Assorted Stuff
Contains lots of individual people's meal philosophy, interspersed with good,
simple, food ideas. Take as little or as much from each as you choose; they
are all worth reading through, as some suggestions are neatly tucked away.
Please note: ideas specifically labeled "vegetarian" (by the contributor) are
in section VII, although several good vegi ideas are also included in this
section.
------------------------------------------------------
When I go backpacking (> 2 nights), I seldom take day hikes along the way
(apart from high altitude ones, not so frequent for me here in the States). So
I usually carry all my food with me. I usually carry:
NO gas-burners, NO pottery: (if it's cold, you get even cooler waiting, if
it's warm, you don't need it)
Jam:
it's very high in calories for the weight. I usually carry it in 1/2 liter
water bottles with a large opening, as they weigh less than glass jars, and
close well enough not to smell too much for the bears.
Nutella:
it's very high in calories for the weight, and it's a real treat.
Italian style pork salami:
also hi-cal due to the fat and light, a real treat as well.
Bread:
to eat the above things. Also, otherwise I can't get my stomach filled. If
space is a problem (it usually is), then I use Pumpernickel, a sort of very
dense german black bread. Sugar cubes, fig bars, and other hi-cal stuff ready
at hand.
Dried fruit:
My favorites are apricots, figs and prunes.
Black chocolate
of the bitterest type that can be found (70% cacao if possible), to be eaten
as a reward when I really feel accomplished.
FROM luca@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Luca De Alfaro)
------------------------------------------------
We generally take a couple of freeze-dried meals for a one-week trip, just
because we can count on at least one day where we arrive in camp very late,
very tired, in the rain, and want to do the absolute minimum of meal
preparation. Otherwise, we roll our own. Supermarket food is far cheaper, and
freeze dried foods quickly begin to get boring. We generally take fresh steaks
and frozen lima beans and wine for our first night out. There's something
about a day of hard work and fresh air and a lake side setting that makes a
charcoal broiled steak taste much better than at home or in a restaurant. We
leave home with the meat and beans frozen solid, in a small styrofoam cooler
in the car (along with anything else that benefits from staying cool - cheese,
margarine, sausage, etc).When we transfer it to the packs, a day later, it
still has ice crystals in it. After 10 hours or so in the packs, it is up to
room temperature by the time we are ready to cook.
We usually cook our evening meal and our leisurely breakfasts over a wood
fire. We carry a stove for those few occasions when we're in a hurry, or when
we just need hot water for a simple breakfast. Thus, we don't have to worry
about fuel efficiency, and can boil or simmer foods as long as necessary. This
allows a great variety of food. (I am speaking of lightly traveled routes in
northeastern US, Ontario, Quebec. The amount of dry fire wood that I pick up
to clear a space for the tent is enough to cook the first meal)
Pasta is always a good choice. The macaroni and cheese mixes (e.g.:Kraft) are
quick and easy. Our children loved it, and now that they are gone, we still do
it occasionally. Dress them up with dried beef, polish sausage, or whatever.
We often take spaghetti, using our home-dried tomato sauce. Make any sauce you
like, at home, even including ground meat. Or just use one of the standard
bottled pasta sauces. Spread it in a thin layer on a Teflon cookie sheet and
dry it gently. Set the oven to its lowest temperature, and leave the door open
(I think the right temperature is around 130 degrees, and an oven control
doesn't go that low). It takes a day or so. then peel it off the tray and put
it in a Ziploc freezer bag. Store in the freezer until you leave. It is
reputed to keep in the freezer for a full season, and in your pack for a
couple of hot weeks. To cook it in camp: cook the pasta, drain but leave a
little water, add the dried sauce to the water, and simmer and stir until
reconstituted. It worked wonderfully.(after writing this, we bought a real
commercial dryer. More convenient, faster, better for tender things like
fruit) We take a little grated Parmesan cheese for extra flavor, and use it in
a wide variety of meals.
