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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 |
The Gear
This five-piece kitchen weighs only 13.3 ounces and cranks out gourmet eats.
Antigravity Gear Caldera Kitchen
This alcohol stove system has it all: utter simplicity. Wispy weight. An ingenious packing system. It's a tiny burner, made from a V-8 can nestled inside a Pepsi can, that burns denatured alcohol. But what makes the Caldera unique is the way the system is integrated: The aluminum windscreen forms a rigid cone, which holds the 3-cup non-stick aluminum pot perfectly suspended over the burner–and efficiently captures the alcohol's BTUs. (We used less than 16 ounces of fuel on a five-day trip for two.) Boil times averaged about 8 minutes, and the whole system packs away into an insulated 1-quart, lidded plastic container, which doubles as a bowl, coffee cup, and cooking cozy. As tested, it weighs a scant 10 ounces. $73; (910) 794-3308; antigravitygear.com.
FBC Fabric Cozies
These pouches, made from Mylar and polyester, weigh just 1.5 ounces, are sized perfectly for a quart-sized zipperlock bag, and act like a portable oven. Just add hot water to the bag and snuggle it into the cozy, which cooks a dehydrated meal in under 10 minutes. $14, freezerbagcooking.com.
Jetboil Jetset Spoon
There are lots of spoons and sporks out there, but this 0.4-ouncer is in a league of its own. The handle is long enough for eating out of a zip-top bag without getting gunked up, but it collapses into a neat 5 inches. $20 for the set of three, which includes fork and spatula. (888) 611-9905; jetboil.com.
Fozzil Thinkflat Bowl
This clever item–it packs flat, but morphs into a bowl with four corner snaps–pulled triple duty on a recent trip in Colorado's Holy Cross Wilderness. First, it provided a handy receptacle for our soft-sided bag cozies. Second, it made a great cutting board for slicing cheddar at lunchtime. And third, it became a functional butt pad on wet, cold logs. Just rinse before you eat (or sit). 1.3 oz. $5. Fozzils.com.
32-ounce Gatorade bottle
Skip the Nalgene bottle and reach into your recycle bin for one of these. One bottle weighs only 0.11 ounces empty–that's 2 ounces less than a regular Lexan Nalgene. Gatorade bottle are impressively strong: You'll get at least three months of use out of them, and then you can recycle them.
Because most food weight is water weight, it's impossible to really go ultralight gourmet without investing in a basic food dehydrator, which won't set you back more than 50 bucks. With these tips, you can transform your favorite at-home meals into featherweight, just-add-water trail delicacies.
The Method
Sucking all the moisture out of your food is the key to eating well and eating light.
- Precook and dry your pasta. You'll save substantial cooking time in camp, not to mention fuel and weight. Simply cook your pasta al dente at home, then spread it on dehydrator trays and let it go for a couple of hours until brittle. In camp, add boiling water, then cover and let sit for a few minutes.
- Feed your inner carnivore. Start with lean ground beef, turkey or chicken. Brown it along with any seasoning you like. Suggestions: Asian (curry, cumin, coriander) or Italian (oregano, basil, thyme). When the mixture is browned, rinse it under hot water to remove residual fat, then dehydrate until the nuggets are very hard (about five hours). Break the meat up into fine particles for easier rehydrating.
- Get saucy. Maybe it's your famous red pepper and Vidalia onion sauce. Or grandma's Bolognese. Whatever the condiment, you can probably dehydrate it. All you need are plastic tray liners and a dehydrator. Spread the sauce in a very thin layer and let it rip for 8-10 hours, until it becomes a featherweight leather. Add hot water, and eat.
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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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