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Backpacker Magazine – December 2007
The Menu: Be an Ultralight Gourmet
No, it's not an oxymoron. You, too, can say buh-bye to endless energy bars and instant rice glop--and eat like royalty for less than two pounds a day.
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Tags:
- Pacific Crest Trail |
- Ultralight |
- Camp stoves |
It's a question that vexes many a backpacker: How can you make a decent trail dinner without carrying the kitchen sink? And the freezer? And the Cuisinart? If you're anything like us, your primal desire for good eats doesn't evaporate when you head off on a backpacking trip–but there's no way you're hauling in filet mignon and molten chocolate cake. And, like us, you already know the guiding principles and procedures for ultralight cooking: Minimize fuel. Eliminate superfluous kitchen gear. Dehydrate. Add boiling water. Stir. Let sit. Eat. Unfortunately, you usually end up with a woeful variation on gloppy carbs.
So how can you follow the rules and still make a gourmet meal that doesn't weigh you down like too much foie gras? We've found the Holy Grail, and it comes in the form of a freezer bag–or, rather, on freezerbagcooking.com. The website, and its companion cookbook, Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple, is the brainchild of Sarah Kirkconnel, an avid backpacker, cook, ultralighter, and frequent contributor to our online chat rooms (forums.backpacker.com). Her premise is simple: Pack single portions of dehydrated meals into quart size freezer bags. In camp, add boiling water, stir (with a spoon, to avoid fork punctures), insulate your baggie, let sit, then chow down.
Since you "cook" and eat right out of the bag, there's no dish duty (just add the baggies to your garbage) and no need to pack anything other than one boiling vessel. There's no simmering. No watched pots. Kirkconnel's technique, combined with the right gear and your favorite trail-adapted recipes, could slash your food weight by about half (depending on how you originally pack). All you need to know is how to dehydrate your grub (see The Method, right), what meals to put on your menu, and which ounces to count. In fact, in the following pages, we've laid out everything you need to know to do ultralight cooking right. Once you bag it, you'll never turn back.
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I found a tip to make meat sauces rehydrate better. Add 1/2 cup breadcrumbs per pound of ground meat before cooking it. It dehydrates well and rehydrates without the crunchy texture.
Slick... Gatorade bottles are HDPE or PET (polyethylene) and as such are not manufactured with BPA.
While I think the cooking tips reguarding good tasting dehydrated food are awesome and I fully plan to try the method out I am a little dismayed with a suggestion I have seen on backpacker twice now. Reusing a gatorade bottle may save you a couple ounces but...... after multiple uses that same gatorade bottle will start to leach bpa into the drinking water. I don't know about you folks but I'd rather carry a couple extra ounces (nalgene) than have my hormones messed up with a toxic chemical!
I bought the book from her website about 5 years ago when my father and I hiked the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim. I put together all our meals from the book. We ate great. Well worth the time to do your own. Beats the store bought freeze/dehydrated meals by a mile.
This may sound a little off, but don't waste your money on the book. I recently did, and found that it has very little to offer for recipes compared to the website. The website is also free. I had downloaded every recipe from the website a few years ago, and loved them. The variety and sheer number of recipes (even for vegitarians) is awsome. About 4 months ago, I purchased the book because of misleading comments that suggested that it contained all of the recipes on the website and a number of other ones. This was absolutely false. There are barely any recipes in the book in comparison. NOTE: The misleading info, and the book purchased WERE NOT direct from the manufacturer.
Don't use plastic trays for sauces; it's too difficult to get the dried sauce off the tray. I put microwaveable Saran wrap, and when the sauce is dry it practically slides off.
I have her cookbook. It's indispensable. I couldn't do without it. Good tasting, light weight, ample, quick and simple meals. Also a very large variety. She also has a fair number of vegitarian recipes if that's your thing. This is one of the few things Backpacker has ever mentioned that is truely useful for anyone wanting to lighten their load.
Thanks for this article. As someone who eats only kosher, I can't eat all the commercial backpacker food (such as Backpacker's Pantry). This makes a multiday trip more difficult. However, having read this article opened my eyes to a whole new way to eat on the trail. Thanks!
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