Assorted mixed and mashed ideas, specifically earmarked "vegetarian" by the contributer. Please note, there are good vegi ideas in other sections of this book, notable, IV. Dinners.
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It is very easy to be a vegetarian in the backwoods. In fact, unless you are in a situation where food comes from hunting meat, meat is almost too much trouble to bother with. Beans and rice, the staples of my own semi-veg habits, are very compact and easy to carry.
If you have plenty of fuel (e.g. in a cabin or if you are in a place where firewood is not a problem), a good set of menu's can be planned around various kinds of beans and rice, with lots of spices, and a good lot of canned tomato paste to add flavor. Here are some bean and/or rice dishes.
There are lots of other similar possibilities.
Also: Pasta in its infinite varieties. You can make a good pasta sauce with tomato paste and onions and oregano and the kind of tofu that comes entombed in a little foil box. (also the dried tofu available in oriental grocery stores ) You can make nice pasta sauces using dried mushrooms as well.
Cous-cous grain is incredibly useful stuff. You don't cook it, just pour boiling water over it. You can have it for breakfast like porridge, or use it instead of rice (in fact, try veggie cous-cous, with carrots, raisins, garbanzos, allspice, onions as a sauce).
Also, you can get "quick-cooking" polenta (cornmeal porridge), such as used in Northern Italy. Use it in place of pasta.
.......All this is so much better than the usual freeze-dried glop. Some is more suitable for "fixed base" camping than backpacking, where time and fuel is a limitation. However, with a little effort, you may just bring back more "vegetarians" from the Cascades than you left with.
FROM rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
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Below is the backpacking menu which I used during my six week hike. Rather than carrying preplanned, or packaged, meals, I prefer to carry the ingredients needed to make filling meals. This makes it easier to estimate how many calories are being consumed. The only pit fall is that some ingredients are added to boost up the calories, and you may need them in excess of your tastes. Thus, there might be a tendency to skip ingredients, leading to insufficient consumption of calories.
I do not have any experience in cold weather camping, and I suspect that the diet below is grossly insufficient for that kind of hiking. One of you mentioned canoeing, and I wonder if canoeing falls into a similar category because of the high intensity of the sport and the cold water. You must judge. YOU MUST ALSO BE THE JUDGE OF THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THIS MENU FOR YOUR TRIP: I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON THESE MATTERS.
The diet below was designed to feed two people for a 6 day trip during summer at moderate backpacking exertion, i.e.: averaging 10miles per day, not 20 or 5. In practice, it lasted seven days, frequently. Constraints were that the ingredients must be common enough to find at small town stores because we replenished our supplies weekly by hiking down off the trail into town, and then back up (oh! the pain of those road walks with a full pack after being on soft trail with an empty bag!) This 6/7 day menu was repeated for six weeks. Finally, I only cook one meal per day, and then only on a stove. I will not use a fire for environmental reasons: the Appalachian trail receives so much use that it really can not support the use of campfires. Thus, this diet has minimal cooking.
Ingredients:
Using the Ingredients: The basic procedure is to eat constantly. Don't wait until you are hungry. For this, some of the cereal, peanuts, m&m's, raisins get together to make gorp. As the week proceeds, you will need to mixup more, but I like to keep the ingredients separate. Sometimes I will be sick of gorp, but the individual ingredients taste good. Beware of m&m wars with your hiking partner: they can get bloody! Other snacks are peanut butter on crackers, half a piece of fruit(split one with your friend), celery, or carrot. The fruit and vegetables must be rationed because they are so heavy.
Breakfast consisted of cereal w/ (reconstituted) milk, half a piece of fruit every other day (alternate w/ the fruit used for lunch or snacking. Thus, I had half a piece per day.), pop tart every other day, crackers with peanut butter, or bread w/ peanut butter. also gorp and cheese are ok.
Lunch was cheese on bread, Finnish the bottle of drink mix you started in the AM, crackers & peanut butter, gorp or its makings, fruit as described above. Vegetables, as described above. Peanut butter and jelly works, too.
Dinner: this is the time to use the margarine and milk powder to cram calories in. I had three meals which we used.
1.) Rice&veg. Cook up rice using soup mix for flavoring. Add dehydrated vegetables to the water. I tried to reserve some fresh vegetables for this, but did not always succeed. Add 1/3 stick of margarine or butter for the oil. Add dry milk, if you can. I think I used 1/2 lb of rice.
2.) Linguine al Fredo (backpacking style):
cook macaroni (2/3 lb). Use 1/2 cup water, 4 tbl dry milk,1/3 cup
margarine, 1 cup Parmesan to make a sauce. I carried oregano,
pepper, salt, and basil for seasoning. To make: boil macaroni (if
you're clever, you can add just enough water to get it cooked,
plus2 cups extra which can be used with bullion to make broth. I
try very hard not to throw away boiled water: you carried it, and
the stove fuel, so use it!) After macaroni comes to a strong
boil, take it off of the stove, and put on a small pot (large Al cup is
fine. Sierra cups don't work well, so I carry a larger one) and
heat the water. melt margarine, and add milk. You will swap the
two pots as you do this to keep the water in the macaroni pot hot
enough to cook the macaroni. When both sauce and macaroni are
ready, add seasonings to sauce, pour over macaroni, and dump on
the Parmesan cheese. The result if *thick*, and has more calories
than anything you'll find in an instant pouch.
