Often people, even who have successfully gone through the hell of preparing a grocery layout, hanging food and packaging it, begin to suffer on a hike, not being able to organize the process, spending hours on cooking.
Let's figure out how to do this as conveniently as possible. There are different approaches that depend on the number of people in the group, available material resources (equipment, money), expected weather conditions, group objectives, skills of the participants, etc.
This article is about the organization. To get acquainted with the equipment, you need to read about cookware for tourism and an educational program about burners.
The most popular in the post-Soviet space is cooking once for the whole group with one or two participants, so we’ll start with that.
Group cooking
For her, they usually take two containers for cooking - one for food and the second for tea.
At the stake
The most popular method due to its cheapness. Apart from fire pits and means for lighting a fire, you essentially don’t need anything. Saws and a fire rope are additional things, they will be discussed below.
An important point - 1 (one) person makes a fire! Increasing the number of experts in making a fire only increases the time for this process. If you think that you have experience, and the situation does not require the instant appearance of a fire (no one is hypothermic, wet, etc.), do not interfere with others from training - otherwise they will never learn. If the task is not worth training, then it is optimal for the leader of the hike to light the fire - this way he will remain in the center of events, will be able to redistribute human resources, answer brilliant questions from the participants, etc.
This same person can cook, but it will be better if they still help him. The best option is one fireman, the other a cook.
EVERYONE collects firewood. It is advisable to send part of the group (male) for firewood immediately upon arrival at the parking lot. The rest join in collecting firewood by setting up tents. Firewood is immediately collected in such a volume that there is enough for cooking dinner, evening gatherings, possible drying of things and for breakfast. In order to quickly boil cana, you need a LOT of small twigs, preferably spruce ones. To make the fire burn longer, for warmth, you need large logs.
This is the main disadvantage of cooking over a fire - it takes a lot of time and effort from a large number of people.
The process will speed up if you suspended the ropes over the fire using a cable or crossbar and slings. If this cannot be done, then you need to use oval cans, which will boil faster than round ones if they are placed near the fire with their long side.
No attachments are used, but there is a danger of tipping over 
Hanging exactly above the fire is often not an easy technical task
The speed of cooking also greatly depends on the availability of good firewood (the coniferous forest is a paradise for this), the experience of the fireman, and the efficiency of the firewood collectors. If the people in the group are stupid and lazy, then you won’t be able to quickly eat and warm up.
When cooking over a fire in the morning, it is extremely advisable to appoint people on duty - two people who will get up before the general rise and light the fire and supply water. Then, by the time of the general rise, it will, God willing, boil. If those on duty don’t have firewood in the morning, you will leave the parking lot by lunchtime.
To progressively harvest firewood, you need saws. For a group of 10 people, you can take a couple of retractable hand saws and one or two chain saws. This is maximum. Remember that you mainly need small twigs for boiling water - they break and are carried by hand. No axes needed. They are heavy, and they don't do anything faster than drinking. You can take one when your group is large - 14 people.
saw from Fiskars. Compact, lightweight, easy to carry, productive 
Chain saw for two people. Felling large trees and sawing very thick logs On the burners
It is more expensive and heavier (the burners and fuel for them will weigh more than the saws for the group), but it is many times more convenient. Speed depends on what and how you use it. Captain Obviousness tells us that burners can also be used where there is no firewood at all, or where they are so wet that you cannot make a fire from them. In case of bad weather, you can cook in the vestibule of the tent/under the awning.
Everything seems clear - one person can do the cooking while the rest set up tents. You can send two people to cook. After everyone has set up their tents, they can go about their business, and someone changes the cook so that he can also throw his things into the tent. All. No running around with firewood.
In the morning there is no need to assign duty officers - everyone gets up. The first one to emerge from the tent turns on the burner and places the pot on it. (It was washed and filled with water in the evening, right?) The second one who got out replaces the first one so that he could get ready. When everyone got out and gathered, the food was ready. It is optimal if the team is united, when his things are collected first while he prepares food.
Common mistakes:
- using an oval channel on the burner instead of a round one. Reading an article about camping utensils. In short, an oval can does not heat evenly, and the water in it will take longer to heat up compared to a round one. If the burner flame extends beyond the edges of the narrow channel, then you generally lose half the energy. (It’s not for nothing that you have round pots and round burners in your kitchen at home). Sometimes two burners are placed under an oval kettle, but this leads to a very large waste of fuel, and I would also place the second burner under the second tea pot so that everything can be cooked at the same time.
- the use of low-power gas burners under large-volume boilers. Consider that all gas burners on a boiler of 5 liters or more will be low-power. And if the temperature is below zero, then forget about boiling water altogether. The solution is gasoline. Those. We buy gasoline or multi-fuel burners. Yes, they cost 12,000 rubles each, but if you often go hiking, they will pay for themselves due to the price of gasoline. To understand the burners, read mine.)
- lack of wind protection. Use a special screen or even create a barrier with a rug.
Try to use dishes with a radiator to the maximum - it saves 30% of fuel and boiling time. For group cooking, a large saucepan is best so you can cook a lot of boiling water at once. It can be placed on any burner. If you plan to cook something later, you can pour the water into a regular saucepan and cook it in it over low heat. Pour new water into the radiator pan and cook boiling water for tea in it. This is the fastest way to cook in groups. This is exactly what happens.
