Wayfayrer Lamb Curry - First Bite

Wayfayrer Lamb Curry - First Taste

Price: £3.50

Weight: 300 grammes

Features Ready y-to-eat wet food packed in foil pouch for rapid heating.

Very convenient, not unpalatable. Relatively heavy, needs extra carbohydrate too.

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The Concept Wayfayer food differs from most camping food in that it's pre-cooked 'wet' food rather than dehydrated stuff like most purpose-made camping food. The food comes in a foil pouch and is heated by immersing in boiling water for eight minutes or you can simply open and heat as per normal in a pan. The company does a range of desserts at £2.50 and main meals at £3.50.

Lamb Curry is a new flavour for 2006 and apparently a special limited edition, so we had it for lunch with some mango chutney and a naan bread, garlic and coreander if you were wondering.

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Features Er, it comes in a tough foil pouch and shelf life is a couple of years.

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In Action We ate the Lamb Curry indoors rather than out. Preparation is dead simple, just boil up some water, stick the foil pouch in it and simmer away for eight minutes or so. The remove the pouch, cut it open, pour into a bowl and eat.

We chowed on down with some mango chutney and a garlic and coriander naan. The initial verdict was that it wasn't unpalatable, though not a patch on the Raj Gourmet's rogan josh. You could taste the mutton, though the 'medium spicy curry sauce' was a bit insipid and could have done with some ginger, garlic and a load more chillies.

The natural opposition though is ready-made dehydrated camping food and it's a lot nicer than that. For outdoors use though, it's a bit heavy and the 300 gramme serving only provides around 315 calories. On top of that there's very little carbohydrate, so you'll also need to prepare rice or similar to make it a viable meal. It was also a little watery in consistency.

Finally, you'll have to pack the pouch and plastic wrapper out with you.

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Verdict

We've eaten a lot worse than the Wayfayrer Lamb Curry, but realistically its main plus is a low hassle factor at the end of a hard day on the hill. Compared to dehydrated camping food we've used, it tastes better but is significantly heavier and needs to be supplemented with some sort of carbohydrate source to make it a viable meal. If low hassle's your thing though and you don't mind the extra weight, give it a go. We reckon some of the other options taste better and we've used the desserts as a morale booster at altitude in the past.

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Wayfayrer web site

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