Food
The food you take in your pack will need to be more than you need. Take extra food, providing for having to remain out overnight unplanned.
If hiking, take sufficient food. Next, start to think about the weight and number of trail meals. How many extra meals might you need, worst case? Overnight? Enough for a thunderstorm to clear? Or snowstorm?
Now, are you backpacking, yet? If you plan for overnight, a weekend, or more, you are a backpacker.
What food items are carried by backpackers? I have several web pages to answer that question.
The lightweight and ultralightweight backpacking enthusiasts have already proven methods of backpacking food preparation. These methods are not like at home because we do not want to carry a modern kitchen.
We manage by using techniques developed by backpackers, for backpackers.
I have listed some things possibly new to you: e.g. Freezer Bag Cooking, the Caldera Cone stove system, efficient meth stoves made by experienced backpackers, a white gas stove made by a backpacker, the Outback Oven Ultralight and the Banks Fry-Bake.
Each involves a different approach.
Methods of Food Preparation
Try out these things before an ambitious trip.
Freezer Bag Cooking involves adding hot water to a 1 qt. freezer bag, or equivalent. The ingredients for the meal are packed before you leave in 1 qt. freezer bags. The method is to minimize food preparation time and cleanup, while on your hike. The "Packing" section discusses the freezer bags in more detail.
The Caldera Cone is a device combining stove, pot and windscreen.
Other manufacturers have picked up on this idea. The lightweight choices include, the reasonably lightweight JetBoil, the MSR Reactor and the Primus EtaPackLite or the Primus EtaPower EF Stove. The ultralightweight stoves are many stoves, including notably stoves made by Zelph Stove Works including the Super Stove for white gas and the Super Stove for alcohol and the stoves made by Tinny of MiniBull Designs including notably his Bongo HNC Deluxe alcohol stove.
These are cottage-industries: backpackers making stoves for backpackers. I have mentioned these particular stoves because the Super Stove for white gas stove weighs 1 oz. and the Bongo HNC Deluxe has a continuous feed for alcohol that is quite ideal for melting snow for water. These are considerable accomplishments. These stoves make hot water, for some right now, if not sooner. Make a hot drink. Make a Side Dish or entree Freezer Bag Cooking. Make any highly liquid one-pot meal. Make soup with dumplings.
The Outback Oven Ultralight is for baking. To use it successfully, you will need a stove that will simmer. The canister stoves that will simmer well are Primus EtaPower MF, Primus EtaPower Easy Fuel Stove, Primus EtaPower EF Trail Stove, Primus EtaPackLite, Vargo Jet-ti Titanium Stove, Brunton Flex™ Foldable Canister Stove, Brunton Vapor All-Fuel Stove, (list incomplete).
The Banks Fry-Bake is a frying pan for the fish that didn't get away, or a baking oven for anything you can bake: the difference is you use it over an open fire and a backpackers "dutch oven" if you put coal on top as well as on the bottom. The fire may be a small "twiggy fire" using a Caldera Ti-Tri Cone, Clickstand T-2 (Titanium) and Windscreen T-2, Makaira Metalworks Stainless Pack Stove (SPS2), a "fire pan" or ash covered coals of a small "cooking fire".
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copyright © 2010 Connie Dodson. All Rights Reserved.
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