Simple Foods for the Pack: More than 200 All-Natural, Trail-tested Recipes (Sierra Club Outdoor Adventure Guide)

By Claudia Axcell, Vikki Kinmont Kath, Diana Cooke

Book Overview

This latest edition of the original--and best--natural foods backpacking cookbook features a wealth of new recipes and mouthwatering classics, as well as the most current information on cooking with today's lightweight foods and high-tech equipment. This unique cookbook brings together the culinary expertise of a Cordon Bleu chef and the wilderness knowledge of a professional backcountry guide to provide more than 180 trail-tested recipes for delicious, natural, and easy-to-prepare meals for backpacking, hiking, and camping. Since Sierra Club Books published the first edition of Simple Foods for the Pack in 1976, there has been a revolution in backcountry cooking. Today's lightweight stoves and kitchen tools make cooking in the wild easier than ever before. And with the ubiquitous availability of fast-cooking natural foods, the modern adventurer has tasty alternatives to expensive pre-packaged meals. Focusing on these natural foods and the latest equipment, this newly revised edition offers hikers gourmet taste at every meal--from Oatmeal Hotcakes for breakfast, to homemade "nutrition bars" for the trail, to Beer Fondue back at camp. The wide variety of menus and the expanded guide to planning, packing, and preparing food makes cooking in the backcountry as easy as High Mountain Pie.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157805110X
• ISBN13: 9781578051106
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

Tasty for home and camp, with unique ingredients

I love the oatmeal hotcake recipe in this book. The ingredients can be difficult to find. It does offer alot of veg-friendly meals (which is important to me). The bonus here ... it's meat-free but still with good protein. It does offer menu options and lots of helpful tips ... basic first aid, even natural remedies. It's very much a helpful cookbook with detailed instructions on preparation, including a good list of camp cooking needs. I recommend this, particularly for health conscious eaters and vegetarians.

Tasty recipes, but some hard-to-find ingredients

Tired of oatmeal for breakfast, gorp for lunch, and Ramen noodles for dinner? Tired of buying those expensive dehydrated meals that turn out like soggy cardboard? This book might just save you from the trail food blahs. It is full of interesting, ususual foods such as crab a la king and polenta cakes. The recipes are simple and trail smart (a few do require weighty canned foods, though, and a few strike me as a bit too time-consuming to be very practical). This cookbook is mostly meat-free, except for a few seafood dishes. If you want dishes with meat, you might want to take a look at the cookbook put out by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). A final word of warning: some ingredients can be hard to find. In putting them together, I have made trips to Middle Eastern and Asian groceries, health food stores, and backpacking stores, not to mention many of the large supermarkets in my area. Still, I have to say that the results were worth the running around.

Simple recipes that are easily packed & prepared.

Having tried these recipes both at home and on the trail, I am very pleased. Well flavored, very generous serving sizes using natural foods that are easily packed and prepared on site. Recipes are usuable for regular one pot cooking, bakepacker cooking and other styles that tease your tastebuds and fill your tummy. Great for backpacking, sea kayaking, canoeing,and for guided trips.