Customer Reviews

High Trail Cookery: All-Natural, Home-Dried, Palate-Pleasing Meals for the Backpacker (Revised)

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2 star:		(1)
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I was interested in this book because it advertised recipes for making your own dehydrated foods. But this book misses the point of wilderness tripping. The fact is most backcountry hikers want foods that can be mixed and matched as desired. All the recipes call for complex proteins such as eggs, milk, yogurt, meat that are prepared as a full meal (e.g., ham omelets) and then dehydrated. Because the egg and the ham are all mushed up with spices you can hardly choose to use the eggs in pancakes and the ham in chili stew. Instead, you must eat omelets. When I backpack I plan on dehydrating several basic goods: canned beans, green peppers, hamburger, etc. Then along with some common staples such as powdered eggs, flour, etc. I can vary my cooking as desired. This book has you cooking complex gourmet meals, dehydrating them and then eating exactly that on the trail. ALso, I don't know why the author would bother to dehydrate things such as eggs, yogurt, etc. One can easily buy powdered eggs and besides - have you ever tried dehyrating your own eggs? Your house will smell like a sewer! Finally, the book contains numerous recipes for muffins and breads. But all are prepared and baked at home. I have plenty of these recipes in my Joy of Cooking. What I would have been interested in is how to prepare such recipes infront of a campfire - but the author makes no mention of this.

I've used this book to prepare food for three extended expeditions. It allows you to eat well and gives enough variety so you don't get tierd of using the same old ingredients over and over. The best thing is every meal is self contained, so you don't have loads of bags containing different ingregients for each meal. Love it. Right now I'm sending a book to a friend who bought a dehydrator after eating this food for 3 weeks.

I don't like to cook but I do like to eat well. By that, I mean I like home-made food that is prepared with fresh, wholesome ingredients, intelligently and creatively seasoned, and, most importantly, easy to prepare. Ms. Yaffe's recipes meet all these requirements. The recipes are clearly, logically written out and are easy to follow. The range of recipes ensures that you'll never get bored on the trail, or at home either. And you don't have to buy a dehydrator. These recipes can be dried in the oven. Try my favorite, Skedaddle Stew, and enjoy!

After a long hike in the wilderness, having a simply prepared but really tasty meal was very welcomed. With minimal work (covering the dried food with water, boiling, stirring a few times and serving), we settled back to a white bean curry (one of the recipes in this book) that was especially delicious. Can't speak for all the recipes in this very worthwhile book, but the ones we tried were great (and I suspect that many more are also worth trying). But the procedure of getting your meals set up in advance at home with all the touches of a tasty meal included, drying them, and then simply carrying the lightweight plastic bags of the stuff with you was VERY appealing indeed. Nice job!