I just returned from an 11-day backpack where I had only 10 days rations. My last meal consisted of throwing everything that was left over in a pot. It filled me up, but left a lot to be desired for taste. I must say it was one of the worst meals I have eaten. Here's the recipe:

Freeze dried sausage
Black beans
Dried apples
Parmasan cheese
Blueberry muffin mix
instant potatoes
fake butter flavored flakes
a few walnuts
one pack of Miso soup

It burned on the bottom of the pot too!

When you are hungry you will eat about anything! Should have thrown in a few grasshoppers.

Once, at the end of a NOLS ration period, I made plain couscous which I tired to spice up with a dash of garlic salt, but there wasn't enough to even taste the difference. No butter, oil, cheese, curry, or any of the other things which we often use to jazz up a meal. I considered adding some dill, but chickened out. Filling, but painfully bland, especially since I don't much care for couscous.

Well, hello fellow NOLS graduate! I taught from 1969 to 1975 - Mountain Guide courses. I was a student on the infamous "30 Days to Survival" course. I actually had about 2 minutes of fame and glory in the film. Our mid-course ration was burried (allowed back then) and when we got there, half the cans had leaked and food rotted! I remember eating nothing but oatmeal with Crisco for several days, while the film crew had helicopters flying in gormet food to them! Boy were we mad! Then, after that, we still had to go on a regular survival! We all felt we had already been on survival.

While preparing a fine meal of shrimp and rice (in the dark) I added an ounce of olive oil. Unfortuately, I had mistakenly used my clorox container. At least it was a sanitary meal!

That reminds me. If you treat water with iodine tabs and then pour it in a titanium cup you will have blue water! Coffee made with un-neutralized iodine treated water is pretty aweful.

Those were the "good old days" I suppose. I taught out of the Rocky Mountain Branch and Teton Valley Branches from 2001-1003. Packs are still abominably heavy, though we use pretty use all dry goods now with no canned stuff. Still only NOLS could send you into the field with a 3-pound spice kit and leave you with an empty one after 10 days.....

My first-ever solo on my first-ever trip into the Rattlesnake Wilderness I discovered that; 1) Mountain House freeze-dried entrees have a shelf life and, 2) my Beef & Rice was about 12 years beyond that...

Been doin' my own dehydrated meals ever since. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

FB

We just got back from a backpacking trip to Yosemite with a Half Dome climb. The night before the climb a bear got two of our Ursacks and ate half of our food from each. So after our climb the next day we scavenged what was still edible and put together a most spectacular last dinner meal of everything we had left. It's hard to remember the exact recipe but it was something like this:

freeze dried "Just Veggies"
freeze dried green peas
dried mushrooms
mushroom gravy mix
instant mashed potatoes
freeze dried cheese
"real" butter packets

it turned out to be a spectacular conglomeration of left overs, tasty and very fillling. Far from our worst.

Probably the worst meal I have had so far while backpacking was a packaged freeze dried meal of "meatless mountain chilli". I too now forego the packaged freeze dried meals and make my own from home which are much better.

Well-

When car-camping in Yellowstone, I broke out a package of dried squid that I'd picked up YEARS before that trip. After soaking in many chnges of water, I tried cooking it up with dried veggies and ramen. I could not get past the smell to taste it. Fortunately, I was able to use another planned meal and pick up suplies before hubby and I had to go hungry.

I have thrown out only a few meals in my lifetime. That one we still talk about.

CM

A couple of weeks ago I made a meal for the GF and myself. Now I pride myself on my culinary talents, and she knows what comes out of our galley is usually fine dining <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Except this meal I don't know what went wrong, but I distinctly recall her saying something to the effect of....."Blech! I would'nt feed this to a cat!" Of course my remark was along the lines of..."Dear, we don't have a cat..." We do have outdoor farm cats, but they are a WHOLE 'nother breed of critter.

Can you give us some details. Did they tear them open?

My worst meal - freeze dried Turkey Tetrazzini. I think it is made by Mountain House. That was over 20 years ago and I still have a great time when someone pulls out a bag of it to try for the first time. It usually ends up being given to the dogs. Funny thing, even some dogs won't eat it.

I've had conversations with complete strangers in the food aisle of REI about this stuff. It usually involves our exchanging stories.

This stuff is still available. Someone out there must like it.

Do you know Tom and Dorothy Warren? They are ex-NOLS instructors who now live in Driggs. Good friends of mine.