We like a mixture of lentils and rice, with a lot of cumin added (an eastern
European dish learned from an Iranian friend). Sometimes we add a little
polish sausage, dried beef, or whatever spicy meat we have available. Instant
rice saves time. Lentils cook in 15 minutes or so.
Ginger shrimp and rice is my wife's invention, based loosely on something she
found in a cookbook. She found tiny dried shrimp in an oriental food store.
(These stores are a great source of very inexpensive dried seafood, dried
mushrooms, etc.) Simmer instant rice, the dried shrimp, some dried mushrooms,
and ginger (commercial dry powder if you're lazy, fresh if you're a gourmet)
to taste (and salt, of course). Very cheap and very simple. Using a mix that's
partly wild rice adds flavor and texture.
Almost any sort of cured sausage will keep for at least a week. We take hard
salami or summer sausage, sharp cheddar cheese, and crackers or hard bread for
several lunches. "Wheat Thins" survive well in the pack. The heavy, hard,
European style dark breads(the deli section of many grocery stores often have
these, usually in thin-sliced square one-pound bricks) keep forever and don't
crush in the pack. The aged cheeses, which are firmer and dryer, keep the
longest (months), but almost any cheese will keep for a week or so. Double-bag
the cheese - cheddars and colby will ooze oil as they get warm. The little
jars of dried beef ("chipped beef") in the supermarkets are almost as light as
freeze-dried beef, far cheaper, and keep well. Transfer it to a Ziploc just
before leaving. Use it anywhere you would use beef - we add it to lots of
different things. Just remember it is salty, and season accordingly.
Mashed potatoes and chip beef gravy would be an easy meal, for example. I
would use dry milk (either non-fat or whole), freeze dried peas, a few dried
mushrooms, lots of dried beef, and a little liquid margarine.
We take a small plastic bottle of liquid margarine and use it for flavoring,
shortening (in pancakes, etc,), frying, etc.
The deli sections of the supermarket have other ideas: raman, various soup
mixes, etc. The Lipton "cup-o-soup" individual packets are quick and easy. We
used a lot of these when traveling with children.
Bagels and cream cheese make great lunches (and sometimes breakfast too!)
Bagels are firm enough so they won't crush, will keep for up to a week sealed
in a Ziploc before showing mold, and bread mold is harmless anyway.
Surprisingly, the cream cheese seems to keep well too!. We take a tiny jar of
cheap caviar, and spread a little on the cream cheese to add variety and
flavor.
Large cities usually have a bulk dried-food store which caters to Mormons and
others who believe in keeping a long term cache of survival food at home. Such
a store usually has a variety of very inexpensive dried vegetables, soup
mixes, etc. Ours (Tadco, Rochester. NY) used to have dried tomatoes, dried
powdered cheddar cheese, and various other useful items - I haven't checked
lately.
If you get the catalogs from the various suppliers of freeze dried backpacker
meals, you will find that they offer a much broader selection than is
available locally (check the ads in Backpacker magazine, for example). We like
to order freeze dried beef or pork cubes, and use them in our own recipes.
We've had good luck baking cornbread in a covered frying pan over a slow fire.
(The cornbread mix available in grocery stores works fine - no need to mix
your own unless you're a purist) We generally plan the trip for at least a
couple of slow leisurely days where we can take our time over slow meals -
pancakes and sausages, cornbread dressed up with grated cheese and beef
shreds, etc. Frozen Brown-and-serve sausages also seem to keep for many days
at room temperature. Granulated maple sugar reconstitutes in warm water into
wonderful maple syrup for pancakes. It's sometimes hard to find. The last
batch I found was at a country store/cider mill- (Schutt's in Webster NY)
Quick breakfasts are most often the individual serving packets of flavored
instant oatmeal.
The dried fruit in the bulk section of the supermarkets makes good snacks and
deserts.
We experiment with various gorp recipes, for snacks and quick lunches. My
favorite is just peanuts, chocolate chips, and raisins. We sometimes add
cashews, sunflower seeds, toasted almonds, etc. If you don't like it gooey and
stuck together after a hot day (we like it that way), use M&M's instead of
chocolate chips.
