Trail Food: Drying and Cooking Food for Backpacking and Paddling Reviews

• Excellent Book!

  
  By APDJAP3RELMS5 on 2005-12-27
  I have several books on dehydrating your own trail meals and this is easily the best. It is concise and full of good ideas and recipes. The guidance is flexible enough for the lightweight backpacker or for the canoe or pack mule traveler. For example, some of the recipes call for a dutch oven (too bulky and heavy for the lightweight backpacker) and others are suitable for a one pot meal (ideal for the lightweight backpacker).
  
  A nice feature is the chart of drying temperatures and times for different foods. Also, the chart of calorie and protein content of different foods is important to making sure you get enough calories to keep going in the field and enough protein to keep your body from consuming your muscle tissue for fuel. There are also plans for building your own dehydrator for the do-it-yourselfer. The suggested one week meal plan is a good guide to get you started on packing for a trip.
  
  The emphasis of this book is on drying individual ingredients and then rehydrating and combining them at meal time. This allows you to be more flexible in your meals, but takes a little longer at meal time. However, it also tells you how to use your own recipes to prepare a conmplete meal and then dehydrate it. Precooked spaghetti, rice or beans rehydrate and cook faster in the field. The book recommends having both types of meals with you for variety and flexibility. You can also dehydrate canned foods like vegetables or canned chicken, tuna or salmon and use them in your recipes.
  
  This book is concise and a fast read, but packs a lot of information. This means that you need to pay attention to pick up all the important points. Fully half of the book gives infomration on dehydrating and meal planning as well as other important instructions and the other half gives some excellent recipes.
  
  One important point (based on experience) is to be sure to try the recipes at home on the same stove and cooking utensels that you will have in the field. You want to make sure that you have everything you need and know how to use it BEFORE you are in the field and cold and wet and tired and hungry. That's not a good time to find out that you need another pot or that your pot isn't large enough to properly prepare your recipes!
  
  "Trail Food" is all you need to dehydrate your own meals, but a few other general books on dehydrating wouldn't hurt to help you gain a full understanding of all the nuances of dehydrating.
  
  Excellent book!
  
  

• Wonderful Book

  
  By A12X1VN7QQNPPC on 2000-07-13
  Time was, drying food was a real pain and involved an old stove and a lot of attention. Now, with the proliferation of dryers on the market, anyone can dry, meat, fish, fruit and veg. The problem is that, in a lot of places, The how of drying is still a closely guarded secret.

  No more. This is an excellent introduction to drying, and you don't need to be an expert to start either. Wanna dry? Get this book.
  
  

• straightforward drying advice

  
  By A1KN0GLTF9HJPW on 2004-02-22
  I've had this book for a few years now, and have read it cover to cover several times.It gives good advice on how to dry everything from plain vegetables to your leftover dinner.I even started to dehydrate my own eggs,and let me tell you they come back wonderfully.Great book that will have you tossing aside those $6.00 nasty premade meals.
  
  

• More helpful than a barrel of jerky...

  
  By A1F99HLP3NRKFJ on 2001-06-05
  This is an excellent, concise guide to the process of drying as well as impetus to get the canoe onto the top of the car. While Kesselheim does give instructions detailed enough for the most persnickity among us, he also describes method, allowing the use of the imagination. Good tips, good recipes, wonderful guidelines -- and some memories to start the inner loon calling. Very glad I have this book.
  
  

• Excellant and Concise - Worth Every Penny

  
  By on 1998-10-24
  KESSELHEIM knows how to appeal to a useful purpose and makes a simple process an ease to work with. His book is what everyone should have on their bookshelf or carry a copy in your backback with some blank paper and pencil to plan future trail meals. You don't need glitz to be good. Christopher D. BORDEN - RCMP - Northern BC
  
  
• Very good little book!
  By A1YR9MBUVWMA4G on 2007-01-11
  If you're looking for condensed information and ideas on how to purchase & use a food dehydrator, preserve fruits vegetables and mushrooms, meats for home use, as well as ideas for planning back country packing meals, this is a very good little book.
  
  
• Backpackers Rejoice!
  By A2N60NDPZ6EB0Z on 2007-05-12
  Good airflow throughout the cabinet meaning everything dries close to the same rate. The sound is basically is low and unobtrusive - lower than a humidifier. I like the square shape because it maximizes counter space in the kitchen. I dehydrate entire meals for backpacking. In addition to the standard fruit and veggies, I've dried chili, lasagna, chicken enchilada & rice, tuna noodle, spaghetti & sauce, lemon lentil soup, and more. Again, size of the trays and airflow work great for spreading out the food and getting it dried evenly. Rehydrating food out on the trail is much easier and tastes better than carrying ingredients separately and combining them out there. Dehydrating my favorite recipes for the trail also beats a week of store bought mac 'n cheese type foods out there. Geez, I should have been doing this years ago.
  
  
• Trail Food Drying
  By A2T7B7TXTCB9HA on 2005-09-04
  Good book about the subject. No frills, but lots of good info in a small package.
  
  
• Preserve Your Own Food
  By A2CRUEQ9QIOT70 on 2007-04-12
  Learn to use a food dehydrator and pack for those camping and hiking trips. There are also great tips on preserving fruits and vegetables.
  
  
• Decent
  By A3CU1B20LSABRP on 2008-10-06
  This is a decent book which encourages experimentation with dehydrating your food and creating recipes- something often left out of both dehydrating and backpacking food books. However, for what everything it does have or encourage, it lacks detail and I felt like there could have been so much more. As it is, it is worth the purchase in conjuction with at least one more, far substantial book.
  
  

• Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail
• Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook
• Lipsmackin' Backpackin': Lightweight Trail-tested Recipes for Backcountry Trips
• How to Dry Foods
• Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple