Customer Reviews

Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was the first backcountry cookbook I bought. I was looking for recipes that could be mostly assembled at home, would be lightweight to transport, and were easy to cook over a backpacking stove.

On first glance, this book appeared to fit the bill. Most recipes are assembled at home, dehydrated, and then rehydrated as a one-pot meal. However, I tried several recipes this past summer while canoeing and camping in the BWCAW and found the texture and taste of most of the meals to be disappointing. Many of the same ingredients are used over and over in "different" recipes, so many meals taste the same. Also, since the recipes are twice-cooked, the texture is often mushy.

Shortly after purchasing this book, I also bought Lipsmackin' Backpackin'. I ended up using this book for almost all of our camping meals, supplemented by hummus and candied walnuts, and a few other random recipes from Backpack Gourmet. I don't think that the purchase of Backpack Gourmet was offset by the few recipes that we regularly use.

I would recommend buying a different backcountry cookbook if you are intersted in eating something with flavor and texture. If, however, you aren't interested in flavor, but are simply looking for a meal that can be made quickly at camp and has all the calories and nutrients you need, then this is probably the book for you.

This is the book I have been waiting for. I love to cook, I love to eat, and I love to backpack, and this book lets me enjoy all three. Previously, I was one of those backpackers who ate mac-n-cheese and Lipton noodles over and over and over. It was really boring, and I wasn't getting enough protein in my diet. Getting ready for our epic 4 month hike on the PCT this summer, I wanted to try food dehydrating, but I also needed a recipe book. After lots of online research I ordered this book and "Trail Food" by Alan Kesselheim. Kesselheim and Yaffe have completely different approaches, and I find Yaffe's approach far more user-friendly. You DO NOT want to mess with drying each food item separately and then trying to assemble them in the backcountry. You are tired, you are hungry. You do not want to spend lots of time messing with ten different little baggies and jars of spices and oils. Leave all of that at home. Yaffe's approach is simple and elegant, and I'm quite honestly shocked that more people don't do it this way: You make your soup, stew, pasta dish or casserole in the comfort of your home. The key is that you must keep the chunks of vegetables, etc. very small. You then spread the dish in thin layers on your dehydrator trays and let the dehydrator do all of the work. Just this weekend, we went backpacking and ran the true field test: rehydrating all of the foods that I had previously dehydrated. The results were impressive. Breakfast casseroles, delicious spaghetti for dinner, tuna and bruschetta spreads at lunch, and none of it had that preservative-laden flavor that store-bought foods are cursed with. The only two comments I would make where Yaffe didn't get it quite right are that I can't fit the whole dish into the dehydrator (if you only have four trays like I do), so we usually end up eating some of it for dinner (not a bad thing). The second thing is that her recommended drying times seem a bit too short. I've had to add an extra hour or two to many of the recipes, but again, this is not a big deal as I dry most of this stuff overnight anyway. If you are looking for a lightweight backpacking meal solution, you cannot live without this book!

If you are going to buy a book about backpack dehydrating this is the one. I have read several others and beat my brains out trying to get spagetti sauce to powder, etc. They are all wrong, and she is right. Don't try to dehydrate the ingredients separately, cook the whole meal and then dehydrate the whole thing together. It seems too good to be true, but it really works, and it works both easier and better. Make it your own way (within a few simple limits), and it really is better, cheaper, and easier than buying the commercial deydrated foods. I might have thought of it myself, if all of the other books weren't so misleading!

Well who'd ever think I, a middled aged man married to a wonderful wife and cook,would be cooking for 4 in the third world, anything other than PB&J's.
They all laughed at me as I stashed vac-packed meals into 4 seperate ditty bags, I would just smile and say I wanted to be prepared.
As we went off the main road and up into the mountain villages, by the third day thier tune started to change.

Wonderful quick meals Breakfasts(eggs and sausage) soups for lunch, lasanga and stews for dinner and even bisguits. breakfast squares, granola bars, and carrot soup were the big hits with the ladies but I think they just enjoyed not having to cook.
The meals are power packed and full of protien very nutritional. easy to find or grow ingredients.The portions were plentiful, usually we would share in the villages.

Now from grill master at home to the trail chef cooking lasnqna in the bush in less than 5 minutes they want me to cook these meals at home .

I Highly recommend this book to all who travel and camp where there are no stores. Cooking meals 1st then dehyrating them not only saved lots of weight in the backpack, but allows you to spice them up to your liking before you dehydrate, so meals are a delight not the same old, same old, very important on 3-4 week trips.
(A good cook always tastes the food before giving to the critics)
These Nutritional meals keep your body healthy and full of energy to work or play the next day. yet allow you to pack away plenty in a small space. also you can prepare them and stash them in the freezer months before.
Not a bad Idea to have on hand in a disaster kit stored in a sealed bucket with a couple of cases of water in the cool basement either.

Don't forget the water filter and small pot to cook & eat out of.

This is a great book for backpackers looking to save $$$ on freeze dried foods. I consider it a starting point as after you make a few of these recipes, you realize that you can dehydrate anything you cook at home and turn it into a backpacking meal. I often found myself adjusting the recipie seasonings to suit my personal taste. The breakfast eggs weren't a big hit, but the dips/spreads, jerky, pasta recipes, etc are quick, easy, nutritious and tasted great after a day of hiking.

I've reviewed many books for both my site and Amazon and this one is a real gem. I was a little skeptical at first but the recipes were great. The food tasted delicious when we took it on our trips.

Granted this book requires a dehydrator and a bit of work at home but it is well worth it when you can sink your teeth into a great meal on the 10th day of a wilderness trip.

Linda Fredrick Yaffe is an inspiration in the wildernes kitchen and this is a must have for not only the backpacker's bookshelf but for the canoeist's as well.

I guess if you don't want to invest in a dehydrator this book isn't for you (although we bought one for under $60, and it's paid for itself again and again). If you want to eat Lipton noodles, this book isn't for you. However, if you love food, and you love to eat well on the trail(and we DO!), this is the best thing that ever happened to us! We have found that some recipes are a bit bland for our tastes, but that can easily be personalized. For instance, we added about a 1/4 tsp of chipotle pepper powder and some pepper jack cheese to the Southwestern Lasagna, and we were dancing around our cook stove! Totally delicious, and such an easy meal to put together at the end of one of those "can't find the trail head" days. Entire meals dehydrate to very little pack weight. Yaffe's recipes create very generous servings. We also bought Lip Smackin' Backpackin', and will use some of those recipes, but the need to separate dehydrate, and often rehydrate individual ingredients is tedious, and just doesn't result in the same quality of meal as Yaffe's does. Linda Yaffe is a genius!

Loved the recipes in this book! Probably my favorite recipe book that I have. The pesto recipe was better than any other I have ever made. The entrees are delicious enough to serve at a dinner party, not to mention on a backpacking trip. Tons of great vegeterian recipes too. And all super healthy and delicious and creative. Very good instructions on how to dehydrate too. Even easy in the oven!

Wide variety of menu items that will satisfy anyone's taste, and they won't bankrupt you. Easy to find ingredients at your local grocery store.

I got this book to get started into backpacking again after many years of not doing it. The recipes and instructions in this book sure beat the MRE's and expensive stuff you get from the store. I've tried a number of the recipes at home and so far so good. I'm not a fan of TVP, which a number of the recipes call for, but hey we all can't like the same stuff--that would be boring wouldn't it? so I just substitute and move on...