On the left is a regular 5-liter round pot, on the right is a 3-liter radiator pot from Primus Boilers with a radiator, especially large ones, are expensive and difficult to find on sale. For example, I bought mine several years ago for 3,500 rubles, but now I couldn’t even find you a link to a store in the Russian Federation.
If you couldn’t get hold of large-volume radiator dishes, or you still decide to use gas cylinders rather than gasoline, then there is the option of using Jetboil and similar low-volume systems (systems with a volume of usually from 1 liter to 1.8 liters are found, rarely more ) with their native radiator saucepans.
Let's imagine that there are 10 of us. We have a torch with a hose and a Jetboil. We put a large saucepan (4 liters) on the hose burner, but pour a little water into it - to the very bottom, just so that the saucepan does not burn, and with Jetboil we prepare boiling water and pour it into the large saucepan until we decide that it is enough. This will be faster and more economical than boiling a lot of water at once in one radiator-less container. A hose burner, even a gas one, can keep porridge/soup boiling in a large pot.
You really will be left with the question of how to prepare tea for the whole group at once. Here you will either need to carry another large pot for tea (extra weight) or pour boiling water into everyone’s mugs and brew tea in them (did you take tea bags with you?). So I recommend that everyone still find a large radiator pan.
If you take grains on a hike that do not need to be cooked, but can simply be poured with boiling water, the cooking speed will speed up significantly.
You should not take more than 2 burners. One, especially if you are going on a long autonomous hike using gasoline, is also not worth taking. The second will be a reserve, and if everything is fine and nothing breaks, it will simply speed up the process. I tried to take three burners, but one of them was always out of use, even if there were a lot of people.
Hiking in winter with thermoses
In winter, in addition to preparing food, you need to fill all the thermoses for the day's journey. Participants must bring their own empty thermoses to have boiling water/tea poured into them. It will be more convenient if they put them in one place, then the person on duty will be able to see how much more boiling water to prepare.
The thermos battery is ready! Tent-by-tent cooking
In some cases (when you expect many days with bad weather, expect the group to be divided, and you have the opportunity to get many burners according to the number of tents), it is more convenient to organize batch cooking. We are talking about the fact that each tent does not have its own fire :)
Essentially this is the same cooking on burners, only:
- Food must be packaged in advance so that residents of one tent have their own portion;
- you are less limited in the choice of burners and fuel. Gas is even more suitable here - you need a lot of experience to safely use a gasoline burner in a tent. If you have taken cereals that just need to be brewed with boiling water, then Jetboil and the like are ideal;
- If you cook in a tent, do not forget about the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning - ventilate the tent.
Here, two burners for one tent will still be too much in terms of weight, but of course look at your tasks, maybe you are on a water trip and weight does not matter. If the burner of a tent breaks, their comrades will help them out, nothing bad will happen.
Personal cooking
Walking alone is generally a thrill. If time and conditions permit, you can use a fire. A gasoline burner here will definitely lose in weight to a gas burner, since a gasoline/multi-fuel burner itself is heavier than a gas one, and you are unlikely to take more than two cylinders on your own (rarely do you go alone for such a long time that you need more than 1 cylinder of gas).
When I go alone, it’s easier for me to boil a full pot of water (1.5 liters), draw a large mug from it and cook food in it. And in the pot I brew tea, part of which I drink during meals, and part of which I pour into a flask.
If I took a small mug, then it is too small for food, and it is not convenient to boil water for tea in it separately. Firstly, it is more difficult to remove it when it is hot because of its short, heated handles (pliers from the repair kit come to the rescue). Secondly, I don’t have enough tea - I still want to put some stock in my flask. Well, the pot then ends up with food leftovers, and you have to wash it before putting it back on the fire to make tea in reserve.
Solo hikers use different equipment and products. If you go with sublimates brewed with boiling water, then the tactics will change. If you have a Jetboil, and you decide that it is advisable to carry it, then think about whether you want to cook something in it? Or should I still take cereals brewed with boiling water? Just go over in your head how and what you will pour where and what you will boil on in your particular case.
For those who missed it: you need to read the articles about cookware for tourism and read the educational program about burners.
Join the hikes with me! I organize them through a group on VKontakte.
There are probably no people who don’t like hiking. It’s just difficult to get ready, but the process itself is very exciting, filled with various adventures and pleasant gatherings around the fire. But in order to feel comfortable, you need, first of all, to take care of your nutrition. After all, walking causes an appetite, and if you consider that a lot of energy is spent during a hike, then the food should be complete and high-calorie.
Do not forget that you need to take products with a long shelf life. All homemade “salads” must be eaten on the first day. Everyone knows that a constant attribute of a tourist is canned food. However, do not forget that they weigh a lot, so you will have to carry this load on your back. Calculate how many cans you need. Also, experienced tourists advise taking only stewed meat. This is meat that will add strength. You shouldn't take canned fish. They make you very thirsty, and catching fresh fish on a hike is not a problem. Take with you different types of cereals, if possible some potatoes, lard and onions, salt and various spices.
The hike will give you new tastes of familiar dishes
And now, finally, a halt and you can start cooking.
Porridge
A tourist's first food is porridge. Everyone prepares it the old fashioned way: boil water and pour in cereal. But it's better to do it this way. Soak the cereal in water. Then hang the pot on the fire and add finely chopped lard and, later, onions. After all this has thoroughly simmered, add the cereal. If necessary, add a little water, add salt and bring to a boil. That's all, the super porridge is ready. Believe me, your friends will be surprised by the new taste of simple porridge. You can use any cereal, but it works best with buckwheat or pearl barley.
