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Been Hungry on a Trip?

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I don’t recall ever being really starved without some grub. I’ve run out of water on a tidal trip, never food.

The hungriest ever was a mid-70’s trip with a recently converted “natural foods” freak friend. He insisted we bring grits-based all-natural rehydrateable meals, a very early entry into that market from the hippie health food store. They were as disgusting as anything I have ever forced down, and I like grits.

Let’s just say there were lots of cold grits leftovers that even he couldn’t eat. I have never been so starved for oils and fats; we hit the first backwoods country store we found on the way out, and sat in the car eating Slim-Jims and making peanut butter and jam on Wonderbread sandwiches.

Yes, Mr. Natural himself dug in. It may still be a Top-Ten lunch; three of us destroyed an entire loaf of bread and jar of Skippy. I think I had a Yoo-hoo to wash it down.
 
Around the same time six of us were planning a multi-day canoe trip and one of the paddlers said he'd arrange and prepare the meals. Since Gordon kept a kosher diet we'd just go without bacon for a few days so we agreed that he'd be the cook. What none of us knew was that Gordon's mother was Mexican - needless to say the food burned going in and burned coming out. In hindsight it seems funny but at the time one or another of the canoes pulled over to shore every 15 or 20 minutes and one of us (not Gordon) ran off into the woods and you'd hear the moan. The last couple of days of the trip I lived on bread and water.
 
Back in 2000 my buddy Hal and I were on a month long trip. We came off the Sebois River and onto the Penobscot which made for about a 30 mile day in our solo boats, solo in we were paddling solo in a MRE and an OT Disco 158, oh so light and graceful crafts. We had been running low on food and at Whetstone Rapids we found a sweet site but we were toast. Looking in the food bags we had some Bisquick, powdered milk and garlic powder and not a whole lot else. I think there was a couple bags of Mountain House neither of us could manage to get down our craws. I cooked up some basically garlic pancakes and goldang were they good but there wasn't enough! Next day we made it to Medway the whole way Hal moaning about spaghetti and meatballs. I was fantasizing about 20 or 30 different meals to eat once we found a diner or something.

We carted our canoes to a campground where we met the owner who put us up in a Hutnick, basically a human doghouse and told us the gas station down the road had a restaurant attached to it. God what a menu! We order this and then that and then some more. The waitress asked if we were those guys "walking" their canoes up the road as she brought dish after dish. We had a good rapport with her and at one point she said, "Boys, take a break, sit back and then get back at the food, that's what I do!" I think I fell in love with her hefty build and cheery eyes and did that! A good twenty minutes passed before I tackled the rest of my dishes, yes plural, and finished every crumb!

Well, all that food into a starved belly made for that "OH GAWD, I ATE TOO MUCH, IT HURTS TO WALK!" feeling and I'll tell you it did! Of course we stopped for a 12 pack of beer and I have never seen 2 people make a single beer last so long. Every sip would be met with, "Awwwww dang it that hurts!" I remember laying on the picnic table on my side because I it just hurt too much to move. It made a Thanksgiving meal look like a snack. I think it was the bugs that made us almost crawl into the Hutnick with such moaning and groaning I was worried about keeping the neighbors up. I have never been so full in my life and have remembered that gastronomical event ever since and use better judgement!

dougd
 
I wasn't hungry on the trip but Doug's report reminded me of the end of my 43 day trip a couple years ago. It was about 150 miles from the takeout to the first food (an outfitter) where I stopped for a breakfast of french toast and potatoes. I asked for extra french toast and potatoes when I ordered. When the waitress brought the food I couldn't believe how much they put on the plate! But I sat right there and ate it all.

The waitress was impressed but the cook came out and said she wasn't surprised at all, that the canoers always eat all their food.

Alan
 
Well no not hungry. But yes cravings. The Keg ( a chain of restaurants in Canada) used to have unlimited salad bar in their Thunder Bay location... For years TB was our first night out location after paddling Quetico or Woodland Caribou or Wabakimi., We craved greens. This was in the days before we got better at dehydrating vegetables for use on the trip.

We were in arms when the Keg dismantled its salad bar.

I admit to a weakness for poutine after a La Verendrye trip. There is a good shack in Grand Remous.
 
Well no not hungry. But yes cravings. The Keg ( a chain of restaurants in Canada) used to have unlimited salad bar in their Thunder Bay location... For years TB was our first night out location after paddling Quetico or Woodland Caribou or Wabakimi., We craved greens. This was in the days before we got better at dehydrating vegetables for use on the trip.

We were in arms when the Keg dismantled its salad bar.

