Cook groups—feeding a crowd on a truck in Africa

Set up for cooking. Notice the tarpaulin rolled up along the length of the truck

Overland truck trips are all about teamwork (even dysfunctional teamwork) and one of the first things our driver did was get us to form cook groups. Hey we had to eat, and the trip fare included two meals a day when on the road and camping.

Our 43-week African trip started with 28 people, including the driver and his sidekick. Obviously, those last two weren’t going to cook after a day on the road, so we organised ourselves into six groups of four leaving two others to unload tents and start the cooking fires each day. Six groups meant cooking once every six days. The ‘tent bitches’ were on every day.

Chris and Gary, our driver and his sidekick, urged everyone to have at least one decent cook in every group. Duh, that made sense.

We paired up with Martin and Gwynne, a great couple from the USA, who visited us recently in Australia (click through and scroll down for a pic of them). I was the designated ‘decent’ cook and it helped that for many years I have preferred to cook from scratch. My cooking blog is evidence of that.

Poor John carrying a tub of water

How most cook days played out
On any given day, the relevant cook group usually shopped for food at lunchtime or just before stopping to camp.

In West Africa, our daily budget (for two meals) was $1.80 per person—or just over $50 for the entire group. Don’t forget that we started out with loads of basic dry goods (read about those here). And seriously, $50 goes a long way in those parts.

When we stopped to camp, the tent bitches would get the tents, tables and chairs out, and get the fire going.

Rob and Martin stow tents

The giant kettle went on first because everyone was hanging out for a hot drink. That might sound odd in Africa, but our trip started in March, which is still winter in Morocco. Later on, even on the hottest days, a sugary tea was a great way to rehydrate.

Then the big jobs began. Virtually all the food purchased in markets had to be washed first. We also had to fill and set out bowls that would be used to wash and disinfect hands (nail brushes included), and more bowls that would be used to wash and disinfect dirty dishes, cutlery, and pots and pans.

Sometimes running water was a hike from where we were cooking, but we took advantage of taps whenever they were available because the truck carried only 400 litres of fresh water.

Notice how pale the eggs are

Chopping vegetables

It took time for all of us to figure out just how much food to buy for 28 people and to gauge just how long it might take to chop and cook everything. Having a group of four helped a lot. I had a slight advantage because we lived in Burma for several years in the 1980s and we often entertained large groups.

After dinner, the cook group washed the pots and pans, and packed them away. Diners did their own dishes. After everything was cleaned up it was quite common for people to sit around the fire chatting.

The same cook group organised breakfast the next morning. Leftovers were served too, if there were any and if they could be safely kept overnight. We had no refrigeration—only a large esky (ice chest).

Oh, and if you’re wondering how I managed to cook with dried chickpeas all the time. On our cook days, I’d start them soaking in the morning. I found a way to wedge two water jugs upright in the food storage area.

By the way, we cooked in all sorts of places—at a simple homestay in Morocco, a palatial home in Rwanda, on the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, in the desert, on a construction site, in a mining camp and more. I’ll write more about some of those later.

Some other cook group memories
Before the trip began I asked the driver (in a private Facebook message) if there would be decent knives on the truck. My thinking was to bring a couple of my own if necessary. He replied publicly saying something like Yes, Peggy, there will be plenty of good knives on the truck. No wonder I was regarded with some suspicion at first.

Our first shop in Tetouan, Morocco

Fresh food in Tetouan

Chicken shop

I’ll always remember our first shop in Morocco. Tetouan has a large market with an abundance of fresh food. I found I was able to use smatterings of Arabic and French to buy wonderful ingredients at way less than a tourist price. Thank goodness for Attiya in Cairo who taught me all the foods in Arabic.

The biggest headache for most groups was catering for the fussy eaters. I didn’t at all mind cooking for vegetarians. That was easy. But in addition to a couple of vegetarians, we had seven who didn’t like fish, another seven who wouldn’t eat mushrooms, one who didn’t eat chicken, and one who complained about onions and garlic. Geez! More about that later. Oh, and for some outlandish reason, everyone ate tinned tuna!

For the first couple of months, our cook night seemed to come around when it was raining—sometimes pouring. We had a tarpaulin that could be stretched out over the cook tables, but they didn’t do much in torrential rain. In Togo we stood in ankle-deep water to cook.

John, Lena and Tamara help on pizza night

One big win came after a very long day. Our group bought 28 baguettes and 56 eggs at lunchtime with a plan to make egg salad sandwiches for dinner. There was a truck excursion to a waterfall and we were quite late getting back to camp. Gwynne and I dreaded the prospect of then having to boil eggs. But as it happened, one of us dropped an egg and we discovered that all 56 eggs were already hard-boiled. Whew!

As passengers left, cook groups reshaped and went from four to three. Martin and Gwynne started a new group, and one gal asked to join us. Much to my amusement, she sacked us a couple of months later because we cooked with too much garlic and way too many onions.

By the time we got to Ethiopia, we were cooking in pairs. After a few mornings in a row, when the fellow who was supposed to start the fire slept in way too late, Poor John and I resigned from official cooking. Given that we got up early anyway, we offered instead to get the fire going every morning and also get breakfast laid out for everyone. The normal cook group would do the after-breakfast clean and pack. That offer was accepted and we did that routine through Ethiopia and The Sudan.

Flying ant wings everywhere

The best and the worst
We didn’t cook on the worst night, but we all suffered and it wasn’t the food. We’d had a fabulous day seeing hippos up close in Cameroon. That night we unwittingly camped at the scene of the annual mating ritual of flying ants. Egads, there were ants everywhere. The males die after mating and the females shed their wings. What a mess to clean up.

But the best night also came in Cameroon. It was Poor John’s birthday. It was a bush camp, and Gwynne and Martin’s cook group decided to make pizzas—not the easiest thing to do on a campfire.

Lots of people pitched in to help and the food was sensational. To top it off, we did a variety show with everyone contributing an act. I can’t remember them all, but there were dances, a puppet show, comedy acts and more. Poor John recited the Australian bush poem Bluey Brink and I recited these Sudanese poems.

Gwynne serving pizza