trying to eat with the fork end was less successful, and I have to confess I cannot see the point of Sporks anyhow. Maybe they are more useful for long thin spaghetti or ramen noodles.
I did worry that the short length might be a bit of a problem when stirring a pot of stew for two people. However, when I actually tried using it there was no problem. The spoon end worked fine, although the fork end was pretty useless for stirring.
Ergonomics of Packing
Going ultra-lightweight also means carrying a small pack, so one of the requirements I had not foreseen at the start was the ability of the items to pack up small. To be sure, all the items in one Kit can pack together into the big bowl, but I normally carry two dinner bowls, two soup bowls and two cups for myself and my wife. Sadly, I have to report that the Outdoors Meal Kit is a bit of a disaster here. The bowls cannot nest inside each other the way my tapered Decor bowls do. As a result they occupy a huge amount of space inside my pack. The triangular shape of the big bowl does not help in getting it to meld with other gear, and the rim on the outside of the big bowl doesn't help either. Nor, for that matter, do the cups pack together very well either.
Summary so far
The optimistic version is as follows. I find the big bowl (87 g, 3.07 oz) usable, although it is heavier than my Decor bowl (49 g, 1.73 oz). The Spork is cute and the spoon end (just) usable. The base of the big bowl can be used as a cutting board (62 g, 2.19 oz), but buttering biscuits is better done with the bowl upright.
The pessimistic version is as follows. The advertising says the Outdoors Meal Kit has been designed by Scandinavian designer Joachim Nordwall. Fine, but I suspect the designer has never been walking or packed a rucsack. I would cheerfully sacrifice the all fancy design features for good simple functionality.
Test Plan Results
Things I have been monitoring, with conclusions so far, include:
