[Allison]

Yeah, and I'm the cook.

[MtnGoat]

I couldn't deal with no hot food for an entire trip. My hat is off to you ultralighters who can deal, i enjoy a hot meal in the woods as much as the hike!

[Jamin Smitchger]

I usually take some granola, candy bars, An apple or two, and some carrots and trail mix. For food the first day out I usually have ham sandwiches or some other type of perishable food. Dried fruit works well if you can afford it. A sterno works okay to heat up soups or other things, but I rarely carry one.

[paul]

Pemmican is NOT GORP with Crisco! It is dried meat with rendered animal fat. This stuff had been used as high-energy food by native Americans as well as explorers and frontiersmen for hundreds of years. Travels well and does not need refrigeration. I have eaten it but not made it. Takes getting used to, But if one is determined not to cook this would do the trick. Here are a few recipes for the adventurous: To make pemmican: 1. Dehydrate strips of raw red meat. I usually use 5lbs. of eye of round beef for my weekly batch. Have the butcher slice it for you as thin as possible. Make sure it is completely dry but not cooked. If it cooks, it will taste gritty like sand in the final product. 2. Powder these dehydrated strips. The Indians pounded them with rocks, but I recommend a food processor. Spices can be added at this time. All I use for spice is about one handful of chopped dried cherries. 3. Prepare tallow by rendering animal fat. I melt strips of beef fat (free from the butcher counter) in a cast iron skillet on a low heat until the rinds float to the surface. I continue to heat the resulting tallow until all moisture is removed. It is very important to remove all water from the fat to prevent it going rancid. Proper tallow can be made from beef fat (suet is best) or lamb fat but not from pork fat as it doesn’t set hard enough when cool. Tallow when cooled resembles candle wax in color and consistency. 4. When the resulting tallow is cool enough to touch but still liquid, add it slowly to the meat powder until all of it is just saturated. By weight this is about a 60/40 meat/tallow ratio. 5. Mold the finished product into pie tins or cupcake forms. When it hardens you’re done. 6. Store in a dry place. I keep mine in a bowl on top of the refrigerator. Ray Audette, author “NeanderThin: A Caveman’s Guide to Nutrition” http://www.sofdesign.com/neander Some more recipes: 1 lb. dried venison (takes about 6-7 lbs fresh meat) 1 lb. beef kidney fat rendered over low heat .5 lb. dried fruit (berries or grapes work well) Dry venison till no moisture is remaining. Crumble fine. Make sure fruit is extra dried out also. Crumble in small pieces. Render beef fat, let cool till film forms on top of pot, but still in a liquid state. Mix the three ingredients together well. Stuff in small canvas bags that will hold about one cup of pemmican. Close up bags and coat with remaining cool liquid fat to seal. One cup of pemmican will last 1-2 days per person, depending on your appetite and other grub available. This will last for quite some time. Store in a cool dry place. When drying the venison, slice as thin as possible, 1/8” works well. I usually slice it when it is still partially frozen. THe thinner the meat the easier it is to crumble when dried. If the fat is too hot it will cook the venison and spoil the pemmican. Also, moisture will ruin the pemmican so keep it dry while storing. I figure 1/4 cup per person per meal made into a stew. 3rd recipe: Take about four cups of shredded, pounded dried meat (beef, deer, moose, antelope-don’t use rabbit, pork, bear, etc because of potential parasite or disease problems) and mix in two cups of melted tallow (cool enough to touch but not cold). Sometimes folks mix in ground/grated dried fruit, but if you ever have to live on the stuff for long you may find that intolerable. To make different quantities, try to stay with the basic proportions of two parts meat to one part tallow. If you store this at room temperature, it will last a year or two- but the flavor gets rather strong (especially if you use game tallow). Bon appetit! Paul

[Odonata]

Tallow is also used for candles. This is a quote from the Zen stove site. I know, this is supposed to be about being stoveless. This is about tallow. "Tallow is made from suet. Very smoky, sooty and produces an acrid odor when burned. Some of these candles were and can be made to be edible and were used on Captain Scott's final expedition to the South Pole in 1910-11. Ideal for those wanting to go medieval." http://home.comcast.net/~agmann/stove/ This is a good site if you are curious about the weight of different types of stoves and fuels vs burn time. When I want to strip weight on an overnighter I will bring my pop can stove and just enough fuel for dinner and coffee in the morning. I'll bring my titanium pot and use tin foil for a lid. I use tin foil for wind screen, anything I find for a pot stand and I'll drink the coffee from a plastic pop bottle or from the pan. I could live without a hot dinner, but not coffee. I love that stuff

[HuffnPuff]

See: http://www.golite.com/team/athletes/coup/trails.asp Read journals on Long Trail, JMT, Colorado trail

[D.B. Cooper]

Pemmican....

[sarbar]

Huffnpuff...... I hope that I never get to the sad day when all I take with me to eat is a bag of nuts and fruits...no thanks

[Slugman]

I could survive a couple of days on lime tortilla chips (low moisture) and cheese, nuts, a power bar, poptarts, stuff like that, and no coffee or tea. But I wouldn't want to. I like a hot dinner, and morning coffee. That other stuff usually makes up my breakfasts and lunches for convenience. The longer the trip, the more thought I put into it. My advice is to get an ultralight stove, bring the minimum amount of fuel, and use a small titanium pot, with tin foil for a cover and a wind screen. It can be done at around 13ozs, using an MSR pocket rocket (3 ozs), small cannister of butane mix (about 5 ozs including cannister), 1.3 liter titanium cookpot by Evernew (approx 4 ozs less the cover), 2 sq ft of tinfoil for cover/windscreen (less than an ounce).

[Malachai Constant]

I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine and get headaches if I do not get it. Quess I could get by with some cocaine or crystal meth in a pinch but that does no seem viable. Cans of cola or dew are too heavy so I will need a stove of some sort.

[Slugman]

If caffeine really is the only sticking point, you can soak tea bags overnight and have plenty of (no) ice tea in the morning. Or get some NODOZE, the pills the truckers use.

[jenjen]

Some of the GU and Powershot gel things are caffeinated. Those keep the headaches at bay, but they just don't get me motivated to get out of the sleeping bag the way a nice cup of coffee does. How the heck did we get back onto coffee? It's like we're all addicts or something.

[mtnwkr]

Heres my setup..snowpeak pot, lid, popcan stove, windscreen/potstand, and feul bottle..all at 6.5-7 ounces.. why would you want to eat cold food when the whole cooking outfit weighs less than a snickers?

[Dogpatch]

OK, back to coffee. If you don't take a stove (I don't)--freeze-dried coffee crystals plus water=cold coffee in the morning. Not as lovely as a nice steaming cup o' java, but it works.

[polecatjoe]

Or just eat it plain, then rinse your mouth with cold water.