I admit to a weakness for poutine after a La Verendrye trip. There is a good shack in Grand Remous.

Pretty much every little place along the 117 have its poutine place, just in Lac des Écorces I think there is 2 or 3 of them... My wife is from that area so we spend a bit of tie every summer... I don't like poutine lol
 
I don't remember ever being hungry or starving on any trips, but craving for sure, bread, cheese, greens, chips.... This year on our 17 days Wind River trip, we didn't bring candies, just "healthy" stuff, dried mango, bananas, apples, fruit leather( all of it home made) and lots of nuts... I thought for sure I would have been craving the candies you know jellybeens, gummy bears, RealFruit jelly candy etc etc... But I didn't. Same for beer, we didn't haven beer and I didn't crave it to bad, we had a bit of scotch and some wine!
 
The oddest “provisions” episode was a trip with a 1[SUP]st[/SUP] time newbie family; my foursome and their foursome, out for an easy 4-day summer weekend on a lake. I had prepped and packed most of the food, and brought a couple day’s extra and some treats, just in case.

Their kids were picky eaters. Mine will scrape the plate clean of whatever you put in front of them. The weather and venue were awesome. As hoped for we stretched out two extra days, and still had sufficient, if not exactly ample or varied, food remaining.

The other Missus, perhaps accustomed to looking at a full pantry, began visibly freaking out about our diminishing food stocks at every meal, counting slices of bread, fretting about serving sizes and begging her kids “Just eat another two bites”. She noted (with some irritation) that my sons were happily eating their portion, and any offer of leftovers in the pot.

We still paddled out after a week with a half day’s food left. I suspect they stopped an hour away at the first Mickey D’s for a couple happy meals. Admittedly, I’ll do fast food in a just-off-the-Inter State, need to keep making miles scenario.

On returns from long family trips, 12 or 14 hours to home, our favorite was a pizza place with an all-you-can-eat salad bar. We could do some damage to a good salad bar (and walked out of a few places that had naught but iceberg lettuce, tomato wedges and cucumber slices).

One slice of pizza and three groaning plate trips to the salad bar each, put the rest of the pie in a carry out box and eat it cold from the cooler still making miles 8 hours later. Most often that was two pies, with leftovers in the cooler for when we got home and needed something handy before disgorging, drying out and repacking gear.

For just me, if I can find one that looks promising, a post-trip roadside diner rules; all-day breakfast. Always a side of real grits down south. Or classic open face beef or turkey and mashed potatoes, smothered in gravy. And a glorious glass of cold milk.

I’m the only one in my family who really drinks milk, and I/we never got in the habit of bringing it, powdered, fresh or the long shelf life stuff. A glass of milk with my peanut butter sandwich lunch might be worth a try.
 
I don't recall anyone complaining about food on any of our trips. The kids ate what was put in front of them. House rules=camp rules. But Mom relaxed those just a bit, omitting the children's' gag inducing vegetables of asparagus, green beans and mushrooms. Easy menu tweaks to do. We enjoyed what we often did at home. One time however we surprised them with a collection of those mini cereal boxes. Even brought along some milk. It kept well on the cool October trip. It musta felt like Christmas to the little critters, choosing their very own tiny cereal, Mom and Dad delicately opening it up so it would serve as cereal bowl, letting them pour/spill the milk. All the empty cardboard cereal and milk containers went into the evening fire. The next morning it was back to the hum drum yum of pancakes, bacon and eggs.
I now recall I might have unwittingly swayed a democratic decision made by my two sons on a rained out weekend. Son #2 had neglected to properly store his clothing in his pack. I had neglected to ensure the tent was leakproof. The end result was a soggy son. I proposed for a vote to decide whether we'd call it a shortened trip or continue on. Son #1 has always been a trooper, so he voted for staying. I consoled son #2 that voting for going home was okay, no shame in not wanting to make it work out, and here I might've made a mistake. I suggested if they wanted we could pack up and paddle/portage out to grab a pizza on the way home. I failed to notice their eyes lighting up like big 8" pies. That swung the vote to a tie, and I liking pizza the way I do cast the deciding vote. Instead of tucking in to whatever camp meals I'd planned and packed for the remainder of the trip hours later we tucked in to large pepperoni pizza and pop in own. It all worked out just fine.
 
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When I was 17-18 in the mid 80s, I went trout fishing with my dad and brother in Potter County PA. I had them drop me off at the top of a hollow. My plan was to fish down the hollow to a lake they were fishing. Looking at at map I thought it would be 3-4 hours. . I didn't take any food or water. 8 hours later I crawled up a bank at the first bridge I came to. Thank GOD, I found a country store. I bought a one gallon jug of spring water, ice cold, which was weird b/c it was pre-bottled water. That was the best water I've ever had.
 
