Asklemmy

It really depends on whether or not you plan to be pooping during those few days.

Cup noodles can be made with cold water too. But they will take about 30 mins instead of 2-3 minutes. Tried and tested. They still taste good. They are not very nutritious, though.

I would recommended making Energy Bars/Balls. You can find a lot of recipes online but here's mine:

• Roasted almonds
• Roasted cashews
• Roasted pistachios
• Roasted hazelnuts
• Roasted walnuts
• Raisins
• Dates
• Dried Cranberries
• Peanut Butter (unsweetened) (mine contains coconut oil)
• Sesame seeds
• Muskmelon seeds
• Flax seeds
• Pumpkin seeds
• Dark Chocolate

1. Roast the nuts and grind almonds and walnuts to almost flour consistency, and grind the others coarsly.
2. Just put everything in a food processor and let it mix everything. You can also mix it with hand or spoon.
3. To make bars, just put the mixture in a baking dish or a tray and put as much pressure as you can on top of it with your hands or spoon to remove all the air pockets. Refrigerate it for 4 hours. Then cut it into bars.
4. To make balls, just lightly oil your hands and form a ball shape. Again, press them hard to remove the air pockets.

These can last over a week outside the refrigerator (considering the ambient temperature in your area does not rise above 30° C). And inside the refrigerator they can last for over a month.

You can add different types of seeds, nuts, sweeteners etc, depending on what you like, what your body needs and what's available.

Hope this helps.

Look into backpacking meals. They keep forever practically and simply require heat and water most times to prepare.

a jar of peanut butter with granola and dried fruit and candy mixed in is a solid go to.

granola bars in general are solid, even the ones you make yourself.

fresh fruit like apples and bananas are good.

canned condensed soups are surprisingly good cold if you have access to fresh water to reconstitute them and you aren't worried about dehydration. that brings me to my next and much, much more important question:

do you have water figured out?

you can easily survive for four days without food, but you can't make it that long without water. you can't expect to rely on springs/streams/wells especially if you haven't been drinking from them for a while already.

you need about a gallon of water a day, more if youre exerting yourself, sick or eating very dry foods (like camping foods). so if you don't have a supply already figured out, focus on water. If you do have a supply already figured out, pack a gallon or so and some iodine anyway. you literally can't survive if for whatever reason the supply that was fine last time isn't running or is spoiled.

if you do end up having access to water, you can use flameless ration heaters to boil it quickly and use that to heat up any sealed foods you have. frhs' are powdered metals and salt that make a real hot reaction when you pour water on em. so if you had a bag with a frh in it, you had say some food that would taste good hot in another sealed bag, you could put your food bag in the frh bag and pour some water in, fold it closed, prop it up on a rock or something and wait for your food to get hot.

I'm over here getting nostalgic for BEANS.

I dig what you're getting at here man, however my advice is just get a little propane camp stove. Mine has improved my camping life so greatly I'm kicking myself for not buying one before. It's not even expensive one and you can cook in no time flat anywhere. That being said Tuna and crackers is a classic, there is a lot more canned meat than tuna and you can get a lot of variety out of crackers.

You can always go with a historic solution to packing long term food: Pemmican.

You've gotten tons of good suggestions, but also like just bring a camp stove? Even if an actual camp stove isn't allowed, you could easily use a tea candle. It takes a bit longer but it will boil water.

Another thing I don't see people talking about much is canned food. Almost all canned food is precooked or otherwise sterilized, and it takes years to expire when the can is left sealed. While cold ravioli isn't the most satisfying meal, it will fill your stomach without making you sick.

Don't know how feasible this is to cook, but jerky will last more than 4 days. One of my favorite snacks, but it is very expensive.

24 packs of Scampi Fries and a dozen Mars Bars.

You can have meat, but something cured and in a pack like biltong.

And every hiker's favourite, Kendal mint cake, which is as close to Terry Pratchett's dwarf bread as any substance I know.

And this is England. Chances are you'll be like two miles from the nearest shop at a push.

Beef jerky and salted/tinned fish.

Butter.

Eggs (unopened; only if not pasteurized/cleaned which you will not find in a typical US grocer for anyone other than OP).

Pretty much any baked goods.

Pasta (uncooked obviously).

Avocado, onion, tomato... Pretty much any fruit or veggie that isn't kept refrigerated at the store really.

Nuts.

Chocolate

Marshmallows

Graham crackers

Edit: NO FIRE?! The hell you camping?! Could you at least get some sterno or an electric camping stove? How you gonna have a camping trip without s'mores? 😩

Although I also would suggest a basic ass ice chest. My family went camping all the time for that length of time when I was growing up and we would bring regular food to cook over a portable electric stove and keep it in an ice chest. It would keep for at least 5 days.

Most of the foods that existed before the refrigerator was invented!

First of all, depending on the area you're going to be camping in, is a camp stove out of the question? I don't know what's readily available to you in England, but there's quite a range of different options out there from little folding metal things that fit in your pocket that use solid fuel tablets up to briefcase sized ones that are basically like a regular kitchen stove that use 1lb propane tanks (or larger tanks with an adapter) and basically every form factor in between using just about any kind of fuel imaginable. You can even make a small stove out of some soda cans that burns denatured alcohol. You can probably have most of them delivered to you from Amazon before you leave for your trip, and assuming prices are similar in the UK to the US, there's options out there that will only cost you about £10-£20 plus a couple more bucks for fuel

Some of them are practically like cooking on a blowtorch so the flame is too concentrated and intense to do much besides boiling water, but even that opens up your cooking options a lot. Being able to heat up your food or make some coffee/tea/hot cocoa can be a huge quality of life improvement. And having a method to boil water to sterilize it in an emergency is always a good idea.

