You've been having fun for the last week in the middle of the desert, drinking beer, shooting, playing poker, and probably committing your fair share of felonies with your drinking buddies. You and your fellow beer fanciers are preparing to pack up, and have one last dinner, when you look at the impressive number of canned goods, when inspiration strikes. "Hey, I wonder what would happen if we were to throw all of this into one pot," you say to no one in particular. After being subjected to laughter and ridicule, others start to see methodology in the insanity and agree that it's worth a try. Besides, it's only canned food, it's not like a gourmet meal or anything.

What you'll need

Canned food. Lots of it. This isn't some wussy boy, pink frilly dresses kind of food, this is throw everything into a pot, and let it cook until it's hot kind of food. Anything that needs any more preparation than getting it hot is out. There is no place for steak in Desert Delight, not even steak tartare. This is a place for canned stew, canned tamales, canned black beans, and anything else canned that you happen to have sitting around the camp.

Tradition has it that three things must be in any attempt to make desert delight: stew, tamales, and beans. Everything else is subject to the whims of the cooks, and experimentation is by and large a good thing. Occasionally the most unusual combination will create an insanely delicious meal; it's rare that you'll make something that requires disposal at yucca mountain. Be forewarned, however, a bad batch will happen from time to time, so it's best not to decide to eat this every night while camping. Your gastrointestinal system will thank you.

An example recipe

All right, now that I've scared off all the wussies, lemme give you all an example of the last recipe actually used. The following quantities fed nine people, so you may want to scale down the amount of food used if you have fewer people; Desert Delight does not stay crunchy even in milk, and thus, is mostly useless for breakfast.

All right, you got your ingredients, your hazmat gear, and your antacid pills, time to cook this sucker. Throw everything in the pot, put the flame on high, and cook until it's hot. That's all there is to it. It's best to serve this into plastic bowls. This has been known to eat through lesser materials like paper - only plastic has the strength to handle such a meal. Carefully eat it. Come back for seconds, if you dare.

Up until that first bite, it's unknown exactly how the meal will taste. In the above example, it was feared that the preservative-laden contribution from the franco american company would overpower the rest of the items, ruining the flavor. Instead, the O's provided just a hint of flavor, and offered a nice artistic touch. This particular batch was slightly on the spicy side, but not overpoweringly so; also present was a somewhat strong flavoring of tomatoes. Much of the flavor was indescribable, though, due to the heavy intermingling of flavors in the pot. I'd say that though it wouldn't be found on the menu of a french restaurant, it was much better than the "food" you'd get from McDonalds. Due to all of the starchy and meaty ingredients, it was fairly heavy, so it was probably a good thing that there wasn't anything planned for the remainder of the night - it was the kind of meal that could send you running for the antacid.

This food makes great camping fare - it's easy to make calorie laden food that's usually quite delicious. Yeah, you won't be winning any awards for it, though occasionally, if the moon's just right, you may get a reenactment of the bean scene from Blazing Saddles. Consider yourself forewarned, and buon appetito.

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