We transfer most foods from their original packages to heavy-duty freezer
Ziploc bags. Greasy stuff like the margarine bottle may get double-bagged,
just in case. Sometimes we pre-measure the ingredients for a single meal, and
put the several little bags into a single big Ziploc, labeled with a marking
pen, for convenience. We've found that a standard Ziploc is not strong enough:
the sharp ends of spaghetti will poke through it in the pack, for example.
There's lots more. But this ought to give you enough ideas so you can start
getting creative yourself. One thing to remember is that after a hard day in
the woods, absolutely anything tastes good, so you can enjoy even your
mistakes, and then write down your successes to use again next time.
We bought a home dehydrator for less than $100 years ago. We dry raw veggies
(including frozen corn straight from the bag), jerky made with raw meat, and
cooked meat, all following the instructions in the book that came with it. I'm
sure you could build your own machine with the help of a book on drying foods.
Then, and this is the key for us, we *do not* sit down at home, decide what we
will eat on each day of the trip, and pack it up into a gazillion Ziploc bags
labelled Tuesday's Dinner etc. I am sure a lot of people will tell you to do
this, but I think it's stupid. You have no idea how hungry you are going to be
at the end of day seven while you are still in your living room. We take
*ingredients*. Each morning, we decide what meat we will be having. We put the
dried cubes in aplastic bottle, and pour boiling water on them - it was
boiling for coffee anyway. It soaks all day and at night we cook noodles or
rice or instant potatoes, make a sauce(tomato, mushroom whatever) for the meat
cubes, and presto.
We have had chili, stew, curry, spaghetti, you name it. The dehydrated stuff
comes out remarkably like the real thing. People who travel with us always
feel spoiled because we eat real food. Oh yes: take a real onion or two, the
flavor and texture of dehydrated onions is awful.
Another thing we do that may be too heavy for hikers is take old cheese, a
long keeping sausage like Schneider's Summer Sausage, and bagels or English
muffins for lunch sandwiches. We also eat a lot of jerky and dried fruit. And
of course, frozen steaks wrapped in newspaper for the first night dinner:
fried steaks, fried onions, and instant au gratin potatoes (ask me how to do
oven recipes with a pot and a towel!) along with the last of the ice water
(started the day frozen solid, thaws in the pack). That is always our
traditional first night. Everything we take (except the steaks) is
non-perishable within a few weeks. Some of it would keep for months or years.
We take no cans, no bottles, and because its dehydrated, it's light. Everyone
who has traveled with us, and several more who haven't, have bought one of
these home dehydrators. I often wish I had a cut of the ones my friends had
bought (but, of course, I don't).
If you want actual recipes or suggestions for ingredients to take that can go
into many different dishes, mail back. This letter is long enough already.
I like spiking the ramen with a can of tuna (large or small, water pack
albacore in LiteWeight (TM) aluminum can), raw egg (I usually stir it in,
Japanese soups often leave it soft-boiled) or some summer squash or whatever
sliced up. This can give it a remotely food-like character. The can is
actually very little extra weight, though Eugene may not want to drag it up
the face of Half Dome... I like the price and unpretentiousness of food that
can be bought at Safeway, not just the Karmic Mountaineering Institute. For
the bread "food group", I have been unable to tire of Ak Mak"Armenian Cracker
Bread". The label claims it is ultra nutritious, and it's light and VERY
tasty. Reasonably priced and the best cracker I've ever tasted. Good with
salami and Thalamic for a non-cooking lunch. As it is a cracker, it gets
crumbly after time in the pack. pack, though. Also, I'll second the longevity
of raw eggs. After a week on/off the trail, salami scrambled into fresh eggs
and cheese are wonderful, life- style/diet permitting. I agree too, with the
egg man: soft cheese for the start of the trip, hard cheese for later.