3.) Potatoes: I did not list this in the ingredients because it's not on my list, but I do remember doing this once or twice, probably when I was tired of rice, and macaroni. Just make instant potatoes, but beef them up with the standard 1/3 stick or margarine, dry milk, and Parmesan cheese. some fresh cheese is good too.
NOTES: I remember eating more than the meals above, but I can't remember what. Just be creative. If you are hiking hard enough to worry about the calories, you will eat anything. One hiker we met described dinner succinctly: eat until you're ready to gak. It's hard to get the calories down. The first day pack can be loaded with all sorts of good stuff: extra vegetables, fruit, muffins, etc. I hiked with a group that had a simple rule: someone had to carry the pineapple. Etiquette required that the pineapple be eaten mid-trip. Sooner was a cop-out, later cruel. Melons can be substituted.
I hope some of this is useful for you. It's been 5 years since my last serious trip (grad school), and I have forgotten much of what I did. Please let me know if you have improvements to the diet. The fats should be switched over to carbohydrates, where possible, but it is very hard to ingest that much food.
One final note, which should be something you already know. You should scald your pots with boiling water BEFORE using them. Scalding them when washing is a waste of time: they just go into your dirty pack. As a duty to the people that taught me how to hike, I must include the admonition to never wash your pots or selves in a stream: carry the water well away from the stream, or you will pollute the stream. Take only pictures, leave only footprints. If you can, don't even leave the footprints.
FROM efrank@upenn5.hep.upenn.edu
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Firstly the generic `stew' is the standard fare for us. We tend to eat vegetarian on hikes, reduces spoilage problems. Besides, this is an Australian talking so it can be bloody hot and meat, even precooked and preserved, is a dangerous substance after 9 days in a hot pack! The freeze-dried prefab meals, prevalent in this country, are too expensive at home so we only carry one of those for emergencies.
Our staples will hence consist of:
Ok some specifics:
Pilaf: chop one onion fairly roughly and cut carrots into sticks.
Add cumin seeds (whole) to the bottom of a hottish billy with
melted butter (preferably margarine it saves you carrying oil).
When they start popping add onion and chopped garlic (I didn't
mention chopping garlic did I, remind me never to write a
cookbook). Maybe some finely chopped ginger too. Now chop
some nuts add them and fry for a minute or so. Add bulgar wheat.
If you're ambitious you can fry this for a few seconds too but over a fire it's a great way of
burning your meal (he remembers ruefully).Add
water, this is the tricky part, you don't want to drain the meal
at the end so you should add too little rather than too much,
this will require watching though. You may want a touch of chili here
too and one of your packets of dried vegetables. Cook until the
wheat absorbs enough water (not long fortunately). Serve and
garnish with raw carrot.
Another is a dahl: again fry some cumin, preferably ground this time but it doesn't really matter. This time chop the onion as finely as you can be bothered (the real recipe calls for onion paste). The main spice here is garum massala (sp again) which is a mixture of cumin, coriander, cardamom and, hmm, was it nutmeg? Also add some cayenne or chili. Fry this with the ubiquitous onion and garlic, for longer this time. Then add cubed potato, red lentils, rice and a biggish supply of tomato powder and maybe a dried tomato to remind you what it should taste like. This one can take half an hour to cook with the lid on and with constant vigilance. Near the end add some lemon juice (did I mention the lemon?)
Ok general format: we always carry two pots, largish and smallish. It goes as follows: when we arrive, soak soup, our favorite brand (forgotten what the equivalent is in this country) requires soaking. This is for the small billy. As soon as the tent is up and it's a decent hour, cook soup and eat immediately. Feel two orders of magnitude better. Prepare meal in the big billy. Meanwhile: rinse small billy well and soak dried fruit in hot water with some spice or sugar or lemon or all 3. This is a great dessert, reconstituted dried fruit is something I'll even eat at home! As soon as the main meal is finished, fill large billy with water or maybe rinse immediately and heat water for post-meal coffee (or, if you're civilized, tea8-). Eat dessert followed by tea and chocolate. Notes: 1) never be ashamed of a three course meal on a hike! 2) the interleaving of billy access. 3) all this goes out the window if lots of water is hard to come by, hence fresh vegetables and dried fruit, you've got no idea how good a carrot can taste under those circumstances.
Ah yes, why the foil. Well I think there are lots of equivalents to this recipe, the Australian version is called damper. Mix up plain flour and water into a sort of library paste. Add dried fruit. Wrap AND SEAL in foil. Bury it at bottom of fire for about half an hour. Extract cooked fruit bread from foil. The outside will probably be burned, but unless something's gone awry that can just be committed to the flames and the rest enjoyed.
Hope this helps
Peter Rayner
pjdr@cgdisis.cgd.ucar.EDU (Peter Rayner)
p.s. probably the longest e-mail ever written!
p.p.s. soaking the black eyed peas? add them to boiling water,
either the night before or over breakfast. Let them cool as
much as you can then drain them and add moist beans to a plastic bag. Put back in billy which
should be carried in another bag or so of
course. Then they'll soak during the day. Someone I know had
a more elaborate version of this where they carried a billy with
water inside an insulating jacket. They literally cooked their beans on
the fly!
