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.
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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)
FROM luca@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Luca De Alfaro)
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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.
David Damouth
from damouth@wrc.xerox.com
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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)isnon-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 travelled 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.
Kate Gregory
FROM gregory@csri.toronto.edu
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My cuisine as grown out of backpacking in New Zealand. (this is a warning):
I have travelled with people who add chocolate pudding (or any other milk based pudding) to muesli. This can taste gross (avoid lime flavor) , but boosts the fat & calorie content heaps.
Always bring Bisquick. It's wonderful stuff. Add margarine. to everything.
I'm not much of a cook when I go away, because I'm normally too exhausted to carry it and cook it.
engber@shorty.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber)
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In article (744@blake.acs.washington.edu) m466am@blake.acs.washington.edu (Erost ratus) writes: >1 or 2 ramen bricks >good sized handful of instant rice >1 packet cheese soup >whatever else is loose and rolling around the food bag
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.
FROM: tomp@vicom.COM
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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.
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.
Tom Pohorsky
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I was the cook on our Easter trip to the Finnish Lapland, so I can give some hints. These are for a group of three persons.
Each morning we would eat some oatmeal, bread with butter, wurst and cheese and tea. For oatmeal we used those "just add hot water" portion packages, two of those and then we would split a package fruit soup between us three (really not a soup, but "kiisseli", "thickened fruit juice" says my dictionary).
With wurst I mean that German sausage that looks like pepperoni, but is less spicy. It has plenty of taste and does not spoil very easily. For bread we had Finnish sour rye bread and hard rye bread, the former somewhat soft, the latter dried and hard. I don't know if you can find those in the States, most bread I have seen there is so full of chemicals and poisons, that even the bugs won't eat it. This package of bread at my kitchen says that it is made of flour, yeast, water and salt.
For lunch we would eat more bread and some "hot cup" instant soups. Just add some water. Once again easy and simple and I usually prefer a light lunch, when on route. I would usually eat an ordinary soup with some wurst added for taste and then a fruit soup as dessert.
We all three had thermos flasks that I would fill them up at the morning and so that we would not have to use the stove until evening.
After the days skiing we would then have a bigger meal. Before the trip I had dried one kg of ground beef. This was done by browning the meat in a skillet and then placing it in oven at 50 degrees for overnight. The meat shrunk to 300 g, but would be usable again with some water added. Great for stews and like. Less weight and does not spoil as easily.
Our first mail meal was the traditional Lapland reindeer stew. Our total group was eighteen strong, and we were staying on a lake (frozen, of course). So when we were digging tents in, one of our group "found" a package of frozen lingon berries (like blackberry, but red and very sour) on his pack. While he was very loudly wondering what ever use could he find for those berries, another member of our group found one kg of reindeer meat in his pack.
Now all I had to do was to fry the meat in a quarter kg butter and then let it stew for a quart, adding some salt and pepper, after which I made mashed potatoes in another kettle from water in the thermos and dried mashed potatoes. By that time our tent was up, too, and I served a perfect reindeer stew to my friends, complete with mashed potatoes and lingonberries.
The next night we were staying in one of those government cabins, which had a gas stove, so I made some spaghetti bolognese. Nothing special to it, I had again a sauce mix, so I just added some water and spices and garlic and herbs, and made the spaghetti on the other burner.
Other dishes were an Italian stew right from package, with some dried ground beef, spices and macaroni added and dried beef with mashed potatoes. Latter one was very simple, put water and dried ground beef in a kettle, heat up, add mashed potatoes and spices.
In the last morning of the trip I made some Finnish thin pancakes, which we would the fill with a freeze-dried stew. Beats oatmeal for sure. Otherwise I stayed far of those freeze dried foods, which taste all the same. Of course they could be developed with some garlic and spices... Spices, really, take a lot of those. Salt, pepper, chili, oregano etc. And some garlic, too. That way most anything can be made edible.
Most of the time we could get water from the lakes, but once or twice we had to melt snow, which takes more time and fuel. We did not have to bother with filtering or boiling the water, since the water in Finland is mostly clean, especially so in Lapland, where we were close to the source, like twenty or fifty km from the start of the river.
When camping out, I would build a wind breaker from snow blocks to shelter my kitchen. This was not as good idea as it sounds like, since I had soon ten other people there, messing my kitchen. Us cooks don't like that too much.
As to Andy's original question, I would recommend some freeze dried meals, since the supply is much more plentiful in the USA than here. And then use a scale to weigh different things and make your mind up. Canned foods are not usually worth the extra weight, furthermore you have to carry the can back. Oh yes, remember to take an extra plastic bag or two to use as a trash bag. Personally I try to be very careful and not leave anything behind me.
Timo Kiravuo
kiravuo@hut.fi sorvi::kiravuo kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net
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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.
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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
its 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. MMMMMMMMMM
-Pete
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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.
FROM skywalker@dino.qci.bioch.bcm.tmc.edu
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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.)
For sandwiches, get the densest whole-grain bread you can find (around NE the brand is Munzenmaier's) so it can't be crushed. It also keeps much better than ordinary bread.
Pasta is great; butter or margarine are problems but olive oil is not (and more healthful, to boot.) Romano and Parmesan are relatively imperishable.
FROM ritz@smaug.enet.dec.com
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My wife and I never buy the expensive dehydrated foods sold in outdoor stores. Everything from the local supermarket. I think we eat better than most in the back country. We`ve carried 10-12 days worth. 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. I can`t offer much help for breakfast. My wife eats oatmeal which I can`t stand. I have Carnation instant breakfast drinks (at least it`s over quick) Pancakes take too long, but there are plenty of dry mixes to choose from. Brown sugar dissolved in hot water will make a passable syrup. You`ll need oil or margarine + spatula and pan to cook them with. If you`re really weight conscious pancakes are out. One thing I`ve wanted to dry is dried eggs - like dorms serve. The problem is I don`t know where to get them. Obviously the outdoor stores sell them, but I know that they`re available to dorms, etc at much cheaper prices. ME
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.
Sean L. Gilley
sgilley@cbnewsl.att.com
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Baking Bread, Making Yougart and Cheese in the Backcountry
A Dutch oven works great, always seems to get it done just right. But the cast pots weigh a lot; so I use a BakePacker. They are light and work most of the time. I often cook sourdough bread and pancakes from a culture I keep going. I also make yougart, from a culture I keep going. Heat Milkman lowfat milk to boiling, allow to cool till warm, then add culture and put whole thing in a warm spot. Add jam, vanilla, or chocolate syrup to flavor.
I've also tried making cheese, and it worked. Paneen cheese (Indian (asian)). 1 qt Milkman heated to boiling with one oz of Wylers lemonade, stril and cool. It clots. Pour into T-shirt or bandana and squeeze out fluid. It makes a reasonable Ricotta like cheese suitable for casseroles.
Robert Arnold
bluospry@ix.netcom.com