Hiker's Guide To Preparing Home-Cooked Meals On The Trail
Initial Report
March 29, 2004

Initial Impression:
The Guide arrived in a standard padded mailing envelope in excellent condition along with a brief note from Steven Mroz (the author) letting me know the book was a "proof copy" and that there are "ten typos or misspelled words" that are being corrected by the publisher. He also encouraged me to drop him an email if I have any questions or concerns. A very friendly start.

I quickly scanned the table of contents and leafed through the book to see what the recipes looked like. The recipe categories looked pretty standard for a backpacking cookbook but there were a couple of items that stood out requiring immediate reading -- a chapter on "The Backpacker's Oven" and "Delectables". Paging through to the "Delectables" chapter I noticed that the format of the book is basically one recipe per page so there is a lot of white space as most recipes are only a half-page in size. Reaching the "Delectables" chapter I  scanned the list of recipes and admit to some confusion. The following recipes are classified as "Delectables" -- brown rice, noodles, barley, couscous, hash browns, beef jerky, fruit leather, tofu, baked beans, and tomatoes. I had expected something more in the line of desserts rather than what I consider to be side dishes. Oh well, back to the oven chapter.

Here I encountered the first of the typos I had been warned about. Since typos don't affect the quality of the food, I'm not going to report on those except to say that there are more than the reported "ten typos". I hope the publisher found the rest. This chapter contains instructions on how to build a small "oven" to be used to bake items that don't require extensive baking times (muffins, biscuits, etc. versus lasagna for instance). On the first read through I scratched my head. This chapter could certainly use a diagram or two. A couple more readings and I got the gist of constructing the oven. However, I also discovered that I need a Sierra Zip Stove and a specific pot to make some of these recipes. Of course, if I don't have one, I'm told I can modify the oven building directions to match the stove & pot combination that I do happen to have. Okay, table that. I'm good for experimenting so I set aside the oven issues and settled back for a cover-to-cover read.

Sideline Note:
Before I proceed, a brief note about the "publisher" is in order. In the typical book publishing world an author works with a publisher who selects book projects based on their sales potential. The publisher usually assigns an editor who works with the author on several drafts until it is ready for publication. The publisher pays for any editing and the book doesn't go out until the publisher and editor are happy with the end product. Many books will have advance copies sent to various industry spokespeople, other authors, or anyone the publisher believes will write a review worthy of quoting. They use these quotes for the book jacket or back cover as appropriate. Then they print a large number of copies, ship them to distributors and from there to bookstores across the land. Some books will be specifically promoted with displays and targeted advertising.

Trafford is different. They are a "self-publishing" house. In this case, an author provides the copy and Trafford provides publishing-on-demand services as well as order fulfillment and shipping functions. The author pays an initial setup fee and for any extra services like illustration or editing that they think are needed. The author is also responsible for marketing efforts to get buyers directed to Trafford's website where they can place their book order. Once ordered, Trafford handles the credit card billing and prints the book for shipment directly to the consumer.

The Result:
This is a wonderful system for niche books where the potential readership is too small to interest a major (or even minor) publishing house. It's also cheaper than many other "self-publishing" options. However, authors need to take more responsibility up front to be successful. This is important because "The Hiker's Guide To Preparing Home-Cooked Meals On The Trail" (The Guide) is very much a reflection of Steven Mroz's abilities in these other areas (most especially editing). To be succinct, Steve needs an editor...badly. Whatever they say about lawyers representing themselves applies equally to authors who are their own editors. While I generally applaud anyone who takes the initiative to step outside normal processes and gets things done on their own, I can't say Steve is well served by the lack of professional publishing discipline. There are far more than "ten typos or misspelled words" sprinkled throughout the convoluted and ponderous writing. My advice to Steven is to run without delay to an editor (Trafford offers this service for an added fee). Were I to pick this book up in a bookstore or library I would have dropped it after reading the first couple of pages--and that's without ever having tried a single recipe.

Steven has a degree in Classical Languages (ancient Greek and Latin) and his writing seems to reflect an attempt to bring extraneous and irrelevant bits of that education to light. It also seems to reflect a poor mastery of concise, tight, focused writing which may be endemic to classical linguists but certainly has no place in a cookbook. For example, the Introduction wanders from literary allusions to Mozart symphonies and snow-capped mountains to The Ice Man; from ancient Greek underwater archaeologist George Bass to nineteenth century American Indians and even astronauts on their "voyage to the stars". Whew!

