I was asked by The Kayak Critic.Net if I
would join a host of other paddlers in providing three back-country recipes for the website.
Instead, I decided to offer what I called
'strategies' for great food when sea kayaking - the first of which caused something of a 'stir'. You'll see why.
My post has been on KayakCritic.net for a week so I thought I'd publish
it here too. Check KayakCritic.Net for the other great recipes. Continues
 |
| Simon & Liz on the Pacific Crest Trail |
Get
Someone Else To Do The Food. Seriously, this is an excellent
strategy.
When I suggested to my
girlfriend Liz (we're now married) that we hike the 2500 mile Pacific Crest
Trail she said, "Only if we eat good food".
Back then I treated food as fuel and my
younger, stronger body would run on just about anything.
Immediately, I appointed Liz 'Head of Food'
and she continues to fulfil this role whether we're backpacking or kayak
camping.
The serious point is this -
someone who really cares should plan the food.
That way no-one is disappointed.
If no-one cares, buy a bag of pasta, jars of pesto and live on the same
food that saw Marcus Demuth circumnavigate Britain in record time.
Home
Dry Your Food.
Liz's solution to keeping us well nourished on a five-month hike was to
buy a home food dehydrator and make almost all our food in advance.
I've written about this
in detail on my blog but essentially it involves cooking a vast vat of
tomato sauce then tweaking it with extras like beans and corn, before spreading
it on the sheets of the dehydrator and turning it into what are called
"leathers".
It's like tomato
jerky which, when combined with oil, becomes a great sauce to add to dried
pasta or rice.
When we sea kayaked Arctic
Norway we took all our food for three weeks because even if we found a store we
couldn't afford Norwegian prices. The
dried packages of food, sealed in plastic bags, slipped perfectly into the
kayak.
Freeze
In Tubes.
This is a brilliant strategy for kayak trips up to five nights in
duration and was taught to me by Howard Jeffs.
Take a thick, closed-cell foam sleeping mat and curl it into a tube
around your cooking pan, holding it together with duct tape. Ideally it will fit inside a dry bag too. Cut and affix two circular foam ends to the
tube.
Cook all the one-pan meals you'll
need - stews, chillies whatever - and decant them to freezer bags. Now here's the clever bit.
Put the bags into your cooking pan, shape
them flat and put them in the freezer so you end up with a disc of frozen stew
the correct size for the pan.
Once
you've frozen all the means for your trip (and you can leave spares in the
freezer for impromptu trips) load them into the foam tube which will act as a
cooler. Each morning, slide out a disc
and pop it into your pan where it will defrost by dinner time.