Usually, at least in the US, camp stoves are exempted from fire bans if that's what you're up against, look into your local laws about that.

Beyond that, your options depend a bit on how comfortable you are ignoring "refrigerate after opening" warnings on labels. A lot of things will say they should be refrigerated but would probably be fine for a few days as long as they're stored with a little care (container with a tight lid, wrapped up careful in some plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, etc. kept clean, dry, kept in a shady place out of the heat of the sun, etc) and depending on the type of camping you're doing, if you can bring a cooler full of ice you can bring just about anything you would normally keep in a fridge, some things can be kept cool by submersing them in a cool stream. Anything that's very sugary, salty, packed in brine or oil will probably last at least a day or two after opening. Many of those types of foods originated as ways to preserve stuff anyway.

But assuming you for whatever reason absolutely cannot have any type of cooking appliance and no access to any way to keep your food cool- Most fruits and veggies will last fine for a couple days unrefrigerated. Breads should be fine. Jams, and jellies, pickles, and other types of preserves are probably fine. A lot of smoked/dried/cured meats should be fine (jerky is a classic choice, salamis, summer sausage, etc. should also work but try to get a whole one, not pre-sliced, country ham if that's available across the pond would probably do the trick, maybe prosciutto) Dried fruits, nuts, harder cheeses. In general you can take a lot of inspiration from a charcuterie board. A lot of "just boil water" kinds of foods don't necessarilyneed the water to be boiled, it just makes it go a lot faster, you could do some overnight oats, instant noodles, etc.

As for your ideas, falafel and fritters are probably fine, but will depend on the exact ingredients and recipe you use. Calzones are probably fine, but I'd keep away from using too many wet ingredients in them, keep a separate jar/can of sauce to serve them with, don't load them up with too many veggies and such, stick to cheese and maybe cured meats like pepperoni for the filling. I had to look up pasties because we don't really have them in the US, but I'd say largely the same as the calzones, probably fine but be smart about what you put in them. At any rate, if you don't have a plan to keep them cool, I'd say you probably want to plan on eating them the first or second day, they might start getting a bit questionable after a couple days.

Lots of good answers here.

Another option would be taking MRE-s (meal ready to eat) it's pre-packaged food designed for soldiers to eat while not having access to a kitchen. It usually has a solution to heat the food and plenty of calories for a full day.

You can order them on the Internet from military surplus or other places and there is a bunch of flavours to choose from. They also have a long shelf life, don't need refrigeration, and fit in a small space.

Is there a reason you can't use a Coleman style camp stove or single burner backpacking stove? Those are standard fair for campgrounds and backcountry.

You can easily make overnight oats with dry ingredients (oats, fruit, nuts/seeds, some syrup) and some water each evening and then have them for breakfast/lunch.

Tabouleh is great in summer and does not need to be cooked.

You put some bulgur wheat, chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, fresh herbs like parsley or mint if you have any with a bit of olive oil and lime in a container. A bit of water and you let it like that for at least half an hour. I usually prepare it in the morning for lunch when I go hiking.

I’ll add cured sausages such as chorizo and dried tomatoes. Both keep well unrefrigerated and add a lot of flavor to any dish.

How come most people try to solve the no heat problem instead of the food that does not need heating problem?

Some stuff that can taste well even "cold":
Canned tuna + precooked canned beans + onion + salt pepper oil vinegar.

Watermelon (quite inefficient when it comes to nutritiom but tasty)

Bread + mustard+ hard cheese or certain types of sausages (especially smoked with low amount of water inside).

Most vegetables and fruit will survive 5 days if they do not have defects and you can keep insects away from it.

Pemmican

Beef jerky

Pork rinds

Apples and other fruits

Nuts

Remember to bring water.

I mean I would just eat cold canned ravioli because that's delicious and it would be a great excuse to eat cold canned ravioli, but you do you

jerky, granola, lots of vegetables are fairly stable and can be eaten raw. Carrots, garden peas, green beans, lettuce (you can eat that in the first day or two before it wilts), apples,

Can you bring a canister cook stove? something like a Jetboil? that way no need for a whole fire etc. you can boil water etc, cook basic stuff like ramen etc. make coffee...Hardy veggies should be good, beef jerky, cured meats like salami etc. dried fruits and nuts, bread, crackers etc. regular fruit, granola bars...i would just bring a little burner thing if you can it will be so much nicer than only eating cold foods etc.

My mother's fridge is only maintaining a temp of 6C (you want 4). While waiting for a new fridge she was concerned about this. I explained that for the first 15-20 years of her life, their was kept cold by putting in a cabinet with a block of ice in it. She calmed down a lot about it after that. :)

When I go camping, I do almost all my cooking on a little alcohol stove, they don't take special fuel, any gas station will have the yellow Heet that you can use for fuel in it.

But what I usually eat:

• Canned soups, can be made hot right in the can, but heavy if you are backpacking.
• Oatmeal and instant noodles like ramen just need to heat some water.
• Those microwavable rice pouches, just need to heat them up, I also like to add some tinned mackerel and some hot sauce with it.
• Bagels, eggs, spam, and cheese makes bomb breakfast bagels. Cheese and eggs will last a couple days. Eggs that are not washed do not require refrigeration.
• You can also bring some cured meats if you want to make sandwiches on your first day. Some meats like summer sausage don't require any refrigeration so will last until you cut into the casing before you need to worry about it. I also will stop at a gas station and grab a few of the single use packets of condiments: mayo, mustard, bbq, relish, etc.
• And MREs or freeze dried meals are easy.

MREs might be a good choice - I know the US ones come with a water-activated device to heat your food up. They're also about 1250 calories each and balanced for recovering after intense exercise.