Mountain House Beef Stew — not impressed

Mountain house is pure rubbish, it makes McDonalds taste gourmet ;-)

MH is indeed rubbish. It would be good to learn that commercial backpacking meals have improved during the two decades since I last tried them.

Who makes the good backpacking meals?

I’ll put in my plug here for Packit Gourmet. Some of my favorites are:
– Jumpstart Fruit Smoothies for breakfast
– Creamy Italian Polenta with Sausage for breakfast
– Austintacious Tortilla Soup
– Dottie’s Chicken and Dumplings
– Tuscan Beef Stew over Polenta
– Zydeco Red Beans and Rice
I’ve actually never had anything from them that I didn’t enjoy. The above are all made with just boiling water, but they have other options that require more than one pot.

Other people really like Hawk Vittles but I’ve never tried them.

There is an option for those of us who don’t dehydrate their own…

Packit Gourmet is now on my list to use the next time I need to get a commercially-packaged meal. Thanks!

Pack IT gourmet is good, used them this weekend.

Try their All American Burger Wrap and the potato salad. The potato salad is our new favorite.

I also like the food offered by Packit Gourmet. I especially like their Kickin' Chicken Hot Wings Wrap (a good no cook option) and their Texas State Fair Chili. Jump-Start Fruit Smoothies have become a staple at breakfast when I'm on the trail. Their single serving meals are generous in size and I often have a hard time finishing the last few bites.

"This dish tasted of chemicals, it was not very foodlike at all."

I assume you took out the chemical freshness packet before boiling.

In my experience the MH beefstew is their worst tasting dish.

The turkey a la king is ok.

I personally prefer to augment Mary Janes dishes or bring something prepared at home. Mike Clelland has some good recipes in his book.

In the past when I've been forced to use Mountain House meals, the only way that I could make them decent was to pour the boiling water over the food, then simmer it with some margarine or olive oil added. Putting back the slightly oily consistency was necessary. If the flavor is still off, add some soy sauce.

–B.G.–

I have good luck w/Inertia Foods, and most of the Hawk Vittles. I like Hawk Vittles dinner entrees, for some reason didnt care on recent 9 day Sierra trip in CA, w/their breakfast entrees.

David wrote, "I assume you took out the chemical freshness packet before boiling."

LOL — yeah, we did.

"I assume you took out the chemical freshness packet before boiling."

I thought that was a flavor packet.

–B.G.–

It might have given more taste if left in ;-)

There are few meals I'll eat – Packit is some of the few.

Sarah writes, "It might have given more taste if left in ;-)"

Well, lack of any savory flavor is just one of the faults with that meal. The slimy texture and creepily uniform bits of meat, carrots, and potatoes (at least I think those were potato chunks, they were white and flavorless — but then none of the other bits had flavor except the carrots and they tasted terrible) lacked what it takes to trigger an appetite in me.

We both agreed it was a terrible meal.

If I have dissuaded anyone from purchasing that slop then my work here is done.

+1 to Packit Gourmet and Hawk Vittles. PG's fruit smoothies are a great high-cal breakfast side, as is their Jamaican Peanut Pooridge. They also have a lot of cold water prep lunches (Potato Samosas are my favorites) that do wonders to tortillas. And of course some tasty hot meals as well. Hawk Vittles has great dinner entrees, and some very filling hot breakfast meals.

I'm doing the Foothills Trail starting Saturday, and ALL of my meals will be from the above 2 companies. And I'm already looking forward to mealtime.

On our August Trek, 6 of us ate the MH Beef Stew that had been slightly modified with about 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4tsp herbs and 1/4tsp brown gravy powder before the boiling water was added. The result was a richly-brothed mixture we all found to be tasty and good. So good that the Beef Stew and Chili Mac meals are now on the "let's get more of those" list as we're working up recipes to home-build some of the other meals we think can be done better by us.

Backpackerpantry is blows MTNhouse out of the water.

The kung pow chicken was very very good, easy to make and organic ingredients. A little more expensive though.

At last…others who think this is an awful dish.

I unwisely took some on my JMT thru based on (what is IMO the very fine Beef Stroganoff as a guide). Instant (or not so) regret….never really reconsituted well, poor taste.

Happily altitude had squashed my appetite flat.

Lol…"slimy texture". That would be cheap thickeners. Which you really, really don't want to be eating!!

For backpackers and such, it's really not necessary to buy 15-year lifetime storage food for meals. While the MH pouches are convenience packaged, there are many other options when you don't need it to last 15 years.

I'd suppose that in a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world without any other food available, it would probably taste pretty yummy.