I made Enertia Sierra Scramble and I followed the directions: I mixed the dry stuff with water until it was smooth. I heated it in my almost new titanium pot, then reduced the heat and stirred until the eggs got firm. Hmmm, seems to be scorched on the bottom. Last direction: must use a non-stick pot. Well, NOW they tell me <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> The meal tasted scorched. Plus, this was on the first morning of the trip and I couldn't get the pot clean no matter what I tried (my little scrubby, rocks, sand, etc), so all my other meals were compromised as well.

M.R.E. cheese omlette with vegtables. nuf said.
<cringe, shake> i can still remember how it tasted. ehhhh.

In the Marine Corps, we called the MRE omelette "the skin graft". The name and taste both fit.

I remember the names well enough and I'm pretty sure I met them while I was couch crouching at the TVB on the instructor lounge couch.

Yep, sure did. I wrote about it in the Lite Philosophies & Practices Forum in the thread titled " What kind of bear proof to use for food?"

A freeze-dried Thai Shrimp may have been my worst. I forget the brand, maybe RichMoor/Naural High. Very bad. Also, a Mountain House Beef Stroganoff which somehow hit me wrong. I ate a few bites, then decided to rely on trail snacks for dinner.
Another very bad one came from "Natural Food Backpack Dinners" in Corvallis, OR. I don't know if they're still around. I can't remember what it was called, but I seem to remember we came up with a few new names for it.

I can actually tolerate the Turkey Tetrazini.

Baddest meal was on our second backpack (in those young & naive days) up Cascade Creek to Lake Solitude in Grand Teton NP. We had gotten a late start across Jenny Lake and were pushing it too hard. By the time we set up camp, two of the four of us had mild cases of altitude sickness. In the anti-thesis of light, we had brought a BIG can of Dinty Moore Stew for the first night's dinner. We got it bubbling, had a few bites and the woozey two of us barfed and went into our tents and slept. We heard that even the marmots in the 'hood had sniffed at it but wouldn't eat it . To this day even the sight of a Dinty Moore Stew can makes me ill.

I LOVE enertia trailfoods, but their Sierra Scramble is an abomination and a sin against humanity.

It is so wrong that I cannot even describe it properly.

There is no way to make it right.

TV

pheasant omelet freeze dried - had to make it on the AT as it was the last meal on a Sunday and didn't have any oil or butter so it stuck more to the mini pan and little was left for tossing past the tonsils.LMAO. It just tasted like cardboard.
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Dried squid? The salty sweet kind that is sold as a snack, or something meant to be rehydrated?

paulj

Earlier this summer a bit of stove alcohol leaked out of my Trangia burner while stored in a cook pot. I rinsed the pan out, but apparently not enough - the instant mash potatoes had a distinctly off taste. Most of that batch went into the garbage.

paulj

Paul-

At this point, it is hard to be sure. You might be familiar with the stores that buy out huge lots and sell off all sorts of wired things. Well, the dried squid-actually cuttlefish, thinking back-was from that sort of a place. It sat in a box here another couple of years. I can't guess how long it sat before I picked it up.

I THINK it was made to be rehydrated and added to some dish. No matter what, it was very old, rubbery, "fishy" smelling, and inedible.

CM

We cooked corn on the cob over a campfire with a steak and slathered lots of butter on the corn before we realized the stick of butter was rancid and smelled bad, we ate it anyway.

Next to that, one time I forgot cup and bowl on a 4 day trip and had to drink/eat everything out of a cup from blackbean soup. I still refuse to eat blackbeans and the blackbean flavored instant coffee was the worlds worst.

Jim

I camp at times with the wife! Not that I want to take her and the 40,000 LBS of stuff she considers essential. With her it is car camping and takes a 6X8 trailer to move all her ****!

ONE time I let her have her way and let her do the cooking when we were at her favorite KOA type places.

Now camping to me is getting away from reality and enjoying a simpler life. A way to get away from people and enjoy nature.

When dinner time came, My Dear Sweet Wife proceeded to take out cold MC D bags form a small cooler and place this **** on plates for dinner.

Needless to say, she has sense been forbidden to plan meals when we are going out!

Now that was bad! But I once had a friend bring a canner pheasant out with us on a week + long trip. Why he would carry a 4 lb bird for almost a week is beyond me. Cold greasy pheasant broke up in a fry pan to heat was interesting. Not the best meal I ever had.

