Reviews > Books > Cook Books > Lipsmackin Vegetarian Backpackin > Steve Nelson > Initial Report

Initial Report: Globe Pequot Press "Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'"
November 7, 2004

Reviewer's Information

Name: Steve Nelson
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Height: 5' 9" (1.75 m)
Weight: 158 lb (72 kg)
Email address: nazdarovye at yahoo
City, State, Country: San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Backpacking Background:

As an interface design and usability consultant by trade, I'm always excited by analyzing and improving designs and processes; backpacking provides a fertile and fun arena for that. I have been backpacking since I was a kid growing up in upstate New York: we backpacked and canoe-camped in all seasons, throughout the Adirondacks and nearby areas, ranging as far as La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve, Quebec. As an adult, I've backpacked and hiked extensively in California, but also have taken trips throughout the West, from New Mexico to British Columbia, and return often to the Adirondacks.

In the past year I made the transition to lightweight and ultralight backpacking. I like moving fast, and lightening the load facilitates that. I also enjoy urban strolls, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, and aviation in addition to hiking and backpacking, so my gear gets exposed to a wide variety of uses and conditions.

Product information

Overview

"Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'" ("Lightweight Trail-tested Vegetarian Recipes for Backcountry Trips") is a 231-page book of recipes and tips for veggie-friendly campers. The recipes are gathered from "some of the most experienced long-distance hikers in the world" according to Globe Pequot, and the book also provides preparation tips, a primer on dehydration, lists of sources, and conversion charts in addition to those recipes.

Regarding my participation in this test: while I'm not a vegetarian, I eat vegetarian food more often than not at home as well as while backpacking. I'm also an experienced and avid cook—I worked as a cook in the distant past, enjoy whipping up dinner for friends and family (as well as the occasional "gourmet" trail meal to share with camping buddies), and have a large collection of cookbooks at home. However, my trail meals generally tend toward the packaged "boil and soak" type, and I look forward to broadening my backpacking horizons through testing the recipes in "Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'".

Initial Impressions of the Book

Since receiving the book, I've had a chance to browse if from cover to cover, do a bit of research online, and even purchase a dehydrator (more on that in a minute).

The book is appealingly designed and organized: graphic design and typography are clear and thoughtfully chosen, and the recipes in particular are laid out in a consistent and helpful two-column format. The book is organized into introductory chapters providing background on the recipes, their presentation, and the needs of hikers; recipe sections broken down into chapters by meal type (plus "Breads/Snacks" and "Drinks"); a tongue-in-cheek final "recipe" (I'll leave that for readers to find); and appendices including a primer on dehydration, a list of sources for ingredients, and measurement conversions. The book also provides an index (focusing mainly on names of ingredients and recipes), and—a nice touch—a summary of the "Trailside Cooking Instructions" that is meant to be copied and packed along.

The Globe Pequot site provides a basic summary of the book, though I'll note that the site's search function did not work with my Macintosh OS X browsers, and that as a result, it took a bit of clicking to navigate all the way to the book's information. One pleasant surprise online: the authors provide a link to a downloadable version of the cooking instructions in PDF format, which I downloaded and will use to print labels for the food I prepare using this cookbook.

This is the second backpacking cookbook by the authors, a couple with four children. Their comments throughout the book make it clear to me that they really love cooking and backpacking, and that the book is backed up by real experience. The fact that they prepared this volume by reaching out to long-distance backpackers and incorporating their recipes and experiences into the book further amplifies that approach and added to my enjoyment of reading the recipes.

Initial Impressions of the Recipes

The instructions for each individual recipe in "Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'" are well-organized and appear thorough but concise. Here's how each recipe is laid out:

In the left-hand, larger column, the recipe is presented in two major components: "At Home" and "On the Trail". At Home lists the ingredients and (if any) preparation steps to take at home, including what size container or plastic bag to use for carrying the results into the field. On the Trail describes what preparation steps (if any) need to be taken to prepare the recipe in the field—for example, adding a certain amount of water to a zipper-lock bag and waiting for a specified number of minutes for the meal to reconstitute. Occasionally the recipe is prefaced with an anecdotal quote from the authors or one of the trail experts—a nice touch. Also, at the bottom of this column for every recipe that calls for rehydrating the food in a zipper lock bag, comes this warning in bold, large type: "Caution: see "Using this Book" section regarding the use of ziplock bags with hot water." Ah, liability concerns....

On the right-hand side of each recipe page, the book provides the name of the source of the recipe (usually a long-distance hiker), the recipe's total weight (after all home preparation, as packaged to take into the field), the per-serving weight, the number of servings, and basic nutritional information per serving. The nutritional information includes calories, protein, carbohydrates, sodium, fiber, fat and cholesterol. Sometimes the right-hand column also contains a sidebar with an anecdote about the recipe or the hiker who provided it.

The recipes appear to be a good mix of meals prepared completely at home and consumed as-is on the trail (trail mixes, baked goods, etc.), meals cooked at home then reconstituted on the trail, and meals assembled or cooked (and often dehydrated) at home but actually cooked on the trail. There are enough of each type that, even if I decided (for example) that I didn't feel like dirtying pots in the field, I'd find a wide selection of other recipes to choose from. And, the recipes truly are vegetarian, even to the point of noting substitutions for ingredients such as Worcestershire sauce for those who are vegan.

