Cooking MB - same meal list for 3 days

[Scouter_Rob]

Had a scout and parent come up and was told tht the boy was refused his merit badge because the boy used the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all three days of planning.

"plan a menu for three full days of meals (three breakfasts, three lunches, and three dinners) plus one dessert. "

The parent is arguing the boy completed the work because the meals did used 5 out of the 7 cooking techniques.

What is your feelings about this?

[Quailman]

What does the boy say? Had you approved the menu in advance?

Meet with the young man without mom present and ask him if he thinks repeating the same menu three times is what was meant by planning three days of meals.

[Bill Pitcher]

And while you're at it, ask him if that's the way they eat at home . . . the same three meals a day for three days!

[VenturingL]

As said so many times on this forum, it's up to the counselor (not the parent). My feeling is repeating 3 days is not the spirit of the requirement. My crew once rejected a menu plan for a campout because it repeated the previous campout's menu. Variety is important to the happiness of potential participants & makes the planning process mean something.

[jr56]

While it is true that the exact written requirements do not specify that the same meal can't be used more than once, a discussion of the intent of the requirement (with the boy), is certainly called for.

[papabear]

Your comments are requested. Requirement 6 ask the Scout to prepare and cook a trail breakfast and trail dinner using a trail stove or charcoal (charcoal on a backpacking activity?). Apparently a few of our Scouts completed this requirement while at Philmont. I understand the meals at Philmont are all dehydrated meals (Mountain House for example), just at hot water and wait a few minutes. Does that type of meal satisfy the requirement? Are both of these meals need to be cooked or can they be sandwiches, granola bars, cheese and crackers, etc? I feel this requirement is so poorly written that just about anything the Scouts eat would satisfy this requirement.

[FrankJ]

Current requirement 6:

Using the MyPlate food guide or the current USDA nutrition model, plan a menu for your patrol or a similar size group of up to eight youth, including you) for a camping trip. Include five meals AND at least one snack OR one dessert. List the equipment and utensils needed to prepare and serve these meals. Then do the following...:

At Philmont you are given your meals. No planning involved. It does take some cooking skills to prepare dinner for the Crew though. So it doesn't meet the letter of the requirement. Having said that Philmont is probably no worse than summer camp contortions on this merit badge. If they did a good job on the rest of the requirement 6 (or 7), I might consider it if there where other issues involved. Also just because they where present at Philomont did not mean they actually where the cooks.

The prior requirement 6 starts with:

Using the menu planned for requirement 5, do the following: ...

Once again they did not use the menu from requirement 5....