Trail food - The Solar Funnel Cooker How to Make and Use The BYU Solar Cooker/Cooler by Steven E. Jones, Professor of Physics at Brigham Young University (BYU)

Initiate Joined: Jun 20, 2007 Posts: 430

Trail food is anything you eat while hiking or during brief rests, like a coffee or tea break, during a trek/hike/march.

These days, most people think of a mixture of nuts and dried fruit as trail food, but in fact such mixtures, while nutritious, are far from ideal. They are relatively expensive, and most importantly, they taste too good. The ideal trail food is unappetizing, so no one is tempted to eat too much. No one complains much if it is rationed.

So for the past few days I've been baking hardtack, also known as sea biscuits. Hardtack is basically flour and water, with a little salt. It is baked until it is very hard. If you can bite into a piece without breaking a tooth, it is too soft. The baking makes it very resistant to decomposition.

The classic recipe for hard tack is to combine four cups of flour with 1 cup of water and a level teaspoon full of salt. This is kneaded and rolled out into a sheet between 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick. You then use a pizza-cutter knife to divide it into squares 2 or 3 inches wide, and poke some holes in the top with a large barbecue fork. Bake at 400 degrees for an hour, turn over, and bake at 250 degrees for another hour.

Notice there is no leavening. I tried a modified recipe I found that included some Bisquick, which is basically flour with some baking powder added, and the biscuits delaminated, so I do not recommend leavening.

The hard biscuits are traditionally dipped into a cup of tea. By the time you're finished drinking the tea, the biscuit should be soft enough to eat. These hard tack biscuits were a staple of the diet for both the royalist and the colonialist soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

I decided that the recipe could use some improvement. To the ingredients mentioned above, I added 1/3 teaspoon of red pepper--just enough to give it a little taste. I tried adding sugar, but the taste is far too appealing, so I recommend you leave that out. Also add 1 tablespoon of lard, heated so it is liquid. Use lard because it is saturated fat. Saturated fat does not peroxidize the way unsaturated fats do, so it lasts much longer. Add a little more water, up to 4-1/2 cups total, and roll it out on a cutting board so it is 1/4 inch deep (7mm). Then cut in small circles. I'd like to find a cookie cutter that cuts a hole in the center, like a donut, but for now I'm just using a pill bottle to make the cuts.

Lightly grease the baking sheet, and cover it with a very thin layer of flour and salt. Then bake as described above.

The result is some very hard biscuits measuring about 1 to 1-1/2 inches in diameter. You can put one in your mouth while hiking, and eventually it softens to the point where you can eat it. The biscuits are all a uniform size, so you can store them in a round container, like 1-1/2 inch PVC tubing for example.

Hardtack made like this will supply your caloric needs to keep you going. It will not supply much protein--for that you need jerky or pemmican. Does anyone have a favorite jerky recipe?

Recruit Joined: Sep 14, 2007 Posts: 140

Fresh meat can be hunted. Jerky is not known for its nutritional value, but the protein is enough to repair your day-to-day muscle damage. Do NOT use store-bought jerky. It is crammed with all kinds of flavorings that strain your digestive tract.

I would also recommend buying a desiccator to dry out and help preserve apples, bananas and some vegetables. (it may also help dry out the jerky faster)

Recruit Joined: Jul 03, 2007 Posts: 237

know what wild plants are available to eat in each season. know where to find them and be able to recognize them on the spot. know how to trap smaller animals using ingenuity. know how to shelter yourself quickly and easily. avoid bear liver. know how to get drinking water "where there is no drinking water".

Newbie Joined: Jun 18, 2007 Posts: 90

What a good idea for a thread !

Instant food like Rice, noodles, instant mash potatos.
Freeze dried chow or dehydrated fruits & vegetables

A dehydrater is a good investment !!! Your food will last a long time, and helps eliminate the weight of food

my opinion befores its mention:
I hate MREs cause there expensive and bulky.! And taste horrible

Initiate Joined: Jun 20, 2007 Posts: 430

Quote:

know what wild plants are available to eat in each season. know where to find them and be able to recognize them on the spot.

I lived on fish (that I caught), milkweed pods, and dandelion greens for a month once. Threw away all my other cooking stuff and just carried a chinese wok, which is good for everything.

But always carry salt. Food gets pretty boring without it.

Recruit Joined: Jul 03, 2007 Posts: 237

yes to salt. to understand its importance, know that the word salary comes from the word salt. if you live where you can make your own salt, learn to do so. search the internet for cheap and easy ways to build a solar cooker.

Recruit Joined: Sep 14, 2007 Posts: 140

know that the word salary comes from the word salt
Roman soldiers were paid with cakes of salt.

Pickled anything lasts for a long while.
Learn how to make a hobo dinner in aluminum foil. Its a very good technique for meat and vegetable dinners.
Candy bars are a great energy boost and a poor meal.

and above all, stay away from the poppies.... wink*

Also, if you exorcise often your body becomes much more efficient handling water and food.

**Member** Joined: Jul 02, 2007 Posts: 614

i found this link to how to build a solar cooker for very cheap.

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker

**Member** Joined: Apr 25, 2007 Posts: 1094

Regarding a good jerky recipe, I like to keep it simple.

Thin slice organic raw meat, throw into a bowl of dry seasonings mixed with something like a-1 steak sauce, and dehydrate in oven, solar oven, or in the sun with some screen on top to keep the flies off. Every time I make some jerky I adapt the recipe according to what I have.

I have tried just dehydrated raw meat, and it doesn't taste bad.

You gotta understand that using the concept of gradualism and subtle 'brainwashing-like' techniques, people associated with the 'money masters' have duped the majority of the population around the world to think that:

Raw milk is unhealthy and dangerous.

Meat is unsafe to eat raw.

Water is unsafe to drink unless processed with chemicals or is from a city supply.

Human waste is dangerous and unhealthy.

etc......

I have only drank raw milk (not pasteurized) for the last ~3 years and have had no problems, tastes way better, ........so many good things, it lasts longer too. Of course only drink totally organic or biodynamic raw milk, and ideally get it locally, and/or from a cow you know.

My friend's mom has only ate raw food for the past 7 years. This includes raw meat, about a fist size or more each day. No problems. I have not had any problems eating raw meat since the time I started experimenting with it ~ 2 years ago. Find a totally organic or biodynamic source.

In 3rd world countries, it has recently been found that something called a biosand filter (extremely easily made) can filter water very, very well. I researched the concept online, and all my drinking water from the rain, I put through the 'biosand filter'. I made it halfway through the summer, and have had about 30 gallons so far without any incident. The scum layer that forms on the top of the sand after about 2 weeks is what really does the fine filtration and bacteria cleansing/eating.

I have been humanure composting for about 3.5 years now. As a result, I get killer fertilizer, safe for my garden, non-smelling, I don't shit or piss into clean drinking water like the majority of society, it doesn't use any water, I don't have to get a permit, buy a porcelain throne, buy pipes, or cut holes in my home to install, I don't have to dig a leech field sp? or buy a septic tank,... Anyone around the world can do it with what they have laying around. I recommend the funny, technical, Humanure handbook by Joe Jenkins free online.

....

These are all ways to starve the beast, to boycott the 'money masters' behind most of the contrived chaos in the world. By getting back to nature, you become more and more independent, you cut out any middlemen that you are dependent on (and therefore a slave to), and can be all powerful yourself, and therefore, become the ultimate asset to yourself and community around you, able to smell lies all around you and see how brainwashed most people are by the latest gadgets, movies, tv, drugs, vitamins, designer clothes, fancy cars, mansions, fast or overly expensive dining, processed food, ......

Life can be sooo simple, beautiful, fun, and shockingly easy for all, if people would only snap out of thinking things have to be so complex and making things complex.

Initiate Joined: Jun 20, 2007 Posts: 430

Raw milk used to be a source of tuberculosis. If TB becomes prevalent again--as it might, because there's a new drug-resistant type--then at that point you may need to re-think the raw milk thing.

As for raw meat, there are reasons to cook it, but there are also reasons not to. Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) caused by cooking are a major carcinogen. If you just steam meat, very few HCAs are formed, but if you barbeque and singe the meat, a lot are formed. There is much literature on this--here's a link to start with, if anyone's interested: http://www.ncc.go.jp/en/nccri/annrep/1992/acts/14car.html

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Getting back to trail food... It's useful to have an insulated wide-mouth container that will hold hot liquids. These containers are very inexpensive. You can pour hot water onto a variety of different foods and then open it later, and the food is all prepared.

Ramen is an example. That's the Chinese soup that costs twenty-five cents or so per packet. If you open a packet and crush the noodles, it makes 3/4 of a cup (6 oz, 175 ml). So all you have to do is buy a box of several ramen packets, crush it all up, and put it in a single container. Measure out 3/4 cup--or whatever you want--when you need it. The flavor pouches can be kept separately.

Recruit Joined: Jul 03, 2007 Posts: 237

http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm

Quote:

The Solar Funnel Cooker

How to Make and Use The BYU Solar Cooker/Cooler

by Steven E. Jones, Professor of Physics at Brigham Young University (BYU), with Colter Paulson, Jason Chesley, Jacob Fugal, Derek Hullinger, Jamie Winterton, Jeannette Lawler, and Seth, David, Nathan, and Danelle Jones.