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Subject: summary of vegetarian camping food Finally, here is a summary of the vast amounts of mail I received regarding vegetarian camping food. I was so happy to see that there are so many thoughtful and helpful net-ers out there! I tried to respond to everyone personally, but some mail bounced and I may have missed some people. You all gave me wonderful suggestions and I am a lot less apprehensive about the trip now. Anyway.... ***GENERAL ADVICE*** Most people agreed that carrying meat into the backcountry is more trouble than it is worth, due to preservation/freshness problems. And everyone showed me that vegetarian food is very easy to come by while camping. Most meat-eaters also stated that they are more than happy to skip the meat while camping. One important consideration is fuel. Beans and rice are staples of many vegetarian meals, but if they need to cook for a long time they can be fuel-consuming. Choose instant rice and beans that cook quickly (i.e. lentils). BRING YOUR FAVORITE SPICES!! Curry powder, oregano, garlic powder, thyme, basil....everyone seemed to agree that good spices can make or break a meal and add infinite variety to a menu. Many people recommended premixing your meals at home, and bringing them in Ziploc bags to be cooked in the backcountry, which seems to eliminate things such as measuring cups, etc. Also, many people suggest using pre-made mixes such as humus mix and tabouleh mix. Although I generally avoid these at home, they seem to have a lot of merits in the backcountry when conditions are a bit more primitive. Don't forget to soak beans overnight! This will cut down on cooking time. Someone suggested soaking them while you hike, by keeping lentils in a Nalgene bottle, filling it with water, and carrying it in your pack. Many people said that one-pot meals are the best--rice, lentils, dried veggies, spices, curry powder, salt, etc. Someone recommended rice: lentils in a 4:1 ratio. Butter and cheese add flavor. ***KITCHEN PHILOSOPHIES*** With a majority of meat-eaters, the actual running of the kitchen can be a tricky situation. Most people thought that the best philosophy for the lone vegetarian is to be low-key about eating habits, and for the meat-eaters to be thoughtful and accepting of others' eating habits. Vegetarians should take an active role in cooking to make sure there is some food they can eat. Vegetarians should also consider bringing some of their own supplies, if possible, "just in case." Communal kitchens: a situation where cooking is shared and people eat family style. Vegetarians should take an active part in the cooking to make sure that they will have something to eat. A good strategy is for vegetarians to do the cooking once every few nights, and the eat leftovers for the meals in between. 'fend-for-yourself' kitchen: vegetarians should bond together or with sympathetic friends to share cooking if others want to eat meat. ***FOOD IDEAS*** 1) vegetarian chili: chili powder, kidney beans, fried onions, chili peppers. 2) split pea soup: dried split peas, thyme, onions, carrots, mustard. 3) lentil soup: lentils, onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, your favorite spices. 4) cous-cous!! many people suggested this grain. It doesn't need to be cooked, just soak for a few minutes in hot water. Add raisins and cinnamon for an oatmeal substitute, or cheese and pepper for grits substitute. Or add spices, or serve under stew or lentils, or... 5) pasta in general: look for types that cook quickly (look for thin spaghetti instead of the usual kind). Sauces can be carried in or made very easily with tomato sauce, mushrooms, onion, garlic, oregano. 6) humus: several people recommended the Fantastic Food brand instant humus. You can just add water, and some lemon juice if you have some. 7) tabouleh from a mix--add water, oil, and tomatoes. I personally often make tabouleh from a mix that I absolutely love, but I can't remember the brand name right now... 8) bring flavoring bases such as tomato powder, tamari, mushroom soup mix, and Knorr vegetable bouillon to complement your spices. Nuts and seeds add texture and variety. 9) little packages of brie and Camembert make good trail treats. 10) granola: a staple for everyone! someone suggested mixing it with powdered milk and carrying it in a wide-mouth Nalgene bottle. Just add water! 11) Many people suggested carrying cheese, which survives well without refrigeration. Someone found that cheesecloth preserves the cheese better than plastic bags. 12) Canned fruit makes a good evening treat or dessert. 13) Instant rice can be used as a side dish or can be made into a pilaf with your lentils, spices, bullion, etc. 14) barley and bulghar wheat (one of my favorites) are also quick-cookers and can be served under stew, beans, etc. Or can be jazzed up with spices and served as a side dish. 15) add dumplings to any soup 16) ramen noodles are light and easily cooked--just check the "spice packet" for meat products. You can always substitute bullion for the spice packet. 17) potato stew--pancakes--omelets--macaroni and cheese--pasta salad. 18) Radhika's favorite lunch pack: tomatoes, onion, cucumbers, pita bread, bottled jalapenos, and instant humus. Make a paste with the humus and water, spread in the pita, add other sliced ingredients, and wrap sandwich for lunch on the trail....yum! 19) sweet potatoes wrapped in foil on a fire cook well. 20) hot dog substitute: someone suggested white wave soy foods' 'meatless healthy franks' so you aren't left out and lonesome when everyone else is roasting Mystery Meat over the campfire. 