People will be people, and will do what they they think is best for them regardless of what other, more experienced people have already found out the hard way. But trends don't lie, and the truth is that fewer and fewer large RV's are being sold, while more and more smaller, fuel efficient RV's are coming on the market. Even when faced with such facts, there will always be people with a lot more money than others and will spend it foolishly, and no one is going to change their minds. Everyone is different, and travels or camps in different ways for different reasons. The same goes for cooking.
No two appetites are the same, nor are the cooking styles of those people the same. Just as in music, some people have to have a book in front of them, and yet others know what the finished product is supposed to sound like or taste like and can "improvise" based on the mood at the time.
In a small RV, a person is going to find more "improvisation" in their cooking style, simply because they aren't going to have a full kitchen to work in, nor are they likely to have all the ingredients that some recipes call for. But before they can start cooking, they have to have a place to store the ingredients.
Most RV's are not designed for fresh food storage. You aren't going to find a cool root cellar or basement like you might have at home. The truth is, that most RV's are designed for "convenience foods"...mostly canned goods and packaged foods. Very few are even going to have bins for root vegetables and hardy fruits, so you have to "make do" with your own common sense food preservation techniques in an RV.
First of all, you really do need a cool dry place to store certain vegetables, fruits and other foods, so the last thing you want to do is turn your RV into an oven. If traveling in warmer temperatures, you want to make sure your RV has good ventilation, and is not subject to any more heat buildup than necessary. And if that is unavoidable, then don't buy fresh fruits and veggies that are going to be ruined by the heat!
Having lived in Mesa for ten years, I saw a lot of people foolishly close up their RV's tight as a drum before they left for the summer. They would put Reflectix in the windows, seal everything up, and think they were accomplishing something by "keeping the heat out". They weren't. Closing an RV up tight in 115 degree heat, with no ventilation, is like wrapping a baked potato with aluminum foil. Yes, the Reflectix might help to keep UV rays and the sun's radiant heat out, but sealing it up is only going to hold the heat in! The RV still needs ventilation! Without ventilation it is going to get up to 160 degrees inside at the peak of the day, and cook everything in there.
But many RV'ers that are on the move, will go away from their RV for a few hours each day and leave it setting in the hot sun, unless they are in a place where they have power available. If they are out boondocking, they aren't going to have air conditioning to keep it cool unless they run the generator whenever they stop. And many people in small RV's don't even have air conditioners to keep them cool. So what do you do?
The first thing is to realize that heat rises. The worst place you can put fresh food is up high, like in a top compartment or cabinet. You want to keep that food as cool as possible, so that means keeping it as close to the floor (or even under it, like a "basement" compartment, if your RV has such capabilities). Storing it near the fresh water tank is good, because the tank will help to even out the changes in air temperature and help to keep that compartment cool.
Also, keep the RV ventilated! Most small RV's (and even large ones) are going to have roof vents. But having a roof vent without a means to keep rain out is a waste! They make some fans and vents with rain sensors on them, but if you are home on a hot day, and it suddenly starts raining, who wants to be inside with no ventilation? For that reason I recommend using vent covers similar to the Maxx-Aire hoods that allow the roof vent to be open while providing rain protection. Even if you can't leave windows open to let air in, having a vent at the roof level will allow the hot air near the ceiling of an RV to escape, and can keep the RV as much as 20 degrees cooler. That is important whether you are living in it or it is setting in a storage yard. RV's need ventilation!
We will present some types of foods that don't need refrigeration in the coming posts, but for now, just know that you need to keep fresh foods as low as possible in your RV. Besides that, is the weight of them. Always keep heavier stuff toward the floor so your RV doesn't get top heavy.
Typically, it is always a good idea to park your RV so that the sun does not shine on the side the refrigerator is on, as that avoids over-taxing the refrigerator trying to compensate for radiant heat from the sun. If you can do that, and then store your fresh food down low on that same side of the RV, that will also help to avoid overheating the fresh food.
