I'm getting ready for a 5-day, 50 mile hike on the AT early next month. One of the irritating things about the AT authorities is that they do not permit open fires anywhere on the trail. As a result, you have to either haul a stove (or some alternative heat source), or do without.
This time I'm thinking of doing without, but I need to figure out good meals with plenty of calories, protein, and carbs, but which never need to be heated. Obviously sealed, hard-cured sausages and nuts are good protein sources. I could take pre-baked cakes of various kinds (perhaps aiming for something like lembas), as long as they were baked hard enough that they won't go bad over a few days. Dried fruits, maybe.
Actually, on reflection, maybe I should just go back through the Hobbit and Fellowship of the Rings to see what they are given at their various waystations. Tolkien seems to have known a lot about trekking.
Do any of you have suggestions?
22 comments:
Trail mix. Grains, honey, nuts. Maybe even chocolate chips. Jerky. More nuts. Honeycakes. Some form of hardtack (or just saltines). MREs are heavy, but they pack a day's worth of calories (3k each) and are designed to be man portable. And they don't need to be reconstituted.
Cornbread, especially if you can take it sweet with honey (honey really is marvelous stuff, it's an anti-biotic, it never spoils, and is high in calories).
Forgot dried fruit.
My choice would be Julekage.
Once it is properly baked, it makes a fairly dry loaf that keeps well. I used to keep it in my dorm room for about a month with no spoilage. Note though that the dorm room had radiator heat and was also fairly dry.
Comes close enough to Lembas in my world.
When I'm on the road, as I am now, I make a breakfast cookie that has cheese, bacon and oats in it. They're not too sweet, are good, quick energy snacks, have great flavor and last a long time when sealed in a plastic bag or container. I left home with 2 containers of cookies. One has been devoured (my nephew loves breakfast cookies, so I shared what was left of my first container with him) and the other awaits my return home this Sunday. They've been inside a sealed container the whole time and are as fresh as when the VES made them for me last week. I can send you the recipe when I get home if you'd like to try them.
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Wow, all these cakes/breads/cookies sound awesome. (Especially Julekage and the breakfast cookie!) I will certainly try at least those two, and some honey cakes sound like a good idea also.
Ah, bureaucracy: The adventures thou hath stifled...
Based on what you ask in the question, I'm assuming you're trying to avoid the highly processed, preservative-laden MREs and the eventual constipation that goes with them.
I'm by no means an expert, but besides the obvious dried foods, (fruits, jerky, nuts, etc.), you might consider some simple fermented grains (fermented oatmeal was a medieval staple for celtic raiding parties), sauerkraut, or packing a few canned goods. Pickled vegetables provide vitamins and electrolytes: also, beans and grains kept in warmish water will sprout naturally, enhancing their nutritional value without spoiling them, though they do require rinsing each day. Pack a sieve for them and rinse them when you top off your water. They're quite tasty.
Some good cheese could also add some variety, though five days might be pushing the edge of non-refrigeration. Butter does not require refrigeration due to its salt level, though it may melt and re-solidify depending on temperature. Peanut butter is much the same, but is high in protein as well. Seal the containers well and I'd think you'd be fine.
I've never done this myself, but if you have any experience making cheese, butter or sour cream at home and have a good sense of what's edible in that regard and what's not, there's nothing to stop you from packing the ingredients and making them along the route, as all of them trace their origin to the souring of milk in the packs of travelers. A little fresh butter or sour cream can liven up some stale bread. I find granola bars taste like dust after a while, especially when your mouth is dry after a long day and you're not eating much else; whey, yogurt and cottage cheese can complement the dried cereals. Obviously, sterile, well-sealed containers would be absolutely necessary, and experience as to what your stomach can handle; a bad decision might find you wretching out a day's rations on the side of the trail. Some people find even unspoiled homemade milk products to be repulsive, as their flavors vary greatly from what you find at a grocery store. Curdling experience would be compulsory before you pack a half-gallon of cream and rennet and take off for five days, but in theory...
In general, though, some research into traditional means of preserving food, might prove useful. Fermentation, canning, drying, salting, smoking, pickling, sprouting, etc; It's a longer list than most realize, but people did have to eat on the road before there were refrigerators and automobiles, so it's all been done before.
Hope that helps, and happy hiking. The Appalachians are beautiful, and the road goes ever on and on...
Would the AT allow this stove on the trail?
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/bushbuddy_ultra_wood_stove.html#.UyCzjtwqjR0
On kayak trips with limited ice capacity, we used to rely on flexible packages of tuna and mayonnaise, as well as sardines, with crackers. That vacuum-sealed stuff keeps amazingly well without generating too awfully much heavy or unburnable trash to schlepp out with you. Tuna has the advantage of lending itself to dishes with pasta or rice. It might be a nice break from all the sweet-ish breads and fruit-bars.