The dehydrated eggs/omelets are pretty good. Adding a real egg to the dish
improves the texture and taste considerably. Eggs are best carried in the
cardboard containers which they come in from the store. Cut the container to
the number of eggs needed for the trip and wrap it in a plastic bag in case of
breakage. Place it in your pack near the top to avoid breakage, don't forget
its there and sit on your pack when you take a break.
Oatmeal is always good lightweight and sticks to your ribs. Ever had oatmeal
with brandy in it for breakfast? 8-) Spam, scallion & cheese omelettes are
good for a change of pace.
I like soup for lunch, it is lightweight and can be made thicker by adding
more noodles, rice, etc. Also those little cans of Underwood Deviled ham,
chicken etc. (about 3 oz.) make a nice sandwich. I usually carry some type of
rolls instead of bread as they stay fresher and you can just tie the bag to
the outside of your pack to prevent crushing.
There are several types of rice/noodle dishes carried by grocery stores which
are pre-flavored. Add a small can of chicken, tuna, beef etc. for additional
flavoring if you desire. (Or a fresh caught trout on the side) I don't
particularly like the Freeze-dried Backpacking meals (with the exception of
Mountain House Chili) ventilate the tent well after this to prevent
spontaneous combustion in the middle of the night! :-)
Trail mix is nice but gets boring real quick. I usually use it for snacks
while on the trail. I like to mix my own making two or three different
combinations for variety.
A touch of spice makes any dehydrated meal much better. Get those small
plastic spice and condiment containers from your local store. I like to carry
mustard, salt, pepper, lemon-pepper, butter etc. I carry some fresh garlic
and/or shallots. I also like to carry fresh green peas or beans. Corn on the
cob is an option but is rather bulky and heavy for the food value.
food from nature if you get into the right areas. DON'T EAT IT IF YOU CAN NOT
POSITIVELY IDENTIFY IT, it might be OK, it might just give you stomach cramps
or the shits, it could (rarely) kill you.
Carry 2-3 days of extra meals (freeze-dried this is only about 1&1/2 lbs) You
will carry these back out 99% of the time. The other1% makes it worth the
extra bother however.
Stews: Lots of things can be had commercially, (like at REI) but you may want
to pick something up and then supplement it with a large amount of regular Egg
noodles. Anything works fine, just make sure that they are thin enough to cook
quickly. You don't want to wait longer just to have Thick noodles.
Sandwiches: Forget anything in the traditional sense except for maybe the
first day. Try a Cracker and Spread type of lunch. You can get it in the
Supermarket also, but remember UNSALTED crackers, or you will make yourself
miserable. Spreadables brand ham or chicken "Salad" works, but I hate the
taste. Personally, I would go with the Cheese in a tube kinda stuff (Kraft
makes some) or CheeseWhiz.
Other Lunches: Personally, I like a lunch of "trail mix" and Beef Jerky/ Beef
Sticks (like generic Slim Jims) But whatever you get, make sure that you have
a variety of stuff.
There are a few books that you might want to try, including one about
Backpacking foods that can be gotten in the Grocery store. E-mail me, and I
will try to find it.
We regularly bake fresh bread on backpacking trips. Take wheat flower and
yeast with you. Mix the yeast with some water and set in the sun. (i don't
have the exact amount of water handy, but it is the same as if you were baking
bread at home). Let the yeast and water activate in the sun for a half hour
and then knead with the wheat flour. Place flour in a pot roughly 2" larger in
diameter; I mean place the dough in a pot 2" larger than the ball of dough
Have a good set of coals burning. Find a flat rock roughly the same diameter
as the pot, place it in the center of the fire, place the pot on top of the
rock, cover the pot. The pot acts as an oven, and the flat rock keeps you from
burning the bottom of the loaf. I forgot to mention to let the dough rise for
45 minutes to an hour. It sounds like a long process but it is well worth it
and its very simple. Let the bread bake about 45 min to an hour, check it with
a fork, eat it while its warm.