21) boy scout/ hobo dinner: wrap chopped potatoes, onions, carrots, etc. in cabbage leaves and then wrap the whole thing in foil. Make sure you season with spices and a bit of water for moisture. Use your judgement for cooking time, and beware of the steam when opening the foil. 22) peanut butter cookies--high energy fruit bars--fruit leather--fruit-nut rolls--potato-cheese soup (all from gorp, glop, and glue stew cookbook) 23) fruit that lasts, such as grapefruit and cantaloupe (too bad I'm allergic to all melons =( ) 24) several people suggested using TVP (Textured vegetable protein)and adding it to rice, stews, etc for more texture and extra protein. 25) Vegetarian manicotti: stuff shells with spicy refried beans, cover with enchilada sauce (or spiced up tomato sauce), and cheese. 26) fried potatoes with dill and carrots: curry, lemon, and cayenne; carrots and canned tomatoes and chili powder. 27) cheese and peanut butter on bagels 28) dried cheese tortellini can be cooked en masse with a good tomato sauce, with onions, basil, Parmesan cheese. 29) clarified butter from Indian grocery stores travels well and is tasty in small quantities. I've tried various homemade preparations for dried beef and utilized this in grocery store bought dried sauce preparations like spaghetti sauce, stroganoff. One of the more interesting things I've tried is drying pureed squash paste in the oven so it's like a fruit roll. Out on the trail I mix this with some instant noodles and stock and curry. It looks like lichen but it tastes great! This is a variation of a soup I make at home. Another great thing for the first day or two out was to make Quesadillas. I dried a bean paste at home. Out on the trail I reconstituted it, spread it between two flour tortillas, stuffed in a little cheese and browned the tortillas on each side. It doesn't take as much time as pasta so it saves fuel. The only thing is that you have to make them in the first few days while you still have cheese and mold-free tortillas. If you really want to spoil yourself take along a small can of salsa. One last thing that worked nicely on a ten day trip was to take along a small can of minced clams and a couple of cloves of garlic, some dried milk, flour, noodles, and salt and pepper. We put up with the extra weight of the can so that we could have a nice meal on the last night out. Spaghetti with white sauce with clams and garlic. It was worth the weight! A six and a half ounce can of clams and 1/2# of noodles fed two hungry women easily.
alb1@quads.uchicago.edu (amy diane alberts)
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The following is compiled from journal notes, written while I backpacked, telemarked skied, off-trail hiked, basecamped, and climbed 14,000 ft mountains for a month in Colorado. I'll try to stick to the following outline:
i. General Food Planning ii. What we brought (complete food list) iii. Using the stuff for different meals and GORP iv. Discussion of baking and how to with various stoves v. How much to bring and our costs vi. Cooking routines and clean-up vii. Conclusions
i. When planning food for a trip, I think the most important desicion one has to make was whether to menu or bulk ration. Menu rationing is determining at home, when you buy food, on Tuesday, we'll have x for breakfast, y for lunch, and z for dinner, then packaging with appropriate labels: Tues Lunch, etc.. Bulk food rationing just refers to bringing various amounts (usually by weight) of staples and packaging each ingredient individually. You then bust out all your food at camp, and mix/measure to fill the recipe you disire to cook on that particular day.
I think menu planning works great for short trips, but there was no way, at home in Ithaca, NY, that we could predict what we would feel like/want/need on day 22 of our trip in Colorado. For that matter, we didn't even know *where* we would be on that day! So we used bulk rationing for the trip, and that is what I'll further describe (of course, that doesn't preclude menu-rationers from pre-planning dishes we ended up making--just prepackage the ingrediants we used for specific recipes!).
I'd also like to say that the National Outdoor Leadership school solely uses bulk rationing for their 21+ day-long trips; in the mtns, we used their NOLS Cookery recipebook to give us ideas on what to do. For the most part, we used the recipe-pamphlet as a jumping-off point. Without it, it can be very disconcerting to have 50 different food items in front of your face and you are wondering, where do I start? Also, at the end of our trip, when, one morning we had only oatmeal, cornmeal, a little powdered milk, and vanilla extract left, the Cookery proved very useful at showing us how to throw these ingrediants together.
If you are fretting about filling recipes in the backcountry with cup, tsp, and tbsp, etc. measurements, don't fret to much: just use what you have available. For example, my mug is 1.5 cups, my spoon is between a tsp and a tbsp--approximate. Also, imho, any recipe that needs precise ratios of ingredients to come out palatable is not a very good recipe (for backpacking, where it is hard to get exact measurements), so it probably didn't work well, and thus we didn't include it. Also, most of backcountry cooking revolves around substitution and improvization (using the recipe, to well, guide you), so I wouldn't be too concerned about filling recipes down to the letter. Finally, if you don't like the way something turned out, try using the spices you brought along to turn it into something you do like.
