Festival food: what to bring
Dancing, listening to your favorite bands and hopefully enjoying good weather go hand in hand with nights in a tent and little sleep. So it’s important to eat well. Although the food at most festivals is getting better and better, it’s nice to build up a good base at your tent. With these tips, you’ll only want to eat at your own tent.
Anything you’re not going to drink on the first day needs to be shelf-stable. Unfortunately, that limits your choices, but trust us, it’ll be fine.
The first evening
Make sure you have a good cool box. It will only work on the first day, but it’s still nice to keep drinks cold and possibly bring a meal for the first evening in case the festival grounds aren’t open yet.
Snacks
Your tent is up, time for a well-deserved snack. This is the perfect moment to take hummus, baba ganoush, raw vegetables, dolma and olives out of the cool box. Of course, you didn’t make any of it yourself; a trip to the Turkish shop is enough.
Dinner
Good options for your first evening meal are pasta, noodle or rice salad. They’re all easy to put in a container and you can then easily eat them with a fork or spoon. No hassle with a knife and fork. For example, make pasta salad with eggplant and walnut pesto, noodles with chicken and garlicky peanut dressing or freestyle a rice salad.
Breakfast
White bread rolls from the supermarket are your best friend; they contain so much junk that they stay fresh for days. A jar of peanut butter or Nutella and you’re all set. Gingerbread is also a good option, and rice cakes and rye bread keep for a long time too.
Feel like going all out? Then bring homemade granola bars. Die-hard camping enthusiasts bring a camping stove and fry an egg or make pancakes.
Snacking
Walking, dancing, running—sometimes your legs get tired and you need to rest at the tent between acts. Bags of crisps, popcorn and dried sausages were made for these moments. Don’t forget to bring a small knife if you’re going for a dried sausage, or go old school and bring Bifi.
Dinner
Most likely, during dinner you’ll be enjoying an overpriced hamburger, wood-fired pizza, poké bowl or steamed bun. But if you want a budget-friendly evening, we highly recommend hot dogs. Again with chemical white bread rolls and canned frankfurters. Bring a tube of mayo and ketchup and your evening meal is sorted. Unfortunately, we can’t make it much more culinary than that.
Dessert
Making dinner very fancy is difficult, but luckily you can go all out with dessert. Brownies, muffins and cake can all be kept perfectly well outside the fridge. As long as they don’t contain pieces of chocolate, because those will melt.
Don’t feel like doing it yourself? Your friends will probably be very happy if you pull a bag of Haribo out of your bag too.
