Wild Trails & Tall Tales

- by Roland Cheek

 

METAMORPHOSIS OF WILDERNESS CUISINE

To the novice yearning for outdoor adventure, food -- or the lack thereof -- is the most prevalent deterrent. Bears? Snakes? Mountain lions? Isn't it true most beginners shudder at their thought?

Yes. However, somewhere along the line those fears are measured and scoffed at. But food. What to buy and pack and cook? No hot plates for frying or boiling; no ovens for baking, roasting or broiling; no electric mixers or slicers or dicers . . .

The best way for a beginner to drink from the elixir of outdoor adventure is in the company of knowledgeable folk. But unless they're very good friends or benevolent family, most "Big Lonesome" veterans take their limited outdoor time so seriously they seldom spend it with inexperienced tag-alongs.

So there's only one other way: do it yourself.

My first experience with solo backpacking was as a teenager. I wanted to fish the headwaters of a remote stream but could talk none of my friends into joining me for the journey. Those were days before modern backpacking equipment, so I used a Boy Scout packsack lashed to an army--surplus frame designed for carting trench mortars and machine guns.

I didn't know much about food selection in those days, so I loaded my packsack with mostly cans of my then favorite, Nalley's chili con carne with beans. Then I added a couple of tins of peaches and a box of crackers to eat with the chili. The food load was topped off with a handful or two of candy bars.

That pack rounded out with a sleeping bag, extra clothing, a few pots and pans and enough trout gear to equip a fishing derby. It weighed in at 82 pounds! Two days later, my kneecaps held a kissing contest with the hip joints and my shoulders were so raw they felt like I'd been harnessed to pull a walking plow through a boulder patch. It was an experience to make a man a quitter . . . or a stayer.

Fortunately I was a quick study.

Thirty-five years later we fed our Bob Marshall Wilderness guests the finest of plush-primitive cuisine -- a hearty breakfast, sack lunch and multi-course dinner -- on an average of four pounds of food per person per day. My wife re-packaged lots of items, though. There were precious few cans and no bottles or jars. I remember once when Jane weighed the empty containers she left home: they totaled 45 pounds!

When I first began my overnight adventures, powdered eggs were barely fit to smell, let alone eat; dehydrated potatoes were in their infancy; and there wasn't enough wood in the forest to boil peas long enough to reconstitute them. But psst! Times have changed and science has a leg up on dehydration and freeze-dried preservation. Some of that stuff is actually palatable as well as being easy to prepare -- even eggs. They've got lightweight alcohol stoves to cook on and aluminum pots and pans to cook in. There's really no need for concern about food quality or quantity. Anyone can both carry and prepare it.

Nowadays the sport isn't demanding enough to keep out the riff-raff.

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