Lunch, usually eaten in the middle of the day--and in the middle of one's strenuous activities--provides a dead-time break. It's extremely hard to eat while on the trail, skiing, or on-beley. Strenuous jolting, what many outdoor activities do to your body and your stomach, make digestion hard; you must stop and take time to eat... but how much time? I've found two types of lunches: 1) the condensed meal, eat lunch all at once, in a long period of time, after hopefully reaching your goal, like on top of a mountain. Good food and a great view always compliment one another. 2) The grazing method, spread food intake over the entire day, in little snacks(often called GORP--Good Old Raisins and Peanuts--although, as the following recipes show, that is not what is *necessarily* in GORP),when you take quick breaks. Has the advantage that you keep on moving, you don't cramp up after a long break, and you don't waste time. Maybe one doesn't get to enjoy one's food as much as the condensed version; still you must decide.
Included in this section are snack/GORP suggestion and main
lunch-meal ideas. Combining the two offers great variety and
versatility too. Visiting any grocery store's BULK FOOD section
can provide countless goodies to throw into your GORP. For more lunchtime recipe ideas perfect for the car camper, click here.
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GORP- It's just not a backpacking trip without it! GORP can have just about any dry snack tossed in. I have two "flavors" of GORP: sweet and salty. I have two kinds since sometimes I'm in the mood for sweet, sometimes not. They're even good mixed when I'm being indecisive. :-)
Sweet:
I typically use a mix of chocolate, crushed cookies, nuts, and
coconut. I use chocolate chips or crushed chocolate bars, mixed
with Keebler chocolate chip cookies (crushed) and
filberts(hazelnuts) with some shredded coconut. GORP is by nature
highly variable, and I rarely mix the same thing twice.
Salty:
Again highly variable, but a few things seem to always go
in...Cheese crackers (Better Cheddars), with salted peanuts and
pretzels(and those little sesame sticks when I can find the
little buggers!) This is good with/for lunch. The sweet stuff is
better for munching while hiking. By far the best meal I ever had
while hiking was some home brew spaghetti I fixed for a hungry
herd of seven. I had packed in some fresh vegetables (white onion
and celery) and I sauteed these in some margarine before adding
them to the sauce. Lots of powdered onion and garlic went in as
well. The sauce was a normal dry mix (add the powder to tomato
paste and water and simmer.) We had this with cheddar cheese,
Parmesan cheese, and of course, spaghetti. This won't work on a
long trip since the veggies and the cheese would spoil after a
few days. We had this on our third day and everything was still
OK. I hope you can use this!
Steve Bonds
SMTP%"uunet!sequent!techbook.com!chemist@csusac.ecs.csus.edu"
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Pita Bread works well too. I haven't seen my favorite lunch posted yet; Peanut Butter on Bread/Bagel/whatever eaten with a handful of Granola. It's quick to eat on the trail and the only cleanup is to lick the knife clean. I just love those plastic Peanut Butter jars! My favorite Granola usually consists of 1/2 fruit Granola(apple-blueberry-almond-date) and 1/2 Confetti Mix (Peanuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, soybeans, coconut and M&Ms)
From: msc@ttrdc.UUCP (Michael Cross)
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Lunch - Peanut Butter is a staple, but for variety we started carrying a stick of pepperoni & block of cheese. Both kept pretty well, even in hot weather.
Mike Engber
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For lunch my favorites are tabouleh-stuffed pitas and rice cakes with peanut butter spread (1/2 molasses + 1/2 peanut butter +powdered milk + a little margarine to make it spreadable).
Eduardo Santiago
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I've recently discovered a sausage called landsjager (apparently, it's of Swiss origin, so that j should be pronounced y). It's got incredible keeping power -- I bought some last spring, and it looked so bad that I forgot about it all summer, until I was packing a lunch for a day's volunteer work on an archeological dig late last fall. The sausage still looked good, so I packed it, an apple, and a pile of cookies into my windbreaker pocket, balanced with a water bottle in the other pocket, and set out for a day of digging among the fallen leaves.
