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Food Talk

Jen Schaeffer

Greetings everyone - I hope you all had a fun and safe summer. I thought I’d use this newsletter’s Food Talk to discuss some of my own food findings on the two long sections I hiked on the PCT this year. Each trip was about 4 weeks long and included 3 or 4 mail drops.

Two goals I wanted to meet on these trips were (1) lots of protein throughout the day and (2) a lot of variety. With those items in mind, here’s what I ended up eating while on the trail:

Breakfast: bread or crackers (Ryvita) with either nut butter (almond butter) and dried fruit or hard-boiled eggs. Lunch: canned fish on crackers, occasionally cheese. Dinner: a homebrew of my own dehydrated vegetables, grains, and beans with sauces ranging from spaghetti or salsa (dehydrated at home), to baba ganoush, miso, or cheese sauce; occasionally ramen-equivalents made from rice or mung bean noodles. Snacks: bean paste, dried fruit, dried salted nuts, deep fried seafood, energy bars, and chocolate. I also sometimes carried butter and powdered goat milk for additional calories.

From the list you can see I was carrying nut butter, eggs, fish, and beans as my primary protein sources. I occasionally had cheese and next time I would be sure to add some meat jerky for more variety. I also had a dried salami one week which I loved, but unfortunately my digestive system did not. I’m envious of those who get to eat that on the trail.

The single biggest thing I noticed with this hiking diet is that I came into town craving not much of anything other than fresh fruit and vegetables and maybe some simple carbohydrates like bread. I also found that my energy levels were pretty level all day. I took both items as a sign that my diet was pretty well balanced. Yes, I did lose some weight on both trips and I don’t know how I would have felt over an entire thru-hike, but I suspect that I would have been in better shape at the end that I was on my AT thru-hike, where my body was really breaking down. With regards to variety, I looked to ethnic grocery stores and health food stores for snacks, seasoning mixes for dinner, and ramen-alternatives (I have a wheat allergy). I found everything from kiwi gummy candy to peanut or sesame candies, and rice and mung bean “ramens” in the various Asian grocery stores I had access to. Other things I found in my travels were a canned eggplant-tomato dish at an Italian grocery store that comes in small pop-top cans and deep fried lentils and rice pudding mixes at a Pakistani grocery store. I haven’t had much chance to peruse Mexican stores, but I suspect there are some treasures there too.

Two things I really enjoyed from the Asian markets were bean paste and deep fried seafood. Bean paste (also called bean cake) is a dessert-snack item that is usually prepared from cooked and puréed small red beans (azuki or similar beans) and sugar syrup. The consistency of the paste is similar to a combination between a thick seedless jam and a soft fruit jelly candy; the taste is a not-so-terribly-sweet treat with a mild red bean flavor. The pastes come in some other mild flavors such as green tea and persimmon. They also come with whole beans in the paste. They are conveniently packaged for hiking in little plastic bricks ranging in size from a couple of bites (great for a quick sugar pick up) to 4 times that size.

The deep fried seafood items were a “gift” from my obnoxious husband who strives to find the most annoying food products to include in mail drops. Case in point - he sent me a 12ounce can of beenie-weenies in Washington. When I opened the first can of fish — I think it was deep fried squid with chilies, I thought for sure I’d be dumping them out in a fire pit somewhere. Much to my surprise, I thought they were great!

— they were savory, not greasy, and full of protein. They all came in pop top cans so I could put them in a ziplock bag before leaving a mail drop and snack on them a little at a time. I had cans of whitefish, squid pieces, and baby clams with flavoring ranging from soy sauce to green chilis. I could see using the clams in a dinner meal — a creamy, cheesy Lipton’s dinner or mac and cheese with clams! Many of the Asian markets I’ve been to also have various dried or smoked fish products that would also be suitable for hiking food. Now if you think “bean paste and deep fried seafood - ick!”, well, I say keep an open mind when it comes to the ethnic foods — you might find something you really like. For those of you who think you don’t have any ethnic grocery stores near you, I suspect if you open up a phone book or start asking at your local favorite ethnic restaurant where they do their shopping, you’ll find out you do have at least one, if not several near you. Also check out your local big supermarket — they may have an “ethnic” aisle.