Evolving Camp Menus

If you’ve ever been to camp, you know that s’mores are best made over a campfire, and that a knish is the perfect side dish for a cookout or brisket meal. Campers who jump out of bed every morning and race to breakfast, hoping it’s an S Day, as well as those who can’t get enough of the pizza, know that camp food is as much a part of the camp experience as the activities. Like many other camp traditions, the menu constantly evolves to meet the current demands of campers.

One factor heavily influencing camp menus is the growing awareness of the need to develop healthy eating habits early in life. Camps are introducing new and healthier menu alternatives. Items such as Greek yogurt, hummus, guacamole and wraps are finding their way onto camp menus to combine with salad bars, longtime camp dining staples, to give campers and staff more nutritional options. Lite dressings are also appearing alongside regular ones and more fruit and vegetable choices are being offered. But the camp food revolution doesn’t begin and end at the salad bar.

Camps are increasingly using olive oil instead of vegetable oil and are playing around with herb and spice combinations to enhance the taste of the food. This isn’t to say that some traditional camp favorites are disappearing off menus. Grilled cheese, pasta and chicken fingers are all still very much camp fare. Camps are just trying to make healthier versions of them by using fresher ingredients and fewer pre-packaged items.

Campers are very enthusiastic about the recent trends in camp food. Today’s campers have savvy palates and like that favorite foods that have traditionally not been available at camp are finding their way onto menus.

Meal times are important parts of camp each day. They are times for the camp to come together and dine as a family. They are times for singing, cheering and catching up. Perhaps that why camp food is such a key part of camp.

Experts Agree: Camp is Cool

Summer is over – which means camp directors can catch up on our summer reading.

In the past few months, the media has been filled with stories examining the camp experience. A variety of writers extol it, from several intriguing angles.

Reviewing Michael Thompson’s new book Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow, Time Magazine’s Bonnie Rochman said the author focused on the magic of camp after realizing “it’s where most kids first battle homesickness only to emerge triumphantly independent.” But it’s not only children who benefit: the Time story is titled “Summer Camp: Great for Kids, Even Better for Parents.” Camp lets parents realize that their children are growing up; that they can be independent, and survive away from home. And, of course, time apart from their kids is important for parents’ own relationships and fulfillment.

Talya Minsberg picked up on that theme in her piece for the New York Times’ “Motherlode” parenting blog. Youngsters grow and explore at camp, she says, “despite their parents’ worry.”

Minsberg should know. A former camp counselor herself, her piece is a paean to “the in-jokes, goofy rituals and the cherished memories” of a camp-filled summer.

She called camp “magical…a place removed from the stresses and distractions of the real world, where staff members and campers alike discover a new kind of independence and responsibility. Camp is a place of positive transformation – where you…clean up your dishes and make your bed with no complaints, and meet undoubtedly the coolest people in the world: your 19-year-old counselors.”

Writing lovingly for Slate, John Dickerson also nailed the camp experience — with a twist in his article, “My Daughter Went Away to Camp and Changed.” A former camper who returned to pick up his daughter 36 years later, he noted that camp hasn’t changed. However – happily – she had.

In her father’s absence, she’d grown up. She’d explored, taken risks, tried new identities. “We are not invited” to camp, Dickerson said. That’s “a paper-cut echo of the truth at the heart of parenting: You’re doing it best when you’re teaching them to leave you.”

Camp is a perfect way for parents to teach children to leave them. It’s also a perfect way for parents to teach themselves how to let go, and take their own steps toward independence. Independence, that is, from their kids. That doesn’t mean they love their children any less. In fact, it means they love them more.

The young people these writers love are back at home now. They’re glad to be there. Their parents are happy to have them. But odds are good that they can’t wait for next summer to arrive.