[pct-l] Who eats what on the trail??

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Sep 8, 2010, at 7:59 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> On the trail, I've been eating mostly finger foods, cliffbars and  
> Mountain
> House dehydrated, bought in #10 cans...  but I must admit, they are  
> getting
> "old", ie, eating has become something one does, not looks forward  
> to. My
> question is: how many people are making their own trail foods  
> (dehydrated,
> and/or, vacuum sealed)? And are there creations of your own that  
> you'd kill
> for..  maybe too strong a word...  that if you didn't have along,  
> the trip
> would be diminished (this also seems like an opportunity to add  
> variety to a
> long walk)? What type of meals are people putting together (I'm  
> thinking
> mostly dinners here)? In trail journals one sees lots of  
> peanutbutter and
> tortillas...  I'm not sure that's any better than MH fd Spaghetti  
> (though it
> does save cooking)...
> many thanks - TheDuck

Yeah, that stuff gets real old.

If you like no-cook food, you should check out what Mags eats. He's a  
no-cook genius. Of course, not all of it will last for days and days  
in your pack in July, but he'll eat delicious Italian sandwiches with  
all this fancy meat and cheese and vegetables, among many things  
that'll make you wish you were hiking with him. I brought a big loaf  
of french bread, a block of gourmet cheese and some fancy infused  
olive oil and enjoyed some cheese sandwiches for a few days in the  
High Sierra. I had trouble with tortillas myself, finding them  
difficult to chew and swallow.

Meals I finally settled on that I really liked included homemade mac  
and cheese. Not from a box. I used Alfredo sauce packets and bulk  
noodles and added freeze-dried corn and onions and real cheese  
(cheddar or swiss grueyere). For a meal I could choose to cook or  
not, I liked cous-cous with curry powder, raisins, pecans, tuna and  
mayonnaise. On warm days I could "cook" the cous-cous in the bag  
while I walked.