In the old days we would just let people bring the meals assigned to them. Bad Choice! Some people think the servings rating on the packages mean something near the truth. Worst case was a trip that where one person required that he provide all the food. The prep questions seemed impressive and it looked to me a well thought out trip plan. Details were right down to how many cups of what in the morning do you drink and how many sugar packets or creamer do you use daily. I was a little shocked when the larder only contained one small bottle of instant coffee for 4 heavy coffee drinkers. Food was the same surprise and it was cold and wet most of the time. I was hanging on to my ration of Baker's baking chocolate squares for times of low sugar symptoms. My ribs were showing through my shirt by the time I got to a store. Boy, the big container of Haagen Daze ? icecream sure went down nicely for dessert.
 
My stepdaughter was scheduled to cook the evening meal on a trip to Algonquin. I ask her before we left what she was planning to cook, "Fish and noodles", Where is the Fish coming from? We're going to catch it. Have a backup if you don't.
So on the afternoon she was to cook there was some mad fishing going on, but no fish. We had noodles with Olive oil, and Basil. After 'The Meal' I broke out the cheese, pepperoni, and crackers and all was well.

Other than that we usually eat like Royalty.
 
The guy who ran the school club before me was "frugal". His frugality transcended any cheapskate I had ever known. It occupied all aspects of his life, but showed up particularly in his meal planning for the canoe trips. A shortage of food, combined with bad cooking from pubescent 14 year old boys with a lack of knowledge of any sort of basic hygiene, led to the annual two week fast and exercise camp, also known as a canoe trip.

On one particularly bad trip, I estimated that we were eating about 700 calories a day, while probably expending over 5000. Most of the kids were in the know, and the main content of their packs was food, at the expense of clean gitchies or other items that could contribute to cleanliness, such as soap. One cook in particular, was so filthy that I couldn't bring myself to eat anything he touched.

I survived off Drum tobacco in the pouch, can still taste those home rollies, and sunflower seeds. Hunger disappeared by day three, to be replaced by food fantasies. The most I lost was 27 pounds, the least 15. It was a good way to start the summer, get the old bikini bod back, and also a great developer of perseverance. When I took over, I went crazy with the food, made sure the calorie count per kid was over 3000 a day. Needless to say, the fat farm results took a nose dive, and some people, myself included, actually gained weight on trips.
 
I suggested if they wanted we could pack up and paddle/portage out to grab a pizza on the way home. I failed to notice their eyes lighting up like big 8" pies. That swung the vote to a tie, and I liking pizza the way I do cast the deciding vote.

On family trips we have camp pizza once or twice every trip. Pie iron pizzas.

When my sons were 10 they each won a pie iron as a club award for the year’s Highest Kid Mileage*. My wife questioned whether we really needed two of them. We did, and do; everyone makes a personal pie or, usually, two. Four people = eight pies, the two irons are in constant still-hot rotation.

The pie irons have come on every family trip since. We have made other stuff with them, deserts and even breakfast when we have had an early fire to linger around burned down to coals, but we always have an evening meal or two of pie iron pizzas.

The best parts:
Everyone gets to play chef make their own (with some competition for the perfect pie)
Simple and easy to prepare and cook in the coals
Tasty as heck, hot and caloric, with “toppings”** made to order
Zero leftovers and zero pots, pans or utensil clean up, just wipe down the cast iron after the last pies are made.

*Ok, I was responsible for tabulating everyone’s mileage*** and providing the prizes. Many prizes; high mileage dog award, lowest mileage award (0.8 miles all time; one of my best friends, I took his dog on a short daytrip just to make certain he would forever hold the bottom slot).

Best swim award, camp chef of the year, forgotten gear award and etc other esoteric episode awards, comically pointed for memorable mishaps. But since the boys came on every trip, they were always kids #1 and #2.

**Toppings are actually “innards”, they are really calzones.

***Ok, I was always #1 in adult mileage and my wife #2, for the same reason. Since I was providing the prizes those high mileage awards were always quite nice pieces of gear (as were kid and adult #3 awards). I think just the bragging rights for the number 3 slot encouraged people to keep coming back.

As much as anything it made for a helluva party, with a lot of attendees and laughter late into the night. Coincidentally, every year, those 1[SUP]st[/SUP] and 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Place Adult and Kid prizes were bits of gear we needed or wanted. What are the odds?
 
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