middle-brow food bucket

Original (low-brow) food bucket: Kraft Mac & Cheese, Hormel canned chili, hot dogs. Ideally cooked over a campfire. Intensely satisfying hike food.
High-brow food bucket: Homemade mac with real melty cheeses, homemade chili with ground meat and beans and tomatoes and spiciness, hot dogs. Usually made at home. Tastes great, of course, because of all yummy ingredients especially including cheese. But somehow wrong, contrary to the spirit of food bucket.
Enter last night’s last-minute dinner: Annie’s white mac & cheese, Stagg fancy-pants meaty canned chili from Costco, a handful of aged cheddar, chopped fresh tomato. No dogs, b/c the chili has lots of meat. It has the proper spirit, of cans and powdered cheese mix, but it tastes great because of the tiny bit of real cheese and higher-quality foundations. Mmmm…