The first paragraph of the book sets the stage: "The intended audience of this book is the hiker, yet any outdoor enthusiast such as the kayaker, mountain-biker, fisherman, hunter, or boy and girl scout would certainly benefit from the information presented herein. Anyone engaged in outdoor activities who needs, equal to any other need, to be able to carry lightweight, compact foods, will find that need satisfied in the following pages." Later, "Peoples and cultures have done this [enjoyed a tasty meal] for time millennia....The same need confronts modern man today just as it has since the dawn of civilization; that is, those who travel on foot in the wilderness and desire to get from point A to point B need to carry their own food, and lightweight, nutritional food will sustain the body best in the effort." And finally, my wife's favorite -- "Macaroni and cheese with bits of beef jerky thrown in might keep the hiker alive for another day, but the vitality needed to hike fifteen miles a day carrying a heavy pack, possibly up and over mountain passes, through brush, and sometimes in inclement weather, will be sorely lacking. It is no mystery how a hiker can become grumpy and incorrigible."

Okay, so maybe a steady diet of mac and cheese might make me grumpy and irritable but incorrigible? Interestingly enough there is indeed a recipe for mac and cheese contained "herein". In this case, ham is included rather than the "bits of beef jerky". I'm only on the second page and I can't read without mentally wincing with nearly every sentence. I'm really hoping the recipes make the writing irrelevant. Here's hoping he sprinkles the seasonings with more concern with their compatibility than the willy-nilly approach of his use of punctuation and vocabulary.

Normally, cookbooks aren't "read" but except for the recipes, this book contains eleven pages of "Introduction" and instructions for the oven. It's not too much to expect that those eleven pages do not require effort to navigate.

Expectations:
That said, I'll move on to the information contained within the prose. First off, I'm no Galloping Gourmet. Although I enjoy good food, I'm just as happy with meatloaf as I am with Chateaubriand (I only cook the latter on the trail when I'm showing off). But, I probably own every backpacking and camping oriented cookbook on the market. I also own a fair selection of "kitchen" cookbooks as well. I find inspiration for trail meals in all of these sources as well as the occasional wander through the aisles of the local supermarket. So, when reading on the Trafford website that Steven worked as a chef in the late 70s I thought I might find a few new dishes or ways to prepare trail food to add to my kit. I was also intrigued by the fact that this book on food dehydration for trail meals is billed as being something special as "Few books, if any, have dealt with the subject in its entirety." A quick search on Amazon shows 1,585 titles for the search "food dehydration camping"; and the first page of results has several listed which I have that I thought dealt fairly well with the topic. I'm interested in what Steven is going to add to this topic.

The Guide has a few pages oriented toward convincing the reader that dehydrating food is a good thing as well as another few with dehydration tips. Fortunately I have an Excalibur dehydrator, several books that deal with the subject, and enough experience using one that I'm aware of misstatements: like vacuum-sealing dehydrated foods is "an absolute necessity" and simply "placing dried meals in a plastic bag is a cardinal sin." To be honest I only use the vacuum sealer when I'm going to do "boil in a bag" meals or when I'm going to store something for months. I've not found any problems with keeping food for reasonable periods (days/weeks) in Zip-loc type bags. I'll even admit to keeping cooked bacon in baggies for up to an entire week on the trail and not suffered from eating it! Steven's advice might be appropriate for the thru-hiker who prepares six months of meals for drop shipping along the AT, but shouldn't dissuade the casual weekend hiker from dehydrating food without a vacuum sealer (which Steven says will cost up to $140 USD). 

Fortunately I have both the recommended dehydrator and vacuum sealer. I also have a copy of Deanna DeLong's book on "How to Dry Foods" which Steven suggests referring to before beginning to dehydrate foods. In that regard, I can say I learned nothing in The Guide that was not covered in more detail and far more satisfactorily in DeLong's book. If her book is to be referenced before beginning to dehydrate food, then the little information contained in The Guide is entirely unnecessary.