On mobile RV's like small trailers, vans and small motorhomes, keeping the refrigerator side out of the sun may not always be easy, as we may have to go in a direction which puts the sun on that side, or we may have to take what parking places we can get when out and about. But it should be something that remains in the back of our minds to always "try" to keep the refrigerator side out of the sun whenever possible.
For small RV's that rely on coolers of various types, whether they be ice chests or powered coolers, simply laying a wet towel across the top can help the cooler work more efficiently by the process of evaporation. The cooler you keep the lid, the cooler it will be on the inside. And always keep it out of direct sunlight.
You should always try to keep as much radiant heat out of your vehicle as possible, so always use reflective window coverings when you park it in the sun. The less the sun can shine on anything in the interior, the less the heat will build up, and the less damage the suns UV rays will do to the interior.
In the next posts we will publish a list of foods that do not need refrigeration. Some of those foods will be dry foods. When on the move, it is difficult to get involved with the process of dehydrating fresh foods that you might buy at a store or farmer's market, but it isn't impossible, either. Still, it may be more practical to buy certain foods already dehydrated, and storing such things requires the same common sense that you would apply to potatoes or onions, as far as keeping them in a cool dry place. Sometimes the fancy backpacking foods that are dehydrated cost a lot more than their similar counterparts available at most supermarkets, too, so we will also keep that fact in mind.
And the other common sense thing is to never over-buy if you don't have room to store it or aren't going to eat it within a week. Those foods aren't going to keep as long in an RV as they would in your nice air conditioned house! Sure, it's probably cheaper to buy ten pounds of potatoes than it is to buy five pounds, but unless you plan on eating them at every meal, and for snacks in between, you will likely throw out the last half, and then you won't have saved anything! The same goes for onions, or any other fruit or vegetable. Buy only what you need to get you by for about a week.
Don't hoard food, just because it's on sale! We knew one retired couple that lived in a park model in our park. She had the inside refrigerator stuffed with food, plus TWO refrigerators setting in the carport, where they also had to work harder to compensate for the summer heat, and they were stuffed like sardine cans! What is the point? The cost of the extra refrigerators and the electricity to keep them cool (especially in up to 118 degree heat) was more than the little bit of savings she was able to gain...considering that there was an Albertson's right across the street within walking distance! That kind of foolish hoarding of food is a total waste!
Unless you are going out boondocking for more than a week at a time, and avoid civilization totally, you are likely going to be near a store within a week, so don't waste money buying in quantity if you are going to end up with half of it going bad before you can use it! Something will ALWAYS be on sale somewhere. You can't buy all of it. THINK and be practical!
One of my wife's concerns was that full-timing in a small RV is going to cost us more for food "because" we won't be able to buy in the quantities that we have been used to. (We had one 14 cubic foot refrigerator at our real estate home, and that is more than enough for two people! Anything larger would have been a waste of purchase price, space and money!) Nor will we always be near a store that has good prices. So yes, her point is true.
But I look at it this way...it's a small price to pay for the freedom that being without real estate brings! What we save in NOT owning real estate and all the costs associated with it, is WAY MORE than enough to pay for a 10-20% increase in the food bill. And that doesn't even count eating out, which we do a lot more of now that we are back out there traveling again. It's a part of getting out and having fun, and as with many things would be considered a part of entertainment expense in any other lifestyle!
As we develop this blog, we will be presenting a lot of information on how to deal with food in a small RV, including recipes. I, for one, hate recipes that have a list of ingredients a mile long. Having to read through all that stuff, make sure we have all the ingredients, and go through all of the steps, just takes the fun out of cooking for me. I like things simple...six ingredients or less and I can deal with it. I don't cook because I love cooking. I cook because it's a necessity of eating! But I have better things to do than spend all of my time in a kitchen. So that's where this blog is headed...simple solutions to simple problems.
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How long do you usually keep fresh food in your RV? How do you keep it fresh? Please... join in the conversation! After all, that's what blogs are for!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, I will respond ASAP.
