Category:
Passing Through
On Trail Food
Some of our criteria here are that the food be light, easy to cook, easy to digest, capable of dense packing, not especially attractive to pests, nutritive, and adaptable to more than one treatment.
The manufacturers of freeze-dried trail meals would have us all believe that the use of their products is the norm; such is not the case. Outdoors folk, being a cantankerous lot, often have their own styles of provisioning. At any rate, most of what one would be carrying will be dessicated. Exceptions might be a bit of garlic, ginger and the like.
Fresh sprouts of lentils or alfalfa are no less delicious on a hot bannock than on a delicatessen sandwich. They're hopelessly easy to deal with, a muslin bag that you rinse with your drinking water twice a day, within its own special transport, a plastic bag. Hold upside down to drain. Hang it from somewhere on the outside of your pack if you like, so you can anxiously attend their growth. That is, if the temperature is above freezing. Just one caveat; the environment in which you sprout sprouts is the perfect incubator for microbes as well. See that the sprouts get plenty of air, best idea is to cook them briefly. Generally, the limitations of equipment restrict one to a little liquid fuel stove, and it is impractical to carry or heat a pot larger than a couple of liters capacity. Your pot's main use, will as always, be to boil drinking water in, or to melt ice towards the same end. After filling your water bottles, the perfect viands would be those that are put into the hot water remaining in the pot, and boiled until done. Most modern backpacker stoves are capable of a simmer good enough to cook rice at, and if the wind is a problem, make soup. Soups are easy to keep warm, don't require constant attention, and this is an efficient use of fuel. Although this usage may be less than elegant, rice, noodles or dumplings of any description can be cooked right in or on it.
Dehydrated foods, perforce, are reconstituted as they go. Texturized Vegetable Protein is made from defatted soya flour. It is processed heavily, as all the soya products must be, but on the other end of the chopstick, is ready to eat in half an hour. This is truly a modern convenience food.
Bulghur, which is wheat that has been pre-cooked and then broken, is another product which is ready half an hour after having boiling water poured upon it. (Don't confuse this product with cracked wheat, which is just what it says it is, and not pre-cooked.)
If you are going to make a fire, learn how to utilize the coals to cook over; they can usually be raked out of the general conflagaration and arrayed to your requirements without much trouble. A bed of hardwood embers two centimeters deep will boil a pan of liquid at a perfect even heat. Just rake out more as you need them. This way no support system is required to suspend your billy over open flames, which are of course at the whim of the winds. Nothing is more frustrating than a roaring fire that won't even heat your pot. The handles and lid stay cooler when you cook over coals, and you can get close to the action without the fire in your face.
If you are cooking over some form of camping stove, fueled with whatever it is; you're on your own. The most important kitchen adjunct you can carry is a windbreak on stiff wire armature. A thin sheet of steel can be used as a tappan or comal to cook a thousand things, including fresh bread, and is light enough for canoeing. Carry one instead of a skillet.
Notes:
A bag within which to suspend foodstuffs between two trees is vital to your larder, otherwise the raccoons and/or other wildlife will get into it. Of course, a tough rope thick enough not to cut into your hand will go with it.
Clamp Connexions