Now I'm talking only here in The USA and only the trips that were under a month long! There were other times I wish I could forget. Like eating raw monkey on the run between Cambodia and Laos, and eating baked spider in Columbia, Or dried camel somewhere between Afghanistan and Turkestan. Many years ago!

Dill

My worst meal was on a Boy Scout hike when I was 15. We were making flap-jacks in a cast-iron frying pan (man I'm glad those days are long gone!) and using meadow muffins (aka cow patties, buffalo chips) for firewood. The batter was prepared and sitting next to the fire while the pan got hot. Soon the cakes were cooking, but because we had to do them one at a time the fire needed to be restoked about 3/4 of the way through the batch. I ate one of the last pancakes - about half of it - when I discovered a lump that wouldn't bite through. I spit it out - it was a chunk of cow dung! The kid stoking the fire wasn't particularly careful about what container he carried the chips over.

It's amazing how a little bit of poop can spoil an otherwise good meal.

Many years ago I was camping with 15 friends in Kings Canyon. At our base camp the "cook of the day" had worked very hard to prepare a home-cooked beef stew complete w/fresh vegetables. As night closed in and the camp lights were turned on the lights attracted the largest hoard of moths I have yet to see again. Of course most of the lights were around the cooking area so our cook could monitor preparation of the stew. Needless to say it was almost impossible to determine drowned moths in the stew because their thin gossamer wings looked almost identical to the small pieces of white onion that was floating throughout the stew. I say almost impossible. There was a distinct "crunch" with the moth that was absent with the smaller, well-cooked pieces of stew meat. Trail mix was unusually good that night!

On a very high ridge with no source of water for more than 12 hours, we were forced to eat our last meal, which I had saved, even though the weight was a pain. I pulled out a large can of mixed beans, and some salted pork(ham in biscuit slices)packaged in plastic. With no more water to spare, and only about 8oz a piece for dinner, I was forced to fry the salt pork. I will never eat this again without boiling, I don't know if anyone has ever tryed this, but my grandma always boiled these to get the salt out and then fry them. It is much worse than it sounds. Needless to say the beans were pretty mushy too, but saved the day. A good idea is to fry up some cornbread like flapjacks at home and place in wax paper,lightly moisten and put in a frezzer bag. Excellent after re-frying, even after six days in your pack.

magyver-

Don't these cornbread cakes mold in your pack? Do you moisten them just before re-heating? Carrying them dampened seems like it would increase the chances of mold.

Consider steam-baking some corn muffins, if you can spare the fuel. I wouldn't do this with Esbit, but alcohol is cheaper to use, so i've done this. Muffins steam up nicely in foil muffin cup liners, just raised a bit above the boiling water. I've used just a /W/ shaped piece of can wall for tiny pots or cut down and perforated disposable foil pie plates in larger pans.

CamperMom

You mixed all that together? Why?

It seems you could have made a reasonable dinner, for example:

Freeze dried sausage, Parmasan cheese, instant potatoes would make a shepherds pie of sorts

Black beans and one pack of Miso soup would make a black bean soup

Dried apples, Blueberry muffin mix, and walnuts could make a nice cobbler

I think our imaginations limit the quality of our meals, whether at home or on the trail

Beef stew, cooked afterdark, had a Junebug in it, seemed to take 10 minuets to spit all the legs and shell pieces out.
Only reason I ate the rest of the stew was thats all I had.

catfish gravy.Iwas about ten,really bad idea

I know this is an old thread but new to me and I'm sure others. Anyway, when I was a young teenager, my best friend and I used to go camping in the foothills. We didn't know what backpacking was. We just wanted to camp by the creek and the only way to get there with our stuff was to walk and carry it. We used to raid Mom's pantry after shopping day and set up our own. We took mostly canned food with a few things like mash potato flakes. We had our meals planned down to the meal because the stuff was heavy. We usually had some leftovers. Then one time just before we were ready to leave, my friends little brother wanted to go and his mother made us take him or not go. We didn't repack and ran low on food the last day. Our parents had dropped us off and were not coming back untill the set time. There were no cell phones and the nearest pay phone or phone for that matter was too far away. We ended up with our last meal being a pot of water with a small amount of potato flakes, 1/2 a can of hominy, a small amount of spam chopped up seasoned by starