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Camping Challenges

Posted at 11:58 AM on April 10, 2008 by Donna McClurkan (2 Comments)

We just returned from camping and hiking in east Tennessee with friends Holly, George and Ben. I have a lot of blogging catch-up to do!

There are no food photos on this entry because there was no local food to be found on our trip. There is one significant food-related success to report, however. My husband traveled a few days ahead of us to set up and provision the campsite. Left to his own devices, he reverted back to old grocery shopping habits, though he did, thankfully, forgo Spam and other traditional camping foods from his childhood. Without any prompting, Mac later reported that he no longer cares for the taste of these highly-processed, over-packaged, high-fructose-corn-syrup-injected, nutritionally-barren foods. Taste buds (and husbands), I'm happy to share, CAN be trained.

Once Anna and I arrived a few days later by air, we stopped at Whole Foods to replenish our camping food stocks. While I recognize the downside of this establishment (see chapter nine - "Big Organic" - in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma), it's hard not to be taken in by the bounty and beauty in every aisle. Local offerings were limited, so we chose from many organic options. It's been years since I shopped at this store, and I was reminded at checkout why it has earned the nickname "whole paycheck." Yikes!

We're back home and into our local eating routine again. Next time we head out of town, I'll research our destination's local eating options - and bring plenty of canned and preserved foods for camping & hiking.

Comments (2)

A great option for hiking, camping and backpacking is making your own dehydrated meals with seasonal ingredients when they are in season. You just need a little time and a food dehydrator. You can store dehy foods in the freezer in ziplock bags for up to a year, in whatever serving size you'd like, then pop them out and into your pack whenever you need them! A great cookbook for some really gourmet dehy foods is The Leave-no-crumbs Camping Cookbook by Greenspan and Kahn. Most rehydrate with minimal water and time on a camp stove (yeah for saving gas and pumping less water!) There are also several campfire recipes in that book. We've used variations on their recipes with great succes and eaten seasonally camping in both summer and winter in Northern Ontario!

Posted by Stacy | April 17, 2008 11:46 AM

Hi Stacy - Thanks so much for the Camping Cookbook recommendation. It never occurred to me to dehydrate seasonal foods & then take them camping/hiking. I put the book on my "wish list" and will share your recommendation with our EatLocalSWMich listserv members ... thanks again.

Posted by Donna McClurkan | April 17, 2008 12:25 PM