A new range of high-end, high-tech options is dramatically changing the camping-food experience.
"The camp kitchen has definitely come a long way in the last 10 years," says Vince Beasse, a buyer for the Vancouver-based Mountain Equipment Co-op.
For long-distance hikers and climbers, today's add-water mixes are worlds away from astronaut food. MEC's bestsellers sound like entries from a takeout menu: kung pao chicken, tandoori curry and garlic-fried pesto bread. Organic and vegetarian choices also abound.
Campsite cooks can also make fresh meals from scratch more easily than ever before. "Stoves have been refined so they simmer a lot better," Beasse says.
There's even a new, easy-to-pack wok - perfect for this year's must-have accessory, folding chopsticks - and the Outback Oven, a $51 stovetop pan ($85 for an ultralight version) that can make dishes such as pizza and focaccia on the trail, and brownies "just about as good as your mom made," Beasse says.
Sadly, trail sommeliers have been slow to catch up. "I haven't seen dehydrated beer or powdered wine," Beasse says.
For the budding trail gourmet, a variety of new camping-food books are worth the weight they'll add to your backpack. A good guide for grown-up food is Claudine Martin's The Wilderness Chef: Gourmet Recipes for the Great Outdoors (The Lyons Press, $19.95). Martin is a French-trained chef whose recipes are based on a career working on backcountry expeditions. She offers menus for every conceivable type of trip, from sea kayaking to llama trekking to New Year's Eve in a yurt. Martin's tips include using clarified butter in Tetra Paks and honey flakes to make food lighter to carry and longer-lasting. Her instructions make even Stracciatelle and Wilderness Tempura look easy.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Cooking on a Stick: Campfire Recipes for Kids (Gibbs Smith Publishers, $15.95) by Linda White and Fran Lee. Recipes range from "snail on a limb" (batter that's twisted around a campfire stick and baked for a simple snack) to Chameleon Dinner, a stew that cooks inside an aluminum foil pouch.
In between those extremes is Chef in your Backpack: Gourmet Cooking in the Great Outdoors by Nicole Bassett (Arsenal Pulp Press, $21.95). Bassett, an avid camper raised in British Columbia, focuses on recipes for doctored standards such as Kraft Dinner and "Designer Granola," along with West Coast favourites such as Shrimp Jambalaya and trail originals such as Risotto-without-the-pain-o.
The Internet is also a useful source of camp-food information. Before leaving, many campers search the archive of cooking tips, menu planning and recipes at www.about.com.
If there's any one thing experts recommend, it's doing as much preparation in advance as possible, from writing the recipes for meals on baggies containing their ingredients to preparing in advance anything you can, rather than making it from scratch on the trail.
Meanwhile, a trend toward healthy versions of traditional camping food has also changed what you can take from home. Toronto's Whole Foods, for instance, stocks salmon jerky, natural marshmallows and whole-wheat rolls for its veggie dogs, as well as ingredients for organic bannock.
This recipe for marshmallows embodies the new camping food: traditional with a twist.
Homemade Marshmallows
Ingredients: 3 envelopes of Knox gelatin 61/27 cup cold water 2 cups granulated sugar 62/37 cup corn syrup 61/47 cup water 61/47 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon vanilla extract Confectioners' sugar for dredging
Instructions:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 61/27 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes. Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 61/47 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Scrape into a 9.x.9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly. (Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper). After pouring marshmallow mixture into the pan, take another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan. Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners' sugar and cut into 12 equal pieces with scissors or a chef's knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners' sugar.
Recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook, by Thomas Keller, Artisan Publishers, 2000.