Go with as much powdered mix as possible, drinks etc.. As for the dry foods I
prefer Mountain House and Alpine-air. Both are fast and easy to cook, just
boil water. A lot of dried fruit comes in handy. Jerky is quick energy on the
trail (I live on it !) and instant oatmeal is a high protein quick breakfast.
One special treat I always take is a boxed spaghetti dinner (you know the
cheap ones)It really hits the spot for dinner about three days into the trip,
easy to fix, easy to clean-up. One last thing, I always carry aplastic jar of
peanut butter to snack on.
Some friends of mine had great luck carrying little other than beans, rice,
and cheese. Believe it or not, they brought a pressure cooker. EMS used to
carry special lightweight ones years ago, but I believe you can't find them
any more. These folks just bought the lightest aluminum one they could find.
Dried veggies and bouillon cubes might give you a bit more variety.
The cheese will mold, but it's not harmful (especially low-moisture cheeses
like cheddar and swiss.)
Here are a couple ideas:
1) I dry my own hamburger. It`s not too hard and the only equipment you need
is an oven, cookie sheets, lots-o-newspaper & paper towels. We use the
hamburger to make hamburger helper - there is a wide selection of types to
choose from - my favorite is lasagna &my wife like oriental beef.
2) The Lipton noodle dinners are quite good. Parmesan noodle & Fetucinni
Alfredo are two favorites. Kraft Macaroni & cheese is also good.
3) There are various instant puddings, cheesecakes, chocolate mousses you'll
see in the pudding section. Royal & Jello are two brands we've tried. They`re
all good. You can`t really make the crust of the cheesecake so we just
sprinkle the graham-cracker crumbs on top.
Some of these things need milk. Dry milk is fine for cooking - you can`t taste
it. I hate it`s taste otherwise.
4) For lunch we carry bagels, peanut butter, cheese, a big stick of pepperoni.
Stuff like that. Crystal light is really light weight compared to cool-aid,
but you don`t get those sugar calories. The weight difference is so great - we
go for it anyway.
Pancakes are easy. Use almost any recipe you want. You can simply take the
recipe and put all the dry stuff in a baggy. Use dry milk instead of liquid,
and add that to the mixture also. Eggs can be a problem, if you want to use
dry, they can be found, we always carried a few with us. When you want to cook
the pancakes, add the eggs, and the correct amount of water into the baggy,
close and mix. You have pancakes.
Falafel is another. You simply need any falafel mix. We bought in bulk, so we
carried it in a baggy. Again, all it needs is water. Mix in the bag and cook.
For a sauce, we used catsup and/or mustard.. from the little packets you find
in fast food restaurants. There is a pan cornbread that I like a lot. The
recipe is in Joy of Cooking. I've made it almost every time I've been on the
trail. Wonderful.
All these recipes depend on your using some kind of oil. I've always taken a
bottle of liquid margarine -- it keeps well.
If you're going to be high enough in the mountains it might be cool at night,
I suggest some instant hot chocolate of some kind.
Other stuff -- instant oatmeal. (It was great for the first couple of days,
but went downhill rapidly in how much I liked it.) Of course peanut butter and
jelly. If you like cheese, you can carry a hunk and use it for snacks or
filler. The packaged instant foods(Lipton rices, for example) work very well.
We fixed beans to go with the corn bread. Carry them dry until the morning of
the day before you intend to eat them. Then stick them in a water bottle, fill
the bottle with water and carry for that day. Twenty-four hours later, the
beans are ready to cook.
I have found that if you transfer your dehydrated food into a freezer ziplock,
this takes up much less space than the original packing. The ziplock has a
space you can write on as well. (I've found a Sharpie pen works the best.)
This is where I note what the food is, how much water is needed and how long
to cook. I can pack 3 meals in the space of one store bought package. Plus I
can't stand to eat my food from a bag. One small pot works for all meals. (
geocities.com/southbeach/castle/3706/page4) (
geocities.com/southbeach/castle/3706) (
geocities.com/southbeach/castle) (
geocities.com/southbeach)