ii. That said, you're probably itching to find out what we actually brought: so here goes a long list (and remember, variaty is very important for the taste buds):
all ingredients (except margarine, peanut butter, tahini, and vanilla extract) were packaged by putting the item into a plastic BULK Food bag that you find in the suppermarket. We closed the bags by tying loose overhand or slip knots in the plastic. For some items we used two bags; if a bag developed a hole, we just put the holy bag into another bag, and tied the knot. I'm against using the twist-tie thingies they have in supermarkets because I inevitably lose them and the wilderness doesn't need more metal trash. Also, the twist-ties do not seem to seal water tight.
iii. Using the stuff:
my GORP: pretzles, peanuts, raisens, dried prunes, pinapple, appricots, apples, pears, chocolate chips, cheroes, cornflakes, toffy-covered peanuts, sunflower seeds, granola (blueberry and strawberry kind), yougart covered raisens, Moth Balls (the yougart covered malts), chopped dates, dried bannana, chedder cheese-it, seasame sticks, walnuts, yougart covered almonds, and carob chips all went in. You can tell I like variety; that's the best way to do it! I'd also suggust saving, individually, about 1/3 of the total (original) amounts of GORP indrediants and NOT mix them into your GORP. I found that I also like to snack on the individual ingredients by themselves. Also, most of the ingredients lend nicely as garnishes/additions to other main-course dishes, so it was nice to save some for that variety/capability. I carried the gummy stuff with my gorp, but didn't put them into the big bag--worms and nuts and grains just do not mix imho. My partner thought that the gummy connection was the only way to go. Each to his/her own.
Putting my spoon in the GORP bag during the day also made for efficient eating. As I am a normally messy person, small gorp bits (granola, eg) generally fall to the ground, creating a mess + high impact. The spoon cut down on the this. I didn't always use the spoon though; sometimes I was just in the mood to "GORP sift" and pull out special favored ingrediants like appricots and toffy-covered peanuts. Oh well. The one rule of GORP I made up two years ago is: there must be over 20 ingrediants in the bag, several of whose identity you don't know. Mystery GORP. In Colorado, I accomplished by throwing breakfast and dinner leftovers into the bag. On another trip I went on last winter, we had extra, uncooked, apple spiced oatmeal. After putting that into the gorp bag, my gorp had a very strong taste for the rest of the trip. I'm not quite sure I would do that again.
BREAKFAST: We used the baking stuff (flours, baking powder, etc.) to make pancakes on several days when we were base-camping and had time; we actually made a pretty good syrup out of melted margarine and brown sugar. Putting gorp items like dried fruit, chocolate chips, or the orange drink mix made for cool pancakes. For get-out-of-camp fast days, instant Oatmeal was good (I like it a lot, and even eat it at home often), but for those who hate Oatmeal and desire alternatives, cous-cous and granola are just as good. Cous-cous is awesome! and doesn't have that stick-to-your ribs feel that many people detest in oatmeal. Granola (if you like it without milk, dry, as I do) does not even necessate heating water. The 7-grain cereal requires about 5 minutes to cook, so it is not quite as fast, but it is sure good. The instant mashed potatoes worked good one morning, as did the cream of wheat. The cream of wheat (aka grits) take about 5 minutes to cook in boiling water, whereas you can just add boiling water over the instant potatoes.
Of course all these carbohydrate-loaded grains would get tiresome by themselves; the brown sugar, margarine, cinamin, dried fruit, chocolate chips, and powdered milk were handy "spices" to add. This gave lots of possible combinations and hense, vary different meals. You could also add honey, but I have not figured out an un-messy way to carry it. When I do...
For variety we also made oatmeal hotcakes. The night before, we added powdered milk, cinnamin, and the oatmeal together, poured some water over, to get a slight mush, mashed the oatmeal flat (kind of like kneeding), then let it sit in a tupperware container (my partner's eating dish) while we slept. In the morning, we shaped the oatmeal dough-stuff into cakes, fried them on both sides for aprox 2-3 minutes, then served them with a chocolate syrup. We made the syrup simply by adding 1/2 handful of chocolate chips to melted margarine in the pan, and stirring until it was a thick melted liquid. The cakes were exquisite and in no way resembled oatmeal's texture. This was probably our best breakfast the entire trip!
LUNCHES were the breads (pita, tortillas, even the loaf bread) coupled with cheese, peanut butter and/or tahini. Tahini is rather bland tasting, so if you do bring it, you'll probably want to eat it in conjunction with another spreadable, or the hummus. Dried hummus is pretty expensive (>$3/lbs) so we had it only for one day. Oh, since the tahini is kinda liquidy/pasty, we carried that in a small tupperware container too. We probably could have had more variety here, but I never seemed to get tired of the cheese or peanut butter.
At home, before we left, I also baked some Logan Bread. This is some of the densest, most tasty, long-lasting bread I've ever had. A fist sized morsal, coupled with a hunk of cheese, is a very filling lunch! A friend of mine took this bread on his Mt. Denali expedition; on our trip, the bread kept for well over a month's time after baking. We actually munched the last of it as we sat on the hood of our car near Maroon Lake, looking at the Maroon Bells which we climbed by the center coloiur earlier that week. We took 7 lbs of logan bread and that yielded (for two people) between 8-9 lunches.
