It really depends on whether or not you plan to be pooping during those few days.

I’m over here getting nostalgic for BEANS.

I’ll add cured sausages such as chorizo and dried tomatoes. Both keep well unrefrigerated and add a lot of flavor to any dish.

Whenever I go camping I pack a cooler with ice and put my perishable food items in there. Easy to grab snacks, like fruit, pastries, and pre packaged items are also a favourite of mine.

Also, having a portable grill helps when you cannot use fire to cook.

24 packs of Scampi Fries and a dozen Mars Bars.

You can have meat, but something cured and in a pack like biltong.

And every hiker’s favourite, Kendal mint cake, which is as close to Terry Pratchett’s dwarf bread as any substance I know.

And this is England. Chances are you’ll be like two miles from the nearest shop at a push.

First of all, depending on the area you’re going to be camping in, is a camp stove out of the question? I don’t know what’s readily available to you in England, but there’s quite a range of different options out there from little folding metal things that fit in your pocket that use solid fuel tablets up to briefcase sized ones that are basically like a regular kitchen stove that use 1lb propane tanks (or larger tanks with an adapter) and basically every form factor in between using just about any kind of fuel imaginable. You can even make a small stove out of some soda cans that burns denatured alcohol. You can probably have most of them delivered to you from Amazon before you leave for your trip, and assuming prices are similar in the UK to the US, there’s options out there that will only cost you about £10-£20 plus a couple more bucks for fuel

Some of them are practically like cooking on a blowtorch so the flame is too concentrated and intense to do much besides boiling water, but even that opens up your cooking options a lot. Being able to heat up your food or make some coffee/tea/hot cocoa can be a huge quality of life improvement. And having a method to boil water to sterilize it in an emergency is always a good idea.

Usually, at least in the US, camp stoves are exempted from fire bans if that’s what you’re up against, look into your local laws about that.

Beyond that, your options depend a bit on how comfortable you are ignoring “refrigerate after opening” warnings on labels. A lot of things will say they should be refrigerated but would probably be fine for a few days as long as they’re stored with a little care (container with a tight lid, wrapped up careful in some plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, etc. kept clean, dry, kept in a shady place out of the heat of the sun, etc) and depending on the type of camping you’re doing, if you can bring a cooler full of ice you can bring just about anything you would normally keep in a fridge, some things can be kept cool by submersing them in a cool stream. Anything that’s very sugary, salty, packed in brine or oil will probably last at least a day or two after opening. Many of those types of foods originated as ways to preserve stuff anyway.

But assuming you for whatever reason absolutely cannot have any type of cooking appliance and no access to any way to keep your food cool- Most fruits and veggies will last fine for a couple days unrefrigerated. Breads should be fine. Jams, and jellies, pickles, and other types of preserves are probably fine. A lot of smoked/dried/cured meats should be fine (jerky is a classic choice, salamis, summer sausage, etc. should also work but try to get a whole one, not pre-sliced, country ham if that’s available across the pond would probably do the trick, maybe prosciutto) Dried fruits, nuts, harder cheeses. In general you can take a lot of inspiration from a charcuterie board. A lot of “just boil water” kinds of foods don’t necessarilyneed the water to be boiled, it just makes it go a lot faster, you could do some overnight oats, instant noodles, etc.

As for your ideas, falafel and fritters are probably fine, but will depend on the exact ingredients and recipe you use. Calzones are probably fine, but I’d keep away from using too many wet ingredients in them, keep a separate jar/can of sauce to serve them with, don’t load them up with too many veggies and such, stick to cheese and maybe cured meats like pepperoni for the filling. I had to look up pasties because we don’t really have them in the US, but I’d say largely the same as the calzones, probably fine but be smart about what you put in them. At any rate, if you don’t have a plan to keep them cool, I’d say you probably want to plan on eating them the first or second day, they might start getting a bit questionable after a couple days.

Look into backpacking meals. They keep forever practically and simply require heat and water most times to prepare.

You can always go with a historic solution to packing long term food: Pemmican.

Don’t know how feasible this is to cook, but jerky will last more than 4 days. One of my favorite snacks, but it is very expensive.

Cup noodles can be made with cold water too. But they will take about 30 mins instead of 2-3 minutes. Tried and tested. They still taste good. They are not very nutritious, though.

I would recommended making Energy Bars/Balls. You can find a lot of recipes online but here’s mine:

• Roasted almonds
• Roasted cashews
• Roasted pistachios
• Roasted hazelnuts
• Roasted walnuts
• Raisins
• Dates
• Dried Cranberries
• Peanut Butter (unsweetened) (mine contains coconut oil)
• Sesame seeds
• Muskmelon seeds
• Flax seeds
• Pumpkin seeds
• Dark Chocolate

1. Roast the nuts and grind almonds and walnuts to almost flour consistency, and grind the others coarsly.
2. Just put everything in a food processor and let it mix everything. You can also mix it with hand or spoon.
3. To make bars, just put the mixture in a baking dish or a tray and put as much pressure as you can on top of it with your hands or spoon to remove all the air pockets. Refrigerate it for 4 hours. Then cut it into bars.
4. To make balls, just lightly oil your hands and form a ball shape. Again, press them hard to remove the air pockets.

These can last over a week outside the refrigerator (considering the ambient temperature in your area does not rise above 30° C). And inside the refrigerator they can last for over a month.

You can add different types of seeds, nuts, sweeteners etc, depending on what you like, what your body needs and what’s available.

Hope this helps.

a jar of peanut butter with granola and dried fruit and candy mixed in is a solid go to.

granola bars in general are solid, even the ones you make yourself.

fresh fruit like apples and bananas are good.

canned condensed soups are surprisingly good cold if you have access to fresh water to reconstitute them and you aren’t worried about dehydration. that brings me to my next and much, much more important question:

do you have water figured out?

you can easily survive for four days without food, but you can’t make it that long without water. you can’t expect to rely on springs/streams/wells especially if you haven’t been drinking from them for a while already.

you need about a gallon of water a day, more if youre exerting yourself, sick or eating very dry foods (like camping foods). so if you don’t have a supply already figured out, focus on water. If you do have a supply already figured out, pack a gallon or so and some iodine anyway. you literally can’t survive if for whatever reason the supply that was fine last time isn’t running or is spoiled.

if you do end up having access to water, you can use flameless ration heaters to boil it quickly and use that to heat up any sealed foods you have. frhs’ are powdered metals and salt that make a real hot reaction when you pour water on em. so if you had a bag with a frh in it, you had say some food that would taste good hot in another sealed bag, you could put your food bag in the frh bag and pour some water in, fold it closed, prop it up on a rock or something and wait for your food to get hot.

Babybel cheese

Can’t you just bring a Trangia stove? They burn for EVER on half a litre of spirit.

Tortillas