I do not however, have the recommended stoves needed for the recipes in the book. Yes, I said stoves. Plural. As in more than one. Yes, that's two. Two stoves. Not two pots. Two stoves. Not that I don't have two stoves but I don't have one of the specific ones needed -- a Sierra Zip Stove. Well, okay, at least with a Zip (a 1 lb/.5 kg stove by the way) I don't need to carry a fuel canister. Oops, strike that. According to Steven, I also need to bring charcoal (natural not briquettes) that is "cut in one by three inch pieces, and three pieces are good for one cooking session." Also a "one-inch piece of Diamond Strike-A-Fire" is also needed to set the charcoal burning. Visions of whatever weight savings I've found in dehydrating being consumed by extra gear & fuel are beginning to really put a damper on my appetite.

Now to be fair, Steven does say that only a single stove may be used and that pretty much any stove will do, but that's not recommended. What's recommended is two stoves, fuel for both, some bowls, Strike-A-Fire, vacuum sealers, etc. Just the ticket for the lightweight hiker.

The Recipes:
Moving on, I figure "at least he's got a lot of recipes." Diving in I start to look for my first trial candidates. Of course I'll build the oven (a rather clever idea by the way although heavier than a BakePacker) but first let's look at what we can do with basic dehydrated food. First off in the book are breakfast recipes (there are no lunch ones as Steve doesn't believe it's worth the time to rehydrate & cook for lunch; the book focuses on breakfast and dinner). Fairly traditional scrambled eggs, omelets, hash browns and the like. But "hash brown scramble" and "ham and cheese sauce over hash browns" stick out and may offer something new. Overlooking the odd abbreviations (tablespoon is abbreviated "tblspns." rather than the traditional "T" or even "tbsp", teaspoon is "tspn." rather than "t" or "tsp" and package is "pckg." instead of "pkg" -- just where was he a chef?) the recipe for Hash Brown Scramble looks tasty enough. However, the instructions are fairly minimalistic -- cook the ingredients and then "dry and package." Do the same for the eggs and "dry and package." To prepare out in the field, "rehydrate each item" and reheat.

Spartan, but this is only breakfast after all. I do know how to cook & dehydrate. The ingredients are interesting, if fairly standard. I do appreciate the use of olive oil rather than the more typical vegetable oil. Olive oil lends a certain nutty/fruity flavor to foods that's certainly welcome in the field. Other than that we're talking hash browns mixed with scrambled eggs, onions, peppers, ham, and cheese. No great shakes, but not a bad sounding breakfast. The other intriguing breakfast item follows a similar pattern. This one is called "Ham and Cheese Sauce Over Hash Browns". This is a combination of cheddar cheese sauce, eggs, mustard, spinach and some seasonings cooked together and dried. In the field this is rehydrated by adding boiling water and simmered (it doesn't seem to strike him that maybe adding less water would eliminate the need for simmering) until thick before pouring over hash browns fried in a pan. Okay, so at least the name still sounds good.

Pressing onward I skip through the rest of breakfast items and cross through the land of soups (19 of them) as I usually find the dried ones in the market more than adequate for the trail and I just don't eat that much soup. I'm not sure I'd normally go through the effort to cook soup from scratch and then dehydrate it but I'll try that for the long-term review of this book. Perhaps Knorr soup mixes will be as so much dust after I've tasted my own dehydrated soup.

Past the soups I come upon gravies and sauces. I am definitely in the "what is this filler?" mode by now. I mean, maybe if I were in some country where I couldn't buy a package of McCormick gravy mix for 59 cents this would be interesting. But, come on now. How much will it cost to run my dehydrator to dry a cup of gravy? Seventeen gravy recipes seems like an author looking to fill pages. Sample sauce recipe: Stir-Fry Sauce - chicken stock, soy sauce, sesame oil, teriyaki sauce, cornstarch, sugar. Dissolve ingredients in hot water, simmer over low heat until thickened. Dehydrate. This is not to be confused with Beef Stir-Fry Sauce whose entire page (!) is consumed by "Same as regular stir fry sauce, only two tspns. of Knorr beef flavored both is used instead of chicken bullion." Reviewing the recipe for Stir-Fry Sauce I see no reference to chicken bouillon. Is it missing or does this recipe's reference to it mean the chicken stock that's in the other recipe? They are different things but maybe not for these purposes (and in fact both chicken broth from a can and what I presume is chicken bouillonfrom Knorr are used in Chicken Gravy). These aren't complicated recipes so it shouldn't be hard to make them correct and consistent.

