Bad Tasting Backpacking Food

[Brian W]

What food did you bring on a trip that turned out far worse than expected?  This can be preprocessed bars and meals or recipes that just didn’t turn out good.

I have two that comes to mind. The first is Idaho Potatoes. These ended up being far more salty than I cared for. The second is a tuna fish sandwich. It tasted fine going down, but I felt terrible afterwards.  I’m just not a fan of mixing can fish and hiking.

[Paul Wagner]

A lot of time the level of salt in a dish is dependent upon the amount of water added.  In freeze-dried meals this is a huge issue.  People think that a little extra water certainly won’t hurt, since they are quite dehydrated themselves…and then discover the meal is pallid and lacking flavor.

We like those potatoes, but we may make them with less water than you do!

[James Marco]

I really like dried salmon, but do not care for tuna when I am hiking. It never seems to settle. I had some dehydrated chicken that just refused to rehydrate…even after two boilings and an hour of steeping.

[Ken Thompson]

All bars seem worse than they should be considering how popular they are.

Instant coffee

I don’t cook, just snack constantly. Snack should be delicious.

 

[Brian W]

It’s weird when stuff takes good at home, but it doesn’t digest quite right when on the trail. Both of the items I mentioned I like at home. But they failed me when hiking.

Now, for some bizarre reason, I prefer ramen on the trail, but I don’t really care that much for it at home.

[Matthew / BPL]

Superfood Slam Probars for breakfast on 14 of 21 days on the JMT was not a good idea. ::gag::

[Todd T]

Stuff usually tastes better in the field.  Mountain House meals are awful at home.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

For me….I cannot eat Mountain House. I ate it a lot when I was younger and one day in the summer of 2003 I made a bag, went to eat it and nearly threw up. I couldn’t get past the smell. It smelled like cleaning spray (it had vinegar in it, it was some Asian-faux meal). That meal was what propelled me to write about trail food, and influenced every trail recipe I created after.

I don’t like meals that thick liquid with pasty weird pasta floating in it as well (think most MH meals, where it is a lot of liquid).

Don’t like most energy bars. Too thick, dense and weird texture from the protein powders uses.

Don’t like tuna either. Just sits in my stomach.

[Author]

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