Cheese can be bought in snack-sized vacuum-sealed portions that last very well without refrigeration. V-8 juice is good, too, though heavy, and the cans are inconvenient trash. These days it may be possible to buy it in more camp-ready containers. It's filling as well as thirst-quenching, and you can cook with it.
With flour, esp. self-rising flour, you can make all kinds of peasant bread, from tortillas to pancakes/crepes to flat cornbread, and fill them with whatever's handy.
I'd skip packing corn bread, at least based on my experience with cornbread. Every batch I've made over the past 25 years began to ferment after four days (if there was any left over that long). No, not mold or mildew, ferment. *shrug* It's a gift, what can I say?
LittleRed1
Make your own stove each night to cook the next day's meals. A small lean-to of large sticks/small logs, with the affair lined with aluminum foil, and the fire on the floor of the lean-to will keep the heat focused on the cooking and aimed at you on the open side (a benefit if the evenings are cool) will do the trick. The whole thing needn't be more than a foot, or so, in any dimension. In fact, up to a point, the more compact, the easier it'll be to cook in it.
And it ought to be enclosed enough to not rate as an "open fire," and it's an easily doused fire if you don't want the embers going on after you're done cooking. You may be able to back the whole thing against a rock outcropping, if you don't want to mess with the aluminum foil.
Eric Hines
Many years ago I took several 3-5 day hikes in the Peruvian Andes. I packed whole wheat bread,cheese,and oranges. Did fine.
I was going to suggest MREs, but if that isn't wanted, As anon said, we in the Army used to call them butt-plugs--but hey, you can live on it.
The Romans had a sort of hard-tack called bucellatum, which, if you google "bucellatum recipe" you can find some simple recipes.
Curiously enough, Tolkein's best descriptions of food are all in the context of good inns and such, whether it was Farmer Maggot's Mushrooms and bacon dish, or the spread that the fellowship got at the prancing pony. (Which was a good feed, indeed.) Otherwise it seems like it was lembas most of the way.
If you have research time, there is a trail biscuit like hardtack, millet, oats, dried fruit, no lard or Crisco to go sour. Also, use the Iroquois trick, cornmeal and maple sugar mixed. A handful and a cup of water will keep you going for half a day or more. Finally, if you know anyone who works in food vending, supplying convenience stores, get a carton of Jack's beefsticks. 72 to the carton in 2 bags. You could almost live off those. Wholesale they are about $22.00.
In years past, I would take dry salami (Gallo brand keeps very well), Laughing Cow cheese in individual wrappers, and Rye-Krisp crackers for lunch. I also concocted my own trail mix using malted milk tablets in lieu of chocolate as chocolate tends to melt. Hard boiled eggs are also good to carry for a cold meal - use an egg holder of some sort to prevent cracking/spoilage. And of course, that old stand-by Jerky :-)
DL: Um, could you just post the recipe here?
One of the things a fire is good for is to "de-smell" the cans- we used to burn all ours to get rid of the bear attractants...
I would not want to do the walk without a stove- a cup of coffee in the morning or a cup of hot soup or cocoa go a long way, especially if the weather is bad. But I suspect you are a lot tougher than me!
Costco had some "kirkland" brand bars that were about 80 percent nuts, 10 percent fruit and some sugar binders- not all smeared with chocolate and other sweets- they were quite good for a high calorie snack.don't know if they still have them.
Tom, I would love to, however, as I said, I won't have access tot the recipe until next week when I return from the road. (I'm one of those weird cooks that keeps all her recipes on flattened dead trees) By then, this thread will be older than the fifth day of house guests. I'm pretty sure, though, that Grim would be gracious enough to post the recipe after I email it to him.
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Ah, good point, DL. I'm forever forgetting that all posts are doomed to the archives in a relatively short period of time. Just yesterday I wanted to reply to a recent (-seeming-to-me) thread and it was already off the main page.
I'd skip packing corn bread, at least based on my experience with cornbread. Every batch I've made over the past 25 years began to ferment after four days (if there was any left over that long). No, not mold or mildew, ferment. *shrug* It's a gift, what can I say?
One of the reasons I mentioned the honey with the cornbread LR1, it inhibits the growth of yeasts and molds as well.
Now that I'm over fifty, I stay away from candies in my trail mix, I keep the ration about two thirds nuts, and one third dried fruit.
I don't know if you can get "pilot's biscuits" in the lower 48. Every Safeway has them up here. They are bland and dreary, but they keep forever, are filling, and a decent source of energy.
When it comes to cured meats, live a little. Boars head, and other high quality sausages are even better on the trail.
I supplement B-complex too, since most trail food tends to be short on those.
I saw some kid make a really nifty "rocket stove" out of a small coffee can, some plaster, sand, and fiberglass fluff. You might check it out.
Yeah, there's a ton of relatively small rocket stove or gassifier/rocket stove hybrids on you tube. If they're ok on the A.T. and if they're not too large. Pearlite would make a better insulation material for a packable stove (or batting).
I like this fellows presentation of his stove.
This one looks interesting as well, though a pretty bland presentaion.
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