Culinary Delights in the Outback

by None on

Doug Gantenbein, an experienced outdoors adventurer and freelance journalist, gives
Food for Thought in a great article
on eating well when packing lightly.

We all know that cooking in Mother Nature’s kitchen can be a challenge when you’re carrying everything but the
kitchen sink (including the stove) on your back. But Doug makes the good point that if your cooking skills are awful at
home, you can’t expect results on a mountaintop to be any better.

By learning to cook well (or at least palatably), you’ll know more about ingredients and have a better idea of how
to make good food for eating well outdoors. If you know how to make pancakes, for example, you can
measure out the dry ingredients you’ll need for each portion at home, and add water and oil on site for a campfire
breakfast. (I actually got out my kitchen scales for y’all: a cup of flour weighs 4.8 ounces, so Doug’s pancakes come
in at 7.2 ounces and should be enough for two people.)

All We Are Saying, Is Give Peas A Chance!

by Erik Olsen on

One of the drawbacks of long trips in the back-country is that you often have to pack in your own food. Sure, you
can Rambo it, bring along your compound bow and hope to drop Bambi from 50 yards, but most of us end up just firing up
the Whisperlite, boiling up some water and pouring it into a bag of freeze dried gruel. I’ve done this my share of
times and while it’s never quite as satisfying as a Chateaubriand, the taste of pre-made food in the wild is
surprisingly pleasing, especially if you’ve been on the trail for a few days. So where is the best place to get this
kind of food? Well, why not directly from the source? Mountain House makes
some of the most popular pre-made camping meals available and you can buy right off their site. They have provided to
the US Military and to the Boy Scouts, not to mention to REI and other major outdoors stores. The pouches stand up
nicely when water is added and open easily…all key features of this type of grub. Anyway, I ate the
beef stew way
back when and was pretty surprised at how beef stewy it tasted. And try the
peas, they’re
good for you.

Yerba Mate Makes a Splash

by Erik Olsen on

When I was traveling in
Argentina, I became addicted to it, even though
its caffeine quotient is like one fifth that of a Starbucks latte. And people all over Argentina are addicted to it as
well, with many Portenos (those from Buenos Aires) opting to carry around their own gourds (follow the gourd!) that
they use to drink the stuff. And so it is that the Argentine drink of choice Yerba
Mate finally gets
some ink in the US. What is mate you ask?:

Mate is a hot tea made from the dried leaves of the Ilex Paraguariense bush, which flourishes only in the jungle
on Argentina’s border with Paraguay and Brazil. Now it is becoming even more popular, centuries after the tea was
first made by the Guarani Indians in a remote corner of South America.

It has always seemed inevitable to me that mate would come to the US, be served for a time in Starbucks, in the same
way I believe that guarana from Brazil will eventually make its way here. The thing is, if it
does, it will be a trend. As I say, there’s not enough caffeine in mate to sustain the American
lifestyle.

Tunisia Bound

by Erik Olsen on


Now here’s an

exotic locale: Tunisia. The country is making a push to be a tourist destination – dollars yum yum – and says it is
dramatically improving its tourist infrastructure. Says Rachid Mardessi, head of the Tunisian Tourist Board in
Tunis.

“We are Mediterranean in our outlook. We have many world-class hotels but people also have to look beyond the
resorts. Our infrastructure has been greatly improved in the past 10 years. There is more money here than in Morocco.
The medinas and monuments are better looked after. And in terms of security, safety, and the status of women, Tunisia
is revolutionary.”

I’m convinced. OK, who’s in?

Osaka it to Em

by Erik Olsen on

Osaka, Japan gets some props
from this writer who traveled to the city of Osaka and found a way to please her palate in one of Japan’s large,
but not Tokyo, cities. The recommendations are for more than just sushi. Much more.

Start with takoyaki—balls of octopus and chips of green onion grilled in a soft golden batter. They’re cooked at
small street stands. Look for ones with the longest queues, they’re usually the best ones. For 500 yen ($4.50 USD),
you’ll get eight to ten pieces and maybe cheese melted on top, along with sweet mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce and a
flurry of bonito flakes that dance quietly when sprinkled over hot food.