The landsjager turned out to be as near the perfect thing to round out a trail lunch as I've ever found. It's bone dry (like beefjerky), flavorful, and surprisingly easy to chew, considering how it looks. The dig, incidentally, was an exploratory dig, and we found quite a bit of evidence of archaic or early woodland habitation (but unfortunately, nothing good enough to date the site).
I bought my landsjager from a meat market that got it from somewhere in Wisconsin, so I have no general advice on where to get it.
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones)
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Lunch on the trail: HELP!!!
>Any non-cooking (who wants to drag out a stove?) items? Or,
maybe
something prepared ahead of time.
Meat, bread and cheese. Bagels again, any of the dark heavy breads. Packaged or canned meat. Mustard, mayo or any of the deli type spice packets work well. The small cans of meat (6 oz?) work well split between two.
Barry Needham
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Make a bunch of granola. It's light, needs no preparation so you can munch it dry on the trail, keeps well, tastes good and is healthy. (of course you will need something to wash it down with)You can also eat it with milk if you like that sort of cereal. Bean salad is good too for many of the same reasons.
FROM: cscnj!pat@rutgers.edu
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Other favorites to carry are carrots - they last
a long time, garlic, onions, (hey my polypro stops grizzly bears
after a few days, so what's a bit of breath enhancer between
fiends?), and tart apples are a great way to start the day. They
seem to keep their crispness best when winter camping. Store
bought tortellinis aren't too bad either.
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Here are a few kinds of backpacking food that people haven't mentioned:
I started by taking smoked oysters on long hard caving trips.
from amirza@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Anmar Caves)
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FROM jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones)
Caviar, good cheese and crackers makes a great
snack! I prefer Wheat Thins for this, and I go for a cheese that
travels well, something like Gouda or Emmentaller, if you can get
it.
Kippered herring in garlic sauce is also pretty good.
Landsjager (a Swiss sausage that's about as indestructible as beefjerky), is also a good bet.
The serious point of this is that, in addition to GORP, beef
jerky and other fairly generic trail snacks, there are some "near
gourmet" items that do fairly well on the trail (so long as you
pack out the tins and jars that such things tend to come in).
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Subject: At last! Dehydrated beer
Taken verbatim from today's San Jose Mercury-News: CONSUMER
CORNER
Packaged Beer Lightens The Load PRODUCT: South Hills dehydrated beer.
DESCRIPTION: A beer-flavored, non-alcoholic, carbonated, dry beverage made with maltodextrine, natural and artificial beer and malt flavors, dried beer, and corn syrup solids. It's packaged in5-ounce (150g) packet that must be mixed with 8 fluid ounces (250ml) of cold water for drinking.
PRO: It has a refreshing taste, though a bit sweet, and is best when mixed with extremely cold water. Its taste is remarkably similar to beers produced by micro-breweries. It's a quick source of liquid carbohydrates, and it's easy and light to pack and mix.
CON: The instructions say to wait for the head to subside after mixing, but that takes better than 5 minutes... In very cold water the mix clumps up unless you add water slowly and stir constantly.
COMMENTS: Although it doesn't compare to a fine lager, it suffices quite nicely when your taste buds crave a cold one in the backcountry and you don't fancy carrying a six-pack. The manufacturer mentions one can add clear grain alcohol or vodka to achieve an alcoholic beer.
SUGGESTED RETAIL: $5.95 for 6 packets.
FROM John Reece
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English Muffins (cut in half) Tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce) Mozzerella cheese Pizza toppings (pepperoni, peppers, mushrooms, etc.). I use the round little pie/sandwich irons to make these. Put 1/2 of english muffin in both sides, cover both sides with sauce, cheese, and other ingredients. Close the iron carefully and put directly on the coals, turning occasionally. Cook for ~15 min.
Nadine
04/03/97
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Added idea to the cheese/peperoni lunch thing
I aggree that peperoni and cheese makes a great trail snack. Last year when a group of us hiked through Zion National park we bought soft tortillas. They travelled well and made great sandwiches.
Tim Whelan
5/24/97