The ingredients in general seem to be common and widely available, and for the few that aren't, the book offers sources in an appendix. A number of the recipes make use of commercial packaged foods (e.g., dried soup or pudding mixes named by specific brand). A fair number of recipes also require the use of a dehydrator.

One nutritional point caught my eye: a few dozen of the recipes, especially those prepared using commercial packaged foods, have very high sodium content. I'm not watching my sodium intake, so it's not a big concern to me, but others might take note.

Initial Impressions of the Other Information

I intend to do a more in-depth review of the tips and other information in the book in the context of my actual tests of the recipes, but I do want to note that the book provides a solid set of tips on preparation, cooking, dehydration, use of zipper-lock bags for cooking, and even meeting the needs of long-distance backpackers (recommending variety, nutritional value, durability and simplicity among other attributes).

Based partly on the book's recommendations on buying and using a dehydrator, and partly because I've always been intrigued by them and the recipes that friends have been able to concoct using them, I went ahead and bought one. This will allow me to test any recipe I choose from the book, and I'll also be reporting back on how useful and accurate the book's tips specific to dehydrators turn out to be.

One final note on the non-recipe information: in the back of the book are short biographies of all of the contributors—I found it fun to read about the diverse group of hikers the authors worked with to obtain and test the recipes. This, along with the anecdotes scattered throughout the recipes themselves, adds a really nice personal touch to the book.

Test Locations and Field Information

I'll of course be doing all of the "At Home" steps at my home kitchen here in California. But I'll be out a lot in the coming months for backpacking, hiking, snowshoeing, winter camping, and even occasionally for long city strolls here and on business trips—so I'll be testing recipes in a wide range of conditions and trip types.

Specific trips planned include:

• Confirmed backpacking and snow camping trips in Lassen, Yosemite, Henry Coe State Park, Sequoia National Park and the Adirondacks
• Car camping in Mendocino and Big Sur during the rainy season; possible car camping at other locations this fall (Colorado, New York)
• Planned additional winter camping trips and day snowshoe outings in the Lake Tahoe, Mt. Shasta, Yosemite and Snow Mountain Wilderness areas
• Likely overnight backpacking trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Lost Coast, and Ventana Wilderness

Altitudes on these trips will range from sea level to over 10,000 ft (3,050 m). Weather will range from cool and crisp fall and winter weather in less extreme locations to wet and windy winter coastal Pacific storms and active snowfall in the Sierra Nevada and Adirondacks. Temperatures will likely range from as low as 0° F (-18° C) to as high as 80° F (38° C).

On most trips I will use either a canister stove or white gas stove (with the occasional use of an alcohol stove thrown in for short trips in mild conditions). My cooking gear will generally be either a .95 qt (.9 L) titanium pot or a 2 qt (1.9 L) anodized aluminum pot, though if necessary for specific recipes, I also have larger cooksets and frying pans available, and I'll document the gear I end up using for each recipe. I'll also use pot cozies for rehydration—I make mine out of Reflectix®.

Test Plan

I plan to try at least one recipe per week during my first two months of testing. I'll plan, shop for and prepare the recipes at home (as per the book's instructions), documenting my findings as I go. I'll occasionally test the fully-cooked results at home and on unsuspecting friends, but mostly I'll use them in the field, which I intend to do as often as practicable.

In addition to the already-noted points, I intend to examine:

• Overall quality of the book: printing, readability, illustrations; durability of the binding after repeated use
• Usability of the book while actually planning and cooking the recipes, as opposed to just browsing them: layout, organization, indexing, ease of finding and making sense of recipes and other information; ability to lay flat for ease of use while cooking
• Ultimate usefulness of the book's non-recipe content: do the tips and suggestions turn out to be helpful?
• Cooking tests at home: how easy are recipes to follow; how do they turn out? How much work is required?
• Cooking tests in the field: same as above, plus additional factors of elevation, stove type, pot type, incorporation of pre-cooked or home-dehydrated elements
• Taste tests: how do I like the recipes I try; how do friends feel about them?
• Accuracy of portioning: admittedly a subjective criterion, but how accurate are the portion sizes; can I rely on them in menu planning and purchasing of ingredients?
• Speaking of purchasing ingredients, are the suggested ingredients easy to find? Are the recipes reasonable in cost both in literal terms (ingredients and other supplies) and abstract terms (time and effort)
• Do factors such as pot size and composition or stove type make a difference in cooking or results?
• Is it easy to adjust recipes for altitude, group size or other factors?
• Nutrition: does the book's info turn out to be useful for menu planning, including for snow camping trips where calorie density is important?
• Does anyone ask for seconds?

I'll endeavor to take photographs of recipes (even though the book contains a subsection labeled "Eating Ugly Food"). For each test I'll also provide some basis for objective analysis by recording weather conditions, location, elevation, and cooking equipment used, along with my subjective impressions of the recipes.

Summary

"Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'" is a nicely-designed, user-friendly book of vegetarian recipes for backpackers. The book provides a good variety of recipe types and tastes, plus a well-thought-out set of accompanying tips, data, and background information.

Things I like so far:

• Pleasing, well-thought-out book design and information layout
• Good variety of recipes
• Thorough information provided for each recipe, including portioning, nutrition and weight

So far I have nothing to note as a dislike regarding the book itself. I'm looking forward to testing it!

Thanks to BackpackGearTest and Globe Pequot Press for giving me the opportunity to participate in this test.

Reviews > Books > Cook Books > Lipsmackin Vegetarian Backpackin > Steve Nelson > Initial Report