Recipe Varations appear in Gorp, Glop, and Glue Stew with some neat stories (it got the name Logan because a team survived on this bread for several days when making the first assent of Mt. Logan). The basic recipe is:
Once you have a very thick, tough to stir batter, pour (or rather push) it into greased baking pans, and bake in an oven at 150-200oF for 1-2 hours. The idea is to dry the bread out and to get rid of all the moisture, leaving a dense, hardly-risen bread. It is done when a toothpick or fork, upon insertion, comes out clean. This is usually just before the bread starts to really burn. (The corners may burn first, but don't worry about them--you can just trim them off--let the bread bake some more). The recipe should yield between 4-5 lbs bread. I made 1.5x the recipe for our trip.
The taste of the Logan bread improves with cooling and two days standing. Also, for the nuts and fruits, you can really add anything you want: try some nutmeg, cloves, and cinamin spices, chopped apples, vegis (carrots, green peppers), etc. Be creative. Since we didn't have any dried fruit or nuts in the house when I made the bread, I substituted corn, orange marmelade, strawberry jelly, and chocolate chips. The bread had wonderfull, distinctive texture + jelly taste, but without the water content of the jelly. Logan bread was a lunch-savor on our trip.
DINNERS: Primarily revolved around our staples: rice, pasta, beans, bulgar, cous-cous. Our numerous spices and spice-mixs made for good varation. We never had the same thing twice, except when we liked something so much that we wanted it again: like the Left Over Lental Casserole. Adding sliced cheese to your bowl and letting it melt into the warm food always tastes great. Same goes for the margarine. Besides the ready-made sauces (Chili, terriaki, etc.), we also used the bulk supplies to make our own sauces:
A White Sauce can be had by combining flour, powdered milk, black pepper, salt, and 1/4-1/2 cup boiling water. a Gado-gado thai sauce can also be had by, in a fry-pan, melting margarine (or using oil), frying some sunflower seeds, then adding soy sauce (or substitute vegi soup base), peanut butter, brown sugar dissolved in a little water, and garlic; then heat ginerly, so peanut butter mixture does not burn. Either of these sauces go great over rice/pasta, while the white is particularly tasty in casseroles.
Particular dinners that were special hits included:
Field-Made Corn Tortillas stuffed with Spanish Rice
One night after we had eaten all the store-bought flour tortillas for lunch, we had lots of
remaining cornmeal, and we were getting sick of making polenta (to 2 cups boiling water, add 1
cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup dried milk; stir vigorously until mixture becomes thick and batter pulls
away from side of pan), so I decided to make corn tortillas. In a bowl, mix 2 cups cornmeal, 1/2
cup flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2-->1 cup water: enought to make a thick dough. Roll the dough with
your hands and add more flour until it is no longer super-sticky. Shape into a ball and let sit,
covered, for 5-10 minutes. Then, in an ungreased fry pan, take a thumb and index-finger sized
ball of dough and flatten into pan with your hand or spatula and add enough dough to make it
tortilla sized. Flatten thin! Fry on both sides till it is golden brown, then set aside the tortilla.
Repeat flatten-and-fry procedure until all cornmeal dough is gone. You should get 10 or so
tortillas. After making the tortillas, bring a pot of water to boil, add instant rice, add chili spice
packet (or season to the like), instant vegis + soy grits + beans and stir for several minutes. Chop
cheese to fingernail sized morsals, and then serve spanish rice and cheese inside tortillas. Enjoy.
Leftover Lental Casserole with Stuffing Topping and White Sauce
This became our traditional last night before resuply meal: it adapts so well to whatever is left in
the food bag! The stuffing is seasoned in an exquisite kind of way that you just can't obtain with
the spices we carried. Stuffing is also good by itself, as an appitizer coruse. There are four basic
companants which combine to eventually make the one pot casserole:
Carbohydrate (rice, bulgar, cous-cous, pasta broken into fingernail sized bits, etc.); white sauce;
Instant stuffing topping; garnishes.
In your biggest pot, bring water to boil, and add your carbohydrate form and any remaining garnishes (sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts, dried fruit, soy grits, dried vegis, vegi base, etc.). If you carbo is not instant (i.e.: takes 5 minutes to cook or so) let the water boil off till the pot has mostly solid carbohydrate. While the excess water is boiling off, extract the water necessary to make the White Sauce in a side dish. Extract more boiling water to make instant stuffing mix in seperate side dish (ignore the cooking instructions on the package and just add the required amount of water to the stuffing-crouton mix, and whisk-stir a few times). About now, all the water should be almost boiled off of the carbohydrate. If the carbohydrate is cooked either let the excess water boil off or drain into someone's dish for a soup appitizer. Turn off heat. Stir the white sauce (and cheese too, if you have extra) into the carbo-garnish casserole or just leave as a layer on top. Top the casserole with the instant stuffing and serve. A note of caution: while you are letting the water boil off the carbo, you need to stir it often to prevent it from burning, particularly if your stove does not simmer well.
The first week in Colorado, I thought I had bought croutons by mistake instead of stuffing (I never use the instant stuff at home). So we never added water to the "croutons", and just put them into our dishes raw. That provided and interesting bread-crunch which is not easily obtained when backpacking with the kinds of food we had. THis is definately another way to use the instant stuffing (or alternatively, you could just bring in croutons!)
