Tasty trails to you - trail food; include recipes - Cover Story

Sierra, Nov-Dec, 1994 by Reed McManus

I'll never forget the looks of utter disappointment I got from ten weary Sierra Club cyclists one drizzly Alaskan day when I announced that dessert that night would be warm Jello. "But it's popular on our backpacking trips," I whined. "And it's lime." This was the start of a two-week expedition, and whatever confidence in my leadership I hoped to instill was vanishing into the surrounding mist. I quickly raided a more palatable dessert of shortbread cookies and applesauce scheduled for a meal further down the road. Mutiny averted--but not before "warm Jello" entered the group's lexicon as a synonym for a faux pas, a lamentable error in judgment, a do-over.

I've always shared the great outdoors with people who care as much about the meals they eat as they do about their trip's destinations and duration. A hot breakfast gives hope on a cold and wet morning; a complete lunch menu turns a pit stop into a picnic; a well-considered soupthrough-dessert supper (one without warm Jello, for example) reassures you that the comforts of home can still be found among the mosquitoes and marmots. (And if you're a trip leader, a good meal may save your skin.)

But there are many minimalists out there who, concerned merely with keeping their gear's weight low and meeting their body's nutritional needs, turn mealtime into a mechanical refueling process. In a recent issue of Backpacker, writer Mark Jenkins listed his standard no-frills dinner as "Lipton rice and chicken, 4 oz. Hot chocolate w/dried milk, 1 oz." Jenkins is no hair-shirt ascetic; what he gains from his Spartan repast is the opportunity to keep the weight of his food down to one pound per day, which contributed to his ability to hike for four days in Montana's Beartooth Mountains with a pack weighing a liberating 16 pounds.

Jenkins will most likely fly past Carole Latimer on the trail, but he'll probably regret it at dinnertime. Latimer is author of Wilderness Cuisine (Wilderness Press, 1992), a cookbook that allows the balsamic-vinegar-and-sundried-tomato crowd to head for the wilds without checking their taste buds at the trailhead. If you wouldn't consider eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or Jello No-Bake Cheesecake at home, Latimer figures, there's no reason to eat them on the trail, either. "The first principle is to use fine, high-quality ingredients and fresh food whenever possible," she tells her readers. Among Latimer's recipes you'll find Pasta with Andouille and Fried Sage, Sherried Mushroom Bisque, and Cherries Jubilee, all which can be made from scratch, using the best ingredients. Even a basic dish like macaroni and cheese will beat its store-bought equivalent hands down, she says, if you make it with aged New York cheddar and saute your own fresh onions. You may not meet a minimum-weight goal following Latimer's gourmet guidelines, but you can pack delectable meals that weight in at a still-reasonable two to two-and-a-half pounds per person per day.

It's no surprise that some of Latimer's recipes are laborintensive, primarily in the "pre-trip" preparations done at home or on the trail. If you're at all fussy about what you eat, the work that goes into mixing raw ingredients and assembling individual meal packages in your kitchen is worth doing, because it reduces the amount of cooking time in the field.

Be careful, though, about overdoing meals that require many steps to prepare in camp. They are usually welcome luxuries on layover days, but are the last thing you need when you arrive in camp dog tired right before sunset. Any good camping cookbook will spell out the number of steps needed at home and on the trail. If, like most campers, you'll be using just one stove, make sure that your menu is not so complicated that individual courses will get cold, and look for recipes where simmering time is kept to 15 minutes at most, so that you won't have to carry a lot of fuel.

Even if you don't follow the trail of the from-scratch gourmets, there's still a lot they can teach you. By planning well in advance, you can dehydrate almost everything you need for a trip, from fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs to spaghetti sauce, salsa, and entire entrees. (Home-dried food is delicious and takes up one-third to one-twelfth the volume of the original fresh food.) You can carry durable fresh vegetables--like snow peas, cucumbers, and zucchini--for several days on the trail if you wrap them in brown paper and postpone cleaning and cutting them until you need them. Just about any one-pot meal can be prepared in advance, frozen in a plastic bag, and thawed for dinner the first or second night out. Essential items for the pantry include fresh garlic, fresh onions, and real butter. (Salted butter can keep up to ten days unrefrigerated; use ghee--clarified butter--for longer trips.) And if you screw up an entree, Latimer says, try adding lots of Parmesan cheese (freshly grated, of course).

Good food isn't necessarily expensive, either. Leaders of the Sierra Club's Alaska outings have taken hundreds of people into the Far North over the last 25 years following a build-it-yourself recipe formula while adhering to strict budgets. One key is to "shop the food chain," says veteran leader Carol Dienger. Pick up bulk foods like grains, oatmeal, instant milk, trail mixes, crackers, and canned meats (if you're car camping, kayaking, or rafting) at supermarkets and warehouse stores. Next, celebrate yuppiedom: many markets now carry "gourmet" dry-mix products, such as macaroni mixes from Annie's Home-grown, soup mixes from Mayacamas and Knorr, grains from Arrowhead Mills, pilafs from Lundberg Farms, instant refried beans and chili from Fantastic Foods, and lentil and other instant soups from Near East and Nile Spice. All taste much better than their mass-marketed cousins.