On to my earlier favorite "Delectables". These are recipes for rice and noodles and my personal favorite food - tofu! I won't eat it on a bet. Who thinks that dehydrating and rehydrating tofu will make it better? Come on a show of hands. No one? Okay, false alarm. Seems Steven doesn't think it will either as he recommends packing it in its sealed store container and then since it "is subject to bacteriological deterioration" after opening, packing out and discarding anything not eaten for that meal. Hah! I knew it was nasty stuff.

Down the home-stretch to Meats and Vegetables. My favorites! Four or five pages of general preparation text (including a meager attempt at outlining dietary guidelines that cannot do the subject justice in the two or three sentences allocated -- "protein is certainly a great benefit...carbs are good") and into the meat of things. Thirty recipes for my favorite meal. We're cooking now. I'm liking the potential for chicken fingers, fettuccine and hamburger, ham and swiss pasta but am crinkling my nose at polish sausage, pasta with tomatoes, and shrimp. I mean recipes for "shrimp". Just shrimp. (Turns out that's actually shrimp, shrimp sauce and water.) I can't say that Fettuccine Alfredo that consists of a package of fettuccine, a serving of parmesan sauce and basil holds much promise for making dehydrating the parmesan sauce worth the effort over grabbing that package of Lipton's Fettuccine Alfredo in the grocery store. But I press on.

To the one section I find can rescue the most insipid cookbook -- Desserts. What's that? There isn't one here? No dessert? Long anguished coyote howl in the night! Dessert is critical! I'm surprised at the lack of a sweets section. I find dessert after dinner can make even the longest day feel good. The oven design presented in Chapter 1 would be perfect for desserts. I'm thinking a simple muffin or cup cake...or even S'mores --- crumbled graham crackers topped with a couple of square of chocolate and a marshmallow heated in the oven until everything is melted...yumm!

Summary:
Having progressed through the book I'm disappointed. If Steven was a professional chef he doesn't demonstrate it here. The recipes are not unique nor are they presented in any compelling way. If I had no other cookbook and this was my first introduction to dehydrated cooking for the trail I don't think I'd bother. Very few of the recipes actually require anything I cannot buy at the local supermarket already dried in convenient foil packages. The remainder are primarily egg & meat additions to meals I can buy in the prepared food aisle in the grocery store. I certainly couldn't justify the price of a dehydrator and vacuum sealer for the occasional egg dish (as I would be able to use jerky & foil packaged tuna for most meat needs). There is certainly nothing in this cookbook that would justify the addition of another stove and fuel to my kitchen. I'm intrigued by the oven and will be making a couple of versions (one for my gas canister stove & one per the directions for a Sierra Zip Stove) to see if there's anything I'm missing there. Overall though, this is a very lightweight cookbook that has little to distinguish it from far more complete references on any bookstore shelf in the country. Having made a couple of dishes to try them in the kitchen (omelet, polish sausage -- aka kielbasa...both of which I've been able to cook for 30 years) I found nothing of note to set them apart and expect the rest to be the same. If this were the only trail cookbook I was to buy I'd return it. If it were given to me as a gift, it would gather dust. After two weeks with it, I can find nothing to recommend it. There are several that deal with the subject better, with more detail on the mechanics of dehydration, of meal planning, of ingredient selection, and with more diverse and interesting recipes. In fact, one of my favorites includes instructions on how to make a simple & inexpensive dehydrator.

Future Test Plans:
However, that being said, I will be testing many of the recipes and techniques over the next four months. I will be backpacking on several multi-day as well as week long backpacking treks in the New England hills and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This will give me experience with preparing the food on a variety of equipment and in a variety of conditions. I will be testing to see if the ingredients hold up well on the trail, if the food tastes better after a long day's trek, if the recipes can increased to serve more people (no real serving information is provided in The Guide) and if they can be easily modified to suit changing food desires while on the trail (mixing & matching different entrees with side dishes).