TREATS: Sometimes we didn't cook enough for dinner and wanted something special for deserts. Adding milk powder to instant pudding worked splendifo (pour milk powder into your cup, add just enough water to get milk to dissolve, then add pudding powder; finally add enough water to dilute pudding to the consistency you like), but making instant fudge brownies was a treat. We were too impatiant/lazy to bake, so we just made the batter and ate it as fudge. It was suppurb, supper tasty, very rich, extremely filling and filled all of our chocolate cravings for several days. Looking back on our Fudge overdose, though, I'd only reccomend it for the severly famished, intensly deprived, or beyond-help chocolate addicted freaks (much like myself).
We also made a few no-bake cookie recipes which are in the NOLS Cookery. The Eskimo Cookies had lots of margarine and were very rich and definately only for the truly hard-core (brown sugar, margarine lovers).
Oh one other desert: Rice pudding.
We had some extra rice one night, so I made desert out of it too. To cooked rice (preferable
brown) add:
iv. Baking. Since a lot of our food weight was in flour and cornmeal, the only way to gain access to this stuff is by baking. Baking in the backcountry can be fun, rewarding, and very satisfying. I say can, because on our Colorado trip it wasn't--the first few times we tried. On other trips, besides pancakes, etc., I've had yeast-risen pizzas, pinapple upside-down cakes, spinach-mushroom lasagnas, etc.. It all depends on your stove/fire. The basic baking method is make the dough, put it into your pot with lid on top (now you have an oven) and put over a simmerring stove or fire. If you want to be super-crafty, you can add a second heat source to the top--a very small fire. Basically, let bake for 20 minutes and try to catch it before it burns. You can significantly reduce burnage by not letting the dough touch the top of the oven--the lid. You should rotate the pot as necessary to make sure heat is supplied to all parts.
Anyway, the problem in colorado was that my stove (MSR international) has only two settings: Off and Blowtorch; it doesn't simmer. So the two breads we tried to bake just ended up getting burned. I've successively baked with Peak I, Optimus, and Primus stoves, which all (surprise) have simmer modes. None of the MSR stoves (wisperlite, etc.) that I have seen, do very well for baking.
So after the burned disasters, we just resorted to making the dough and eating it raw--a good substitute. For pan baking (Pancakes, corn tortillas, oatmeal hotcakes, polenta), we just had to be very careful with the spatula, the gas control, and holding the pan several inches above the flame. With any baking you can substitute ready made stuff (Bisquick, Aunt Jamima, etc.) for the raw flour, etc. to get good dough. But if you are planning to make batters from scratch, make sure you bring baking powder, as this is the leavening/risen agent. Yeast breads are also possible, but take considerably more time (2+ hours). I'll only cook using beastly-yeasties if I'm camping in a big group (7+), so that my ego can get sufficient praise for the work/time I invest in making the bread after I serve everyone the baked bread, fresh and light.
With these baking notes down, you can really make any "quick" (baking powder risen) bread recipe you find in an ordinary recipe book. Bannana-chip, raisen, nut breads will probably work best, since those are ingrediants you'll probably already have with you. You can substitute powdered milk and appropriate amount of water for liquid milk, and brown sugar stirred into melted margarine for honey. Also, if you're camping at altitudes greater than 6000-7000 feet, use about 2x the amount of baking powder the recipe suggests (unless you like your bread in brick form). Oh, one other thing. Since eggs are not very backpack-able, if your recipe calls for egg, you can substitute egg powder, or use a very packable vegan substitution a housemate told me about: use 1 tablespoon corn starch stirred into 2 tablespoons water to make a paste for every egg called for. This should give the batter the same stick-together, binding power that the egg would otherwise provide. Also, if you are menu-planning, at home, combine all the dry ingredients (except corn starch) and throw into a Ziploc. Another egg substitute is one banana, very mushy. Which, if you peal the banana, seal in a ziploc, then through in you pack for a few days, it what you should get upon retrieval:)
v. How much to bring and Costs. I didn't include weight amounts in the "What we brought" list because this varried across our resuplys. We aimed for an overall constistent weight. That is, across resuplys, our total food weight remained constant. We resuplied every 10 days, and when we carried 2.0 lbs/person-day we were sufficiently fed (energy wise), but I always had the feeling that I was slightly hungry and could eat more; when we upped it to 2.5 lbs/person-day, we had way more food than needed and I felt sickly over-stuffed on several occasions after dinner meals. So for the two of us, we just made sure to take (10 days)*(2 people)*2.0-2.5 lbs food/person-day)= 40-45 food lbs back into the backcountry when we came out for resupply.
Please keep in mind that food needs vary with body-physique and setting. My partner and I are both 20 year old males, so we probably eat significantly more than the average person. We were also at high elevation (11,000+ for the whole month) and doing very physical stuff: hiking 3000+ vertical each day and skiing/bushwacking, which are a lot more taxing than trail hiking. Also, it generally froze at night, which means we burned more calories staying warm, so that probably increased our appitites too. I don't have the conversions for other activities (e.g.: summer, on trail backpacking, under 5 miles/day), but If you're an adult, I'd definately wouldn't recommend bringing less than 1.8 lbs/person-day. If you're worried about eating a well balanced diet, all I can say, is eat a variety of foods: we had items from the legume, fruit, vegetable and grains groups, + a wide variety of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Since/if you're vegatarian, you should be concerned about eating complete proteins. Legumes and grains do well; as does cheese and grains. A lot of our fat/protein comes from dairy; keep this in mind, but we didn't worry about it at all because we were very active.