Ear
How can you not cook fish soup while camping, especially since everyone loves to go fishing in the evening. Please note that for a good fish soup, it is advisable to use different types of fish. When the water boils in the pot, throw in the bay leaf. Carefully wrap the fish in gauze and lower it into the water. Then add potatoes. It should be coarsely chopped. In principle, nothing else is needed for fish soup, however, many people add pearl barley. As they say, not for everybody. When the fish soup is almost ready, you need to add 100 grams of vodka to the soup. Don't forget to add spices to taste. And the final touch of culinary art: before serving, take a branch from the fire and put it out in the pot. This will give the ear a special aroma.
Potato
Many people cannot do without potatoes; well, people cannot get enough without them. Of course, you can approach cooking potatoes formally, or you can use your imagination. It can be baked in coals. Although this is more difficult, it is still better than simply boiling it in a pot. If you're going to cook, do it in uniform!
Stew
Stew is the favorite dish of all tourists. You can, of course, heat it up by the fire and eat it like a hot dish. But this will be irrational. It is best to add it to porridges and soups. After all, then the dish becomes richer, higher in calories, and most importantly, much tastier. Before serving porridge or soup with stew, add raw branches to the fire to create thick smoke. The porridge will definitely absorb it and acquire a completely unique taste. Believe me, your colleagues have never tried such a dish with the aroma of real forest smoke.
Tea
If you forgot to take tea with you, it doesn’t matter. It is impossible to remain in the forest without this drink. Believe me, herbal teas will replace the best Ceylon tea for you.
When cooking on a hike, feel free to experiment, because hungry hikers are omnivores!
Camping food is a sort of Spartan version of city food. The main criterion here is weight. And if you consider that on average, on a hike, one person takes 600 grams of food for each day, then in the first days of a 10-day hike, in addition to equipment, he will have to carry about 6 kg of food.
Therefore, when compiling a list, preference is given to the lightest and most compact products: cereals, nuts, energy bars, as well as dried/freeze-dried vegetables and fruits. Dried vegetables and fruits are easy to prepare at home, in a conventional oven or in an electric dryer. After drying, their weight decreases by 10-50! times and is well restored during cooking. If you don’t want to cook yourself, you can purchase ready-made freeze-dried meals and ingredients from any of a dozen companies that produce freeze-dried foods, for example, Gala-Gala.
Basic products for a hike
- whole grain cereals (buckwheat, rice, lentils, barley);
- cereals in flakes (rolled oats, corn);
- stew in vacuum bags;
- biscuits or crackers;
- salt;
- sugar.
The most complete list of products
- dry spices (hops-suneli, Provençal herbs, etc.);
- vegetable oil;
- hard cheese;
- raw smoked sausages;
- coffee/cocoa;
- powdered milk;
- egg powder;
- mayonnaise;
- condensed milk in bags;
- bitter chocolate;
- chocolate and energy bars (Snickers, Mars, Twix, etc.);
- halva and kozinaki;
- lollipops;
- sweet cookies;
- lemon;
- garlic;
- dried fruits (dates, prunes, dried bananas and apples, dried apricots, raisins);
- nuts (hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts, almonds);
- candied fruit;
- ketchup in bags;
- lard, sudzhuk, basturma;
- pasta (some take it, some don’t);
- doshirak (convenient in a small group);
- mashed potatoes;
- freeze-dried products.
“Never skip a meal, even if you are dead tired - this is an axiom on a hike.”
What food should you not take on a hike?
- You should not take heavy and low-calorie food containing a lot of liquid to the track;
- perishable foods;
- fresh vegetables and fruits (of course, there are exceptions);
- juices;
- I eat in heavy containers or in glass.
Water and hiking drinks
Be sure to bring your own plastic container with you. The ideal individual water container is a 1.5 plastic bottle. It is convenient to replenish it in rivers and springs.
In the camp, black tea is mainly prepared, which can be varied by adding young cedar cones, rose hips, etc. Coffee and cocoa are prepared less frequently, and cocoa is also a difficult drink to get drunk on.
Classic breakfast, lunch and dinner on a hike
The classic writing technique is quite modest and looks something like this for a large group.
- Breakfast. Porridge from cereals or flakes with raisins, biscuits with cheese or sausage, tea/coffee/cocoa.
- Lunch-snack. Biscuits with cheese or sausage, dried fruits and nuts, energy bars.
- Lunch at the camp. Soup + biscuits with something, tea.
- Dinner. Cereal porridge with stew, biscuits with cheese or sausage, tea.
Of course, for a small group the menu can be varied. For a large one for 15-20 people, it’s quite difficult. In a small group, to quickly prepare breakfast and dinner, it is convenient to use packaged cereals (such as Uvelka), which just need to be poured with boiling water.
What's best for a midday snack?
For a one-day hike, creating a “delicious” snack menu is not difficult. For a multi-day hike, it is quite monotonous and differs only in chocolate bars.
- biscuits with hard cheese or raw smoked sausage;
- dried fruits and nuts;
- candied fruit;
- energy bars (Mars, Snickers, Bounty, Twix, etc.).
Calculation of products per person. Tourist layout
Layout - a food set for one of the meals for the whole group. Knowing the route, the size of the group, the duration of daily marches and rest days, you can decide on a set of products in layouts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The day and type of meal is indicated on the packaging of each layout. This ensures a balanced menu for the entire duration of the trip.
How many products to take
Depends on the difficulty of the hike. On average, from 500 to 800 grams of uncooked (dry) foods per person per day.
Layout example
Approximate weight of products for laying out.
After the daily menu has already been compiled, multiply the weight of food for each meal by the number of hikers.
Porridge is the most important food on a hike.
| Products | Weight in grams (per adult tourist, per meal) |
| Cereals | 80-100 |
| Hercules and other cereals | 60-80 |
| Mashed potatoes | 60-80 |
| Hard cheese | 30-40 |
| Salo/basturma | 20-40 |
| Smoked sausage | 30-40 |
| Stew | 50-60 |
| Dried meat | 20-25 |
| Powdered milk | 20-30 |
| Candied fruit | 20-30 |
| Nuts | 15-30 |
| Dried fruits | 40-50 |
| Chocolate bars | 50-60 |
| Biscuits/crackers | 40-50 |
| Pasta | 90-110 |
| Semolina | 50-60 |
| Garlic | 5-10 |
| Lemon | 5 |
| Products | Weight in grams (per tourist per day) |
| Salt | 5-7 |
| Sugar | 20-30 |
| Tea | 8-10 |
| Spices | 5-10 |
When drawing up the layout, take into account the possible allergic intolerance of some products by the participants of the hike and the presence of vegetarians.
What to consider in the layout for children
- take care of mandatory hot lunches;
- add additional vitamins and proteins to the menu;
- portions in the layout for preschoolers can be safely halved, except for sweets.
The video shows an example of a tourist layout. Talks about porridges and freeze-dried foods.
More than a dozen companies produce freeze-dried products in Russia.
During sublimation, most of the moisture is removed by vacuum, but all taste, color, minerals and trace elements are preserved. The weight of the products is reduced by 5-10 times. Next, everything is packaged in vacuum bags.
The range of products and ready-made dishes is quite wide, including freeze-dried pickles, sour cream, shrimp and omelettes.
What's the best way to store and pack food while camping?
Usually everything is packaged and packed in plastic bags, preferably two or three. Some people prefer to pack it in sealed plastic containers. It is better to pour liquid products from factory packaging into sparkling water bottles.
In the camp, to protect food from animals, it is better to put it in durable plastic containers at night or hang it in a backpack on a tree. Under no circumstances should you leave food near or in a tent overnight in areas where bears are found.
“Proper” food on the track. What is “fast” and “slow sugar”
While hiking, our body needs quite a lot of energy. The main help here is provided by carbohydrates, which are contained in all foods, but play different roles. As soon as we eat something, “fast” or “slow” sugar immediately begins to enter the blood. “Fast sugar” gives an immediate burst of energy, while “slow” sugar comes gradually, over several hours, and steadily maintains our energy level.
- “Fast sugars” include many sweets, foods high in starch, cookies, and sweet fruits.
- “Slow sugars” include many cereals and cereals, pasta, non-starchy vegetables, mushrooms, and unsweetened fruits.
Boiled or baked vegetables have a higher glycemic index, meaning they contain more sugar than fresh ones.
When choosing food for a hike, focus on cereals, in particular buckwheat - this is an ideal source of energy and microelements. And the monotony of porridges is perfectly brightened up by spices and fire smoke.
On most hikes, where the main goal is to follow a specific route, there is no time to prepare elaborate meals. You can pay attention to culinary subtleties only on simple hikes, the main purpose of which is passive relaxation and contemplation of nature, provided that the group has an experienced tourist cook.
If the cook is full of enthusiasm, but has little experience, all efforts may end in embarrassment. We must not forget that a fire or primus stove is not a gas stove, and a clearing is not a kitchen. Even an experienced housewife can find herself in a difficult position while camping. Therefore, we will refer gourmets to tourist literature, where there are recipes for many camp dishes, and talk about the most general principles of camp cooking.
The main dishes on the tourist menu are soup, thick soup, or conder, and porridge. Most camp cook failures involve water. If there is a lot of water, even with a meager diet, part of the soup or porridge will remain uneaten, and if there is not enough water, then the porridge will either be undercooked, or burn, or will turn out so thick that it will be unpleasant to eat. In addition, it must be taken into account that in a regular saucepan the more water evaporates the longer the dish is cooked, but in an autoclave there is practically no evaporation. Therefore, water must be strictly dosed. When cooking buckwheat or rice over a fire, the ratio of cereals to water should be 1:3 or 1:5. Slightly less water, about 3 volumes, will be used for millet and horns. When using an autoclave, all these products will require no more than 2 volumes of water. 3-4 volumes of water are required for semolina porridge and Hercules oatmeal. These cereals, as well as potato flakes, cannot be cooked in an autoclave. Soups cook quickly, so boiling water does not play a big role here. For soups you need about 400 g of water per person. The recommendations on the packaging of soups are not suitable for tourists.
Potato flakes or powder are very sensitive to the amount of water (instead, you can use dry potato pancakes sold in bags). In order not to spoil this tasty and nutritious product, you must follow the recommendations given on the package. If there is not enough water, the flakes will quickly thicken and become unattractive. If there is enough water, cereal prepared with milk will add pleasant variety to the menu.
The caretaker, even before setting out on the route, must know how much water is needed to prepare a particular dish, and be sure to remind the duty officers about this. Usually water is measured in mugs or its quantity is determined by the marks on the handle of the ladle.
In practice, per person there should be 4-5 ladles (0.5 l) of ready-made soup and 2-3 ladles (0.3 l) of porridge, and tea or compote - from 0.5 to 1 l. The volume of cooking utensils (including water evaporation) should be at least 0.5-0.7 liters per person.
A common question that arises among the attendants is whether to put food in cold or hot water. If foods are poorly cooked (dry meat, dried fruits, buckwheat, rice, peas, beans), they should be filled with cold water. If you have to cook in the morning, you can soak them in the evening. All other dishes are cooked in boiling water so that the contents of the cauldron do not stick together, boil over or burn. Powdered milk is diluted with warm water in a separate bowl and poured into the boiler before adding the cereal.
Pour semolina, potato flakes, Babymix and Frutolino into the cauldron with continuous stirring to prevent lumps from forming. Semolina porridge cooks for about 5 minutes, potato flakes and Babymix are ready in 1.5-2 minutes, so it’s convenient to prepare them before leaving early.
In the mountains at an altitude of 3000 meters, the boiling point of water drops to 90°C and continues to fall by 5°C for every 1500 meters of rise. Because of this, cooking time and, consequently, fuel consumption when cooking in conventional cookware increases. Hard-to-cook foods remain half-baked. Therefore, in the mountains at an altitude of more than 3500 meters, tourists cannot do without autoclaves. Unfortunately, the industry does not produce autoclaves and pressure cookers suitable for tourists. The designs of homemade autoclaves are given in the literature, so we will not dwell on them.
If food is cooked in an autoclave at high pressure, then all products are placed in cold water. After the temperature rises to 105°C, remove the autoclave from the heat, wrap it in a sleeping bag or jacket and wait until the temperature drops to 90°C. A holding time of at least 20 minutes should be considered normal. If the temperature drops quickly, hard-to-cook grains will remain soggy. In this case, you need to check the gaskets or drain some of the water from the autoclave and heat it again.
In a fully charged autoclave, at least 1/3 of the free volume should remain, where superheated steam collects, which releases heat when cooled, maintaining the temperature inside the autoclave at the boiling point for some time.
A fire or primus stove is required for cooking. Making the fire burn with an even flame throughout the entire cooking process is not an easy task, but it is necessary. If the fire burns weakly and the water does not boil, then after half an hour you need to remake the fire without wasting precious time, or fan it up by waving a sheet of duralumin or a rug. It is effective to fan a fire with your mouth through a tube, for example through a hollow tent pole. After the water has boiled, turn down the heat, otherwise the food will burn and it will be difficult to stir in the pot.
Of the huge variety of homemade products for hanging cooking utensils over a fire, the most convenient is a steel cable with hooks. In a treeless area, you can build a fireplace from stones. To prepare firewood you need an ax, and in winter you also need a two-handed saw. Campfire accessories have a lot of space in tourist literature. Therefore, in order not to repeat ourselves, we note that axes weighing 500-800 grams with a long handle are suitable for hiking. The ax should have a beard to rest on the ax handle, protecting it from loosening. The ax must be firmly placed on the ax handle and secured with a wooden wedge. To prevent the ax from slipping off due to a bad attachment or because the ax handle dries out, before going on a hike and at bivouacs, it must be soaked in water or secured with steel plates.
In the treeless zone, the source of heat is the tourist primus "Bumblebee" or the similar "Bee" and their foreign analogue "Phoebus". However, in the open air, a primus is not capable of boiling a 5-10 liter container. Therefore, to preserve heat and save fuel, it is necessary to cover the kerosene stove with a heat shield, for example, made of fiberglass. A piece of fiberglass must be hemmed at the edges and not shaken over an open dish.
Since you have to carry fuel for the primus with you, the problem of saving it is very acute.
Firstly, it is necessary to reduce losses during storage (see below), and when refueling a kerosene stove, it is necessary to pour fuel through a funnel. A lot of fuel spills when pouring from large (over 2 liters) canisters. A rubber bulb or siphon tube will help reduce losses. Canisters should not be kept close to a working stove or the entrance to a tent. After all, if the canister is poisoned and a primus fire breaks out near it or someone lights a cigarette, an explosion is possible.
Secondly, you must try not to waste fuel on evaporation of water during cooking in ordinary containers. An autoclave is indispensable for this purpose. The third reason for losses is heat dissipation into space. The kitchen must be hidden from the wind. A fiberglass heat shield will help retain heat.
For difficult winter and mountain hikes, a screen made of sheet stainless steel tape about 400 mm wide and 0.1-0.15 mm thick is very convenient (Fig. 3). Holes are cut out at the bottom of the screen through which the handles of kerosene stoves are passed and air is sucked in. Attention! A steel screen works if there is a gap of 10-15 mm between it and the cooking utensil; You can preserve it by placing small stones behind the screen.
The fourth way to save (the first three were mentioned above) is to reduce cooking time. No matter how much we isolate the primus and the dishes from the environment, losses are inevitable: and the higher the temperature of the water in the dishes, the greater the loss. Consequently, the longer the heating takes place, the more fuel is wasted. To reduce cooking time, you need to construct a heat shield as carefully as possible and increase the power of the stove.
The power of the kerosene stove can be increased by drilling out the nozzle hole by 0.1-0.2 mm and replacing the double round divider with a flat one, similar to the divider of the “Tourist” or “Ogonyok” kerosene stoves. You can put two primus stoves under one container (a primus stove with two heads is unreliable). If the primus begins to “growl”, the flame disappears, and the cutter becomes hot (dynamic combustion), it is necessary to extinguish the fire and light it again. If at the same time the primus “growls” again, you need to remove and reinstall the divider. Typically, dynamic combustion is caused by loose installation of the divider. When the temperature in the autoclave rises slowly or does not rise at all, or the water in the pan takes longer to boil than usual, there is no need to wait until all the primus filling has burned out. Check the gap between the screen and the dishes, cover the stove from the wind with a sheet of polyethylene or polyurethane foam, move the kitchen to a place protected from the wind, for example, in a tent or in a vestibule between tents installed in tandem. Generally speaking, working with a primus stove requires attention and ingenuity. The camp kitchen does not forgive negligence and indifference. A kerosene stove under a heat shield, especially a paired one, easily overheats, at which point the safety valve is triggered and the kerosene stove catches fire. The consequences can be very dire: overturned pots, burned tents, scalded and charred tourists. Therefore, the most experienced travelers increase the spring stiffness in the valve or put a plug in it. Primus tanks are made with a large margin of safety; cases of their rupture are unknown. However, the kerosene stove, covered with a screen, must be kept in the lid of its case, filled with snow or water for cooling. In this case, there is no need to worry about overheating.
The pump handles of Primus stoves are made of low-melting metal, so if there are two Primus stoves, they need to be turned in different directions, or even better, replace the handles with homemade ones, made of bronze or brass.
If all rules are followed, fuel consumption does not exceed 35 ml per person per cooking session, 60-70 ml per day. If you extract water from snow, the consumption increases to 100 ml. These indicators were tested by the author on mountain hikes at altitudes from 3 to 6 thousand meters.
The fuel for Primus stoves is pure (unleaded) gasoline, heptane or other non-toxic flammable liquid with a boiling point of about 80°C. Do not use petroleum ether, which damages the rubber gaskets of the pumps.
The reliability of a primus stove largely depends on the method of igniting it. You cannot heat a Primus stove with gasoline drained through a nozzle. At altitude and in winter, cold gasoline burns poorly and soot clogs the head. It is better to use dry alcohol or technical (denatured) alcohol. Before lighting, the primus stoves must be securely installed on a level area, and plywood must be placed under them, otherwise the snow will melt and the primus stoves will topple over.
The most common reason for Primus failure is a clogged head. If, after warming up, the primus does not ignite (the hiss of escaping vapors is inaudible), try cleaning the head by turning the key several times in different directions. If the primus does not hiss, check whether it is inflated. When it helps on pine, you will have to cool the Primus stove, unscrew the nipple and clean it and the top of the head (do not damage the needle!). Use the first guitar string or thin spring wire. Sometimes a sharp blow on the spindle with the valve open and not pressed helps. Cleaning the shut-off valve with sandpaper helps, but this will require completely disassembling the head, destroying the oil seal of the key. The seal can be restored using asbestos cord.
In Primus stoves, where the gasoline supply is shut off by a ball valve (such as “Shmel-4”), the wire will not help. You will have to unscrew the head, remove the mesh filter and release the burnt ball with a needle or awl.
By the way, to prevent the valve from burning, after turning off the kerosene stove it is useful to blow the head with gasoline vapors, turning the keys in different directions.
When the valve is cleaned, the head is installed in place. However, after this, its seal may be broken and, when ignited, a flame will appear from under the thread, or the pressure will begin to drop after several minutes of burning. You can try to restore the seal by tightening the threads. To do this, it is good to have a regular 20mm wrench in your repair kit. An O-ring specially cut from soft aluminum will also help restore the seal. It is useful to add an aspect modifier to the fuel; this reduces the failure rate.
Due to a sharp deterioration in the quality of gasoline A-76, A-72. A-66 is not recommended for use.
Product layout. Floating layout
The layout is the quantity and range of products for each day. Participants in sports hikes have probably noticed that in the first days of the route their appetite noticeably decreases, and, if the caretaker is not very experienced, a significant part of the prepared food has to be thrown away. As a result, it turns out that the group carries in its backpacks a useless load of products doomed to destruction. In such cases, some trek leaders try to force participants to eat. This is a gross mistake, fraught with decreased performance and deterioration of well-being for some tourists. The fact is that a temporary decrease in appetite is characteristic of drawing the body into a walking mode, getting used to high loads and acclimatization. After 3-6 days, adaptation is completed, and tourists begin to eat their entire portions, and by the end of the trip, even the reinforced ration turns out to be small. Meals end with the meaningful grinding of spoons on bowls and pots and bloodthirsty jokes addressed to the caretaker. Therefore, a lot depends on the correctness of the layout, that is, the distribution of food for each day of the trip. An experienced caretaker must take into account all the circumstances and create a layout with a changing, “floating” calorie content.
Here we need to make a small digression. Some tourists, more often the fair sex, try to eat less while hiking, or even go hungry altogether, in order to give grace to their figures. Some adherents of various Eastern schools and teachings are also keen on such experiments.
The author twice had to deal with hungry fainting during his campaigns, which almost cost people their lives. In the first case, the fallen man was saved by a helmet, in the second by a strong shirt collar and a nearby participant. Therefore, any experiments with fasting on the route, if they are not agreed upon in advance and are not supported by appropriate experience, must be resolutely stopped.
But let's get back to the layout. Usually in tourist literature it is proposed to use three main diets: on the “approaches” - 2800-3000 kcal, on the main part of the route - 3500-4000 kcal and up to 6500 kcal - on especially difficult, assault days. In this case, either standard daily diets are recommended, which are not at all dependent on a specific load, or it is proposed to increase calorie content in proportion to physical activity.
This approach to a tourist’s nutrition does not take into account the peculiarities of the body’s behavior under conditions of high stress, hypoxia in the mountains and cold in winter. This is approximately how fuel consumption in transport is calculated. The longer the flight, the more fuel. Or - here's the norm for you and get out as you want.
But let's understand the processes occurring in the human body during a hike, and make a layout taking them into account. Let's start with acclimatization and getting into hiking mode. In the first days of a hike, a tourist who finds himself in unusual conditions - high mountains or tundra - forces his body to adapt to a new mode of operation. Perestroika does not happen immediately and requires a lot of effort and the mobilization of all reserves. This is where the body's regulatory systems begin to operate. They, like a good commander, transfer additional reserves to the main direction at the expense of secondary sectors.
During a hike, increased stress falls on the cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous systems. Therefore, the amount of blood supplied to them increases in absolute value, but their share in the overall balance of blood circulation remains almost unchanged (Fig. 4).
The musculoskeletal system bears the greatest load; accordingly, the blood flow to the muscles sharply increases. However, while the cardiovascular system gets used to increased stress, and during a mountain hike, to a lack of oxygen, the body cannot fully compensate for all its costs. Consequently, other organs, and primarily the digestive ones, during this period are supplied with blood worse than usual.
That is why, during difficult hikes in the first days, the stomach cannot completely digest food, the liver filters the toxic substances contained in it worse, and the intestines remove toxins more slowly, thereby facilitating the absorption of harmful substances into the blood. Self-poisoning of the body begins. Then the defense mechanisms kick in. First, appetite worsens. This body requires us to reduce the amount of food and, therefore, reduce the accumulation of harmful substances.
Sometimes, most often in high altitudes, this is not enough, and the concentration of undesirable substances in the blood continues to rise. And then the body urgently cleanses the stomach and intestines of their sources. Stomach upset begins.
Poisoning causes malaise, headaches, reduced performance and ultimately reduces the participant's BDP. This is why you shouldn’t force yourself to eat at the beginning of a hike. Such poisonings are especially difficult in the mountains. By reducing the body's resistance, they aggravate the severity of mountain sickness. With proper nutrition, many hikers who left the route due to an attack of mountain sickness would have escaped with a slight illness or, at least, would have been able to descend to the nearest village without outside help.
But the negative consequences of poor nutrition do not end there: the body is forced to spend its resources on fighting poisoning, the very resources that it so needs to quickly adapt to camp conditions. As a result, the deadlines provided for adaptation are missed, and tourists go out onto difficult terrain weakened, with the coordination of movements not restored. There is no need to explain what this threatens.
The conclusion suggests itself: for the first time during the trek, you need to eat significantly less than is required to replenish energy costs. However, a person cannot expend more energy than his body produces. Therefore, the body has to mobilize internal resources - use fat deposits. Your own fat does not need to be digested; it does not contain harmful substances. Therefore, it is more profitable to compensate for the calorie deficit by processing it.
Practice shows that the caloric content of the diet in the first 2-3 days of the hike and the first 2-3 days of stay at altitudes of more than 3500 meters in the Pamirs and 2500 meters in the Caucasus should not exceed 2400-2600 kcal per day, although this is obviously a starvation ration.
Next, the diet should be gradually increased and by the fifth - sixth day brought to 3000-3200 kcal. However, during mountain hikes in Central Asia, during this time the group only just manages to reach the technical part of the route, and if the climb continues and acclimatization has not yet been completed, it is better not to increase the calorie intake for another 2-3 days before the day or until the altitude decreases.
Now about the main part of the route. In accordance with the recommendations of tourist literature, the caloric content of the diet on the main part of the route should be 3500-4000 kcal, and on assault days - from 4500 to 6500 kcal.
These norms are significantly less than actual energy consumption, but, as mentioned, the mass of even such a reduced diet is quite large. Replenishing calories with fatty foods is possible only up to a certain limit, and in the mountains it is simply dangerous. After all, to obtain one kilocalorie from the oxidation of fats, more oxygen is required than from the oxidation of carbohydrates. And this plays a decisive role in the mountains. And the liver works worse at altitude, because of this, complete absorption of fats does not occur, and the body gives us a signal about this: at altitude, fatty foods can cause disgust. How to be?
Let's consider the physiological processes characteristic of the main part of the route. As is known, energy costs at this time can exceed 8000 kcal per day. It is almost impossible to digest the appropriate amount of food. After all, the performance of even a well-trained and adapted person has a limit. For this reason, if the energy expenditure for moving along a route on a given day is high, there are not enough resources left to digest food (see Fig. 4). In addition, digestion of breakfast and lunch occurs during the period of the most active physical work. It is known from everyday practice that after a day of hard physical work, appetite decreases. With a decrease in appetite after a hard day, the stomach signals to us that it cannot satisfactorily perform its functions. This means that by increasing the diet on assault days, we increase the weight of the backpack, but do not improve nutrition.
On assault days, you must first of all increase the content of easily digestible carbohydrates in your diet to maintain performance throughout the day. But the next day, when the most difficult part is behind you, you can introduce high-calorie, relatively difficult-to-digest fatty foods, such as ghee or loin, into your diet. If acclimatization is successful, fat gain is acceptable even at high altitudes. High-calorie foods will help restore the strength spent on the assault day.
The lack of calories can be partially compensated for during the day, when energy expenditure on movement is minimal. But even here, moderation must be observed so that the feast does not lead to disruption of the schedule due to stomach upsets.
Supported by many years of practice, all of the above allows us to make the following recommendation: the calorie content of the daily diet on the main part of the route should not exceed 3500 kcal. It is rational to increase caloric intake in the post-assault days to 4000 kcal. To restore strength, drugs used for the rehabilitation of athletes, for example, SP-11, are very convenient.
In hiking and skiing trips, the load on the main part of the route, as a rule, is distributed more evenly than in mountain trips, so they can be done without significant changes in calorie intake on different days.
At leaving the hiking area the loads drop, and the altitude decreases on mountain hikes. By this time, the body’s resources are fairly depleted, and an “epidemic” of hunger breaks out among tourists. At this time they can eat and the body can absorb a fabulous amount of food. But the backpacks are already empty, since it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to carry a lot of food for the last few days. There are three ways out of this situation: throw food at the final part of the route, switch to low-calorie and difficult-to-digest food to deceive the stomach, or simply tighten your belt. It is dangerous to actively switch to pasture at the end of the route. Having become accustomed to concentrates, the stomach may strongly object to the excess fiber in vegetables and fruits.
There is another period - post-campaign. Having returned home, tourists begin to eat up the hike, but those who lead a sedentary lifestyle need to stop in time, otherwise obesity, an occupational disease of tourists, will inevitably...
Many of us love to go on real multi-day hikes - with backpacks on our shoulders, tents, a fire, a guitar and a cheerful company, or on small weekend hikes. At the same time, for lovers of this type of recreation, the weight of the camping belongings is very critical, since they have to carry it on themselves. Experienced travelers know that the hardest thing is food, so let's try to create a tasty, satisfying and original hiking menu for one day, using a minimum of ingredients.
Breakfast
According to popular wisdom, you need to eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to your enemy. For camping life, this is almost completely true; at least the first meal should be really filling, because there is a long and difficult day ahead. Therefore, we will bake pancakes for breakfast.
To prepare them you will need:
- 500 ml of water (spring water is possible);
- 300 grams of wheat flour;
- 2 tablespoons sugar;
- 0.5 teaspoon salt;
- 70 ml vegetable oil;
- 1 teaspoon baking powder.
Pour flour, sugar, salt into a saucepan and pour water into the resulting dry mixture in a thin stream, after heating it a little in the sun. This must be done carefully so that the flour does not stick together and lumps do not form. Then add baking powder, 50 ml of vegetable oil and mix thoroughly. The dough is ready - you can bake it.
These pancakes are baked over coals in a well-heated frying pan greased with the remaining sunflower oil. At the same time, you need to carefully monitor them - without eggs, the dough quickly burns. You can eat these lean pancakes with tea and condensed milk.
By the way, since our frying pan is heated, we can also make popcorn, which will be an excellent addition to pancakes and a wonderful snack on the road.
You will need:
- 100 grams of corn grains for popcorn (ready-made packages are sold in all stores);
- 50-60 grams of sugar;
- 100 grams of peanut butter;
- salt;
- vegetable oil.
Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and add the “half-cooked” popcorn there. To find out if the oil is hot enough, throw one grain into the frying pan; if it quickly floats to the surface and “explodes,” you can fry. Once toasted, place the popped corn into plastic containers.
If you prefer your popcorn salted, salt it generously. And if it’s sweet, melt sugar and peanut butter in an aluminum mug and pour the resulting syrup over the popcorn.
Dinner
For normal bowel function while hiking, it is very important to eat liquid food at least once a day. Therefore, for lunch, for starters, we will prepare a simple bean soup, as well as a light vegetable salad.
- 1 can of canned chicken (for example, “Boiled chicken”, “Chicken fillet in jelly”, etc.);
- 2 cans of canned beans;
- 1 slice of bacon;
- 2 large onions;
- half a medium head of cabbage;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 1 tablespoon salt;
- 4 tomatoes;
- spices to taste.
In a well-heated camping pot, fry a slice of bacon so that it releases its fat and flavor. Then remove the pork, cut the onion (1 onion) and fry it until lightly golden. Add the garlic and spices and fry for about another minute. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes (2 pieces) and shred the cabbage (not all - half!). Fill the roast with a small amount of water, add vegetables and canned chicken. Cook for 15 minutes. Then add the beans and keep on the fire for another 10-15 minutes. At the end of cooking, check for saltiness and spiciness.
The result is a very satisfying and tasty soup.
For the second course we prepare cabbage salad.
For this we need the remaining vegetables from the soup:
- 1/4 head of cabbage;
- 2 tomatoes;
- 1 onion;
- 1 can of canned green peas;
- mayonnaise;
- salt and pepper to taste.
The recipe is simple: cut the cabbage and tomatoes into strips, drain the water from the peas and add it to the vegetables. Salt, pepper and season with mayonnaise. A light but quite filling salad will be the perfect end to a camp lunch.
Dinner
Dinner for travelers is usually late. Once the fire burns down, you can cook many delicious dishes over the coals. Eg:
Baked potatoes and corn
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of potatoes;
- 5-7 corn on the cob;
- bacon;
- salt and spices.
The potatoes need to be peeled, washed and cut like an accordion - several times on one side. Stuff the resulting holes with bacon (there is a little left from the soup). Salt and pepper the potatoes, wrap them in foil and place them on hot coals. And after it we put corn - unhusked, right on the cob. In 30-40 minutes, dinner is ready. Bon appetit!
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