Christopher F. Powell

Backpacking Foods

Some camping partners are a little crabby before they get their morning coffee...

Our general philosophy is to eat well, even when it means added weight. I'd rather carry a few more pounds than eat those dehydrated meals; they're expensive, tasteless, and never enough to eat after a long day on the trail. It takes a bit more time and planning, but it's worth the effort. You can usually concoct some pretty good stuff. Also, Matt and I both love to cook, and don't mind the extra labor.

The best scheme we've come up with for packing our food is to bag each day individually. Everything for Monday goes in its own ziplock, and all the ziplocks go into a stuff sack. Matt carries Monday's food, Chris carries Tuesday, Matt carries Wednesday... There are two more bags, one with snacks and one with stuff that gets used everyday (spices, coffee, etc). This seems to work pretty well, and minimizes digging around in your pack looking for lunch. At night you each pull out your food sacks, tie 'em up and hang 'em. This scheme wastes a lot of plastic bags, so try to reuse them!

One more comment on prepackaged dehydrated stuff. There are two cases where I use them:

1. I always carry one or two as emergency food, in case we get stuck somewhere or are just feeling hungry.
2. The Backpacker's Pantry omelettes are damn good! Combine with dried hash browns for a real feast!

On with the menu...

The Basics

• squeeze parkay (this stuff lasts forever, use it as butter or margarine in anything you cook)
• tabasco
• powdered milk (pretty useful stuff, good for making pudding, cereal, or even drinking. Tastes OK even if not allowed to set overnight, as recommended)
• spices
• vegetable oil (for cooking, can sometimes substitute squeeze parkay)

Snacks

• granola bars
• hard candy
• powdered lemonade mix (good cold or hot)
• cracklin oat bran
• trail mix (M&M's, raisins, Gummi Bears, cashews. Mmmmm.)
• herbal tea
• instant pudding (a GREAT dessert if you've got the munchies)
• fondue (much easier than it sounds, and delicious. rub a clove of garlic around the inside of your pot, heat one cup of white wine, or better yet, champagne, add 8 oz. of grated swiss cheese tossed in 1 tablespoon flour, stir until melted. use pieces of a baguette (packs well) or fresh fruit for dipping.)

Breakfast

• instant coffee (yeah, it tastes like shit, but it works)
• instant hash browns (with bacon bits, mmm)
• instant oatmeal
• cream of wheat
• powdered eggs with veggie sausage
• granola with powdered milk
• biscuits and gravy mix (our first attempt at this one was a miserable failure, gonna have to get that Outback Oven, and take our advice, don't add ground beef!)
• hot grape nuts

Lunch

• dried soup mix (nothing better on a cold rainy day)
• bagels and cheese (Lender's bagels aren't the greatest, but there's enough preservatives in these things to keep the mold away)
• ramen noodles with dried veggies
• summer sausage and cheese (makes Matt sick)
• bagels with peanut butter and/or jelly
• pitas with dried hummus
• pitas and cheese

Dinner

• couscous and cheese with tomato or salsa
• burritos with cheese, dried refried beans, tortillas, salsa
• macaroni and cheese with sundried tomatoes
• beans and rice
• lentil chili from dried tomato base
• dried tortellini with dried tomato base
• veggie burgers on pita (don't forget the condiments, these things are dry!)
• spaghetti with tomato base (add dried 'shrooms, and remember that vermicelli or angel hair will cook faster)