Costs: As we are both college students and on a strict budget, we managed to eat for under $5/person-day. We bought all our food from the grocery store to avoid specialty markups (none of our ingredients are hard to find) and our $5 budget even included splurging: at the month's end going out for Pizza and bringing a few treats (like Apricot Preserves in a Jar), browny mix, vinalla extract into the backcountry. The way to stay within our budget, is to first note that the average cost of food = $5/person-day divided by 2.2 lbs food/person-day = $2.2/ lb food, so try to buy foods that have unit prices below this average amount. Supermarkets generally list the unit cost of items next to the absolute price, so this can be handy. Also, concentrate most of your food poundage in bulk staples (flour, rice, pasta, raisens, oatmeal, cous-cous, beans) which are generally in the $1-1.5/lb price range. This leaves significant leeway to buy more expensive items. Buying small quantities of lots of different expensive items can be very effective: you get nice, tasty variety; this explains our ten types of dried fruits, different yougart-covered things, spice mixes, etc., which can run upwards of $3.5-4/lb. You might also want to check out a natural food health store for other varieties of expensive-treat items. We didn't end up getting any of our items from one, but one day when I had to drive into Aspen to get more food, on a lark, I made a stop in one after I had been to the supermarket. Too bad I had maxed the budget at the supermarket, because the Natural food store had a lot of cool, tasty-looking do-dads I would have like to get. The store did have most of our staples in Bulk, which would have been nice, since then you have to only buy what you need.
Anyway, with the expensive-food treats: they add great variety, we could afford them and thus enjoy them.
Lastly, making the Logan Bread and dehydrating the beans in the oven ourselves saved significant $$. At the grocery story in Ithaca (Tops), instant dried bean flakes are $3.99/lb whereas the dried (whole) beans are about $1/lb. Flour and cornmeal type stuff is $0.35/lb and loaves of bread are $1/lb. Three- and four-fold savings are gained by making the stuff yourself. And in the backcountry, I'm not a picky eater, so everything tastes good. It also feels great to eat something you've invested time in--either at home, before the trip, or out in the field by the campstove.
vi. cooking routines: with all the talk about food and preperation, I thought I'd include a little bit on the gear we actually used to make the recipes I've written about so far about, and our cooking routine, which seemed to do nicely, even when we prepared complicated meals.
Besides the MSR stove, we carried two pots, a pot lid which doubled as a fry pan, pot grips, a spatula and a stirring spoon. We also had a heat exchanger which fit both sized pots and saved fuel by reducing the time needed to boil water.
Since I am a dedicated minimum-impacter, I do not believe in throwing any food/cooked water out. All food (in any degree of burned state) goes to one place only: my mouth. Keeping this in mind, for dinners, I would usually get a pot of water boiling to purify the water While it was reaching boiling, we would generally add the soup base, dehydrated vegtables, soy grits, and margarine, or whatever subset of these items our recipe called for. Once we obtained boilage-incarnate, we would add the particular carbo we were cooking that night. If we had too much water, I'd pour the extra soupy stuff into either of our dishes and we would get soup-broth drink for appitizer. Then procede to cook the main dish, turn the stove off while we served out of the pot. After all the food was served, one of us would scrape the cooking pot clean using a personal spoon. Then we would fill the pot with water again, light the stove, and bring the pot of water to boil. We would then use the boiled water for hot drinks (hot cocoa, cool-aide, hot jello) or the dessert we were making, and to pour into each personal + cooking dish to use to scrape completely clean after we were done eating/drinking. After we were done scraping, we would "Big Gulp"--drink--the dish water. Our dishes would be clean, we would be well hydrated, and most importantly, no food, food smells, or water containing food would be around the camp for animals to scavange. You might notice that we don't use any soap: I don't like the taste of soup in my mouth! Also, the boiling heat is enought to kill any microorganisms who should happen to decide my bowl or pot should be their new home.
vii. conlcusion: an end to a long food essay-- I'm hungry :)
All I feel like saying is variety. It sustained us, made each day different, and lasted a
month. In total contrast, a person I knew from high school, backpacked for a week on nothing but
Power Bars. No stove, no cooking, just Power Bars. Whenever I go camping I try to avoid that
repititious extreme--enjoy food, bring things I like, and be creative. Bulk Rationing with a wide
variety of items is certainly all of that and more. Sure, it is slightly heavier and takes more time;
but I think the respect my stomache and body got by receiving diverse, nutritionally well
balanced, tasty foods are well worth it. My body and taste buds definately dig 20 item GORP,
baked breads, Rice pudding, hotcakes, and overdoses of fudge.
That said, I hope this provided some useful recipe ideas for anyone, vegatarian or not, short or long trip planner, experienced or novice cook. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how my Colorado-food-concoctions work for you.
Smiles,
happy trails,
David Zeke Rosenberg
der10@cornell.edu