Short Stories From A Long Walk

Happy New Year Folks! Thanks for stopping by. Just wanted to share some thoughts on trail food with you all.
Bon-appetit!

Beef Stroganoff

 I’m not a big fan of beef stroganoff.  Amy and I have been trying to make it at home for the last fifteen years and it’s always come out somewhat near the consistency of shoe leather, albeit in a tasty mushroom sauce.  I’m told we need a pressure cooker.

But six years ago on California’s John Muir Trail, I couldn’t get enough beef stroganoff,  Freeze-dried stroganoff. We didn’t need any pressure cooker for that. I remember giving that extra push at the end of a long strenuous day on stroganoff night; the same way we’d push into town for a burger and beer (well, almost the same).

It was simple.

Boil some water. Rip open the bag. Remove the Celica preservation pack. Pour in hot water.  Stir. Ziploc the bag shut. Shake. Wait ten minutes. Shake it. Open it. Savor the rich beefy aroma. Stir once more and dig in.

It was really good every time. Really. Creamy. Tender. Warm. Almost filling even  (you’re never really ‘full’ on the trail).

Oh, and no dishes either. Lick the bag clean and put it in your garbage bag to carry out.

Simple.

Over the four weeks we spent out we learned to make it just right; noodles al dente and all the powdered gravy reconstituted evenly.  We even had a method for turning the bags inside out to lick clean every crease without making a mess. We were instant dinner gourmets and eating champs all at once.

Mountain House was the brand. We’d taken a chance on a bunch of freeze dried dinners from several different companies (favoring the popular ones), only some of which we’d had time to try before the trip. We had one other brand of Stroganoff not worth mentioning here. It was on sale and we were glad we only bought one.

We’d rationed out the meals and mailed them to ourselves at points along the way. The chili mac was pretty good. The lasagna was descent, though it didn’t always absorb the water evenly so you’d get some powdery and crunchy (not good crunchy) spots. We got a couple of red beans and rice that I really enjoyed, though Amy wasn’t crazy about them. I suppose the beans never did really fully hydrate.  And there were a few all out flops. I remember an exceptionally bad juevos rancheros; really disappointing because eggs are my favorite food and I like spicy, but it was not; just a bad chemical interpretation. I can’t remember the brand, but it was a bargin rack instant ‘breakfast’ at best.

Problem is, you can’t not eat a whole meal when you’ve burned 4,000 calories a day carrying it. That’s your ration. And extra scraps only attract animals. We wanted to see them, but not in our campsite. Several ‘thru’ hikers had already been rushed by bears that summer on the Muir Trail, so we licked those plates or bags rather, clean. Besides, each bad meal made the good ones taste better. Especially the stroganoff.

I’d eaten mostly Ramen noodles and Lipton pouch dinners for my six months on the Appalachian Trail in ‘96. That was my first thru-hike and I didn’t know any better. And, yet with all that experience I hadn’t gotten any more creative the following year when Amy & I made her first thru-hike on Vermont’s Long Trail. It was her first backpacking trip actually, and our first experience living together.  We spent six weeks in a damp little tent, eating salty Ramen, slimy Lipton and oatmeal.  Amy still won’t eat Ramen and neither of us can even look at a Lipton packet.

The epitome was one frozen night in the non-heated Stratton Mountain Summit Lodge, in the company of a couple AT thru-hikers we’d just met. Amy and I had a dozen or so watermelon jolly ranchers, some peanut butter, and one package of Ramen left. We were headed to town for a mail drop, but had decided to hold up on the summit for the night to catch the sunset, despite our rumbling tummies. Our new friends had spent nine months making gourmet meals for their hike and freeze-drying them, in carefully measured rations. They smelled very good. They looked like real food with good portions. We couldn’t watch or listen to their groans of pleasure any longer, so we stepped out into the bitter cold wind and waited.

The sunset was beautiful. It tasted like salty watermelon peanut butter chicken flavoring.  Fifteen years later I’m still looking at that sunset in a frame on my wall. And after all that, Amy’s still with me. Not only that, but ten years after that Long Trail hike, she was willing to do it all again on the John Muir Trail… without the Ramen and Lipton of course.

So freeze dried meals were a big step up for us on this our second thru-hike together. Our only regret was that we hadn’t bought more stroganoff and less of the other meals.  But how could we have known that that would become our trip favorite? We do now. Of course we haven’t been eating from bags lately.

And while I recommend the Mountain House Stroganoff very much, I do offer one warning. Make sure you have a well-ventilated place to sleep on stroganoff night; especially when sharing a very small tent with the one you love (or especially in a public space for that matter). Though it smells exactly the same later, the Mountain House Stroganoff aroma is much more enjoyable when you unzip it from the original serving bag.