[pct-l] Fish Salad, Variety, Hummel strategy

[goforth at cio.net (Joanne Lennox)]

You bought 10 pounds of imitation crab?

YOu have to dehydrate it first.  I always put the dried crab in a small
sandwish bag inside the chowder mix in case I decided not to use it or
change the receipe.  The dried fish strips stayed fresh for the whole 6
months that i was on the trail when I thruhiked.  the temperatures were
much lower that year than this year.  the fish must be absolutey dry and
brittle or it will not keep.  You need to dry  fast enough that you are not
growing bacteria but not cook it so that it does not rehydrate
well(standard drier temperature - my homemade drier has 4  40 watt light
bulbs).  I was doing this on a cookie sheet in a barely warm oven at first,
when my drier was very busy.  Better to dry a small amount at a time,
faster, than a large amount, too slowly. Should dry in a few hours if you
have cut the the fish thinnly. (if the dried fish is not absolutely white,
but tan; you are drying it too hot).

I am still using the dried fish I dried three years ago and that has been
stored in the freezer continuously( glass jar, tight lid).

Sometimes I also added green pepper flakes to the chowder. I highly suggest
that you try this reciepe before making a bunch of it and putting it in
resupply boxes.

I also used the fish flakes for lunch.  I was eating a lot of canned tuna,
and thought I would just try the flakes to get awayfrom the cans and lessen
the weight :I took about an 1/8 cup of the fish strips, added a few flakes
of celery and chopped green onion for each lunch, then added a mayonaise
packet or 2 (look for them at the condiment bar at anyplace that sells
hamburgers).  At breakfast, I dumped the contents into a very small bowl
with a tight lid, and added hot water just covering. At lunch time, I mixed
in the mayonaise and stirred for a  sort of fish salad.  Good with Ritz
crackers. May need a little salt if you are working hard.  Again, I
strongly suggest that you try this receipe first.  Your results and tastes
may be very different than mine.  There is nothing worse than having a
whole bunch of something in your resupply boxes which it turns out you do
not like, or that is bad by the time you eat it.

Another thing that I might mention is that after a couple of weeks onthe
trail everything tasted like it needed more salt or sugar. Drinks that I
would have thought were pretty sugary at home, tasted like it had almost no
sugar at all.  The dinners started to taste bland, and I ended up carrying
a film cannister of salt (or a package of gravy mix) - this way I could
salt a meal to taste, without guessing weeks before hand.  Or if I did not
use the dinner, then it was not oversalted for later use.  I doubled the
cocoa that I was using per cup, and also the sugar in my coffee, etc.

At the same time there were certain types of flavors that i just could not
tolerate after a while - certain acid sour things like dried apricots,
dried kiwi fruit, unsweetened pinneapple.

The very best advice that I can give on planning and making resupply boxes
is that you use a VARIETY  of everything (and try it out). I think it was
Big Greg Hummel that ended up trading his entire set of meals for somebody
elses entire set because he only had 7 menus, and by northern California,
he craved something else, anything else.  Hummel are you there???

Goforth