Backpacking Food (page 2)
It is a good idea to have at least a rough meal plan ahead of time. When we are backpacking, we tend to eat large meals only a breakfast and dinner. This is for two main reasons. The first is that you tend to get sleepy after a large meal; when we are at camp, we have some time to let the food settle before having to be up and out. The second is that is a pain to have to dig out all your cookware and utensils mid-trail and in the middle of the day. We have found that eating a few small meals throughout the day is not only easier, but gives you better sustained energy. Generally, we bring food for breakfasts and dinners for each day/night, and a ton of snack food to graze on throughout the day.
Pre-packaged freeze-dried meals are popular. Your local camping store, if it is a decent one, should stock a decent supply of them. These have improved over the years; many of them actually don’t taste too bad. They tend to be a bit on the bland side for my taste, but adding a bit of Creole seasoning and pepper can make them quite a palatable meal. There is a wide array of meals to choose from: not only are there pastas and stews, you can find things like sweet and sour pork, cheese enchilada ranchero, and risotto with shrimp. There are also breakfast and deserts, from pancakes and breakfast scrambles to brownies and blueberry cheesecake. Be forewarned though: some of these are better than others. For instance, I personally don’t care for any of the breakfast meals with dehydrated egg. They just never seem to taste right. It will likely take experimenting to figure out which ones you like. Another thing to keep in mind is that when you read the label for many of the meals, it says that each package holds two servings. Just ignore this. I’m not generally a heavy eater, but after a day on the trail I can scarf down an entire package and practically lick the lining. Count on one per person per meal package. This brings us to one more issue with these pre-packaged meals: the cost. They run anywhere from six to thirteen dollars each, and of course the good ones are always the pricier ones. This is cheaper than eating at most restaurants, to be sure, but does seem to be a bit steep for itty bitty squiggly noodles, miniscule servings of meat, shriveled vegetables and a lot of powder—and with two per day per person, the expense can add up quickly. They are
worth a try, though, and you can’t beat them for simple convenience: with most of them, all you have to do is add boiling water, and you can eat it right out of the package, which makes for very little cleanup afterward.
A cheaper alternative is the boxed food aisle at your local grocery store. A 99 cent box of macaroni and cheese can be just as satisfying as that eight dollar mushroom couscous. And come on, who doesn’t like mac and cheese? Packages of flavored rice or pasta, like Rice-A-Roni or Pasta-Roni, are also filling and inexpensive. So are powdered soup mixes. All of these can be spruced up with the addition of dehydrated meat and/or vegetables. If you have some dehydrated ground beef (I’ll get into making this yourself later), you can even grab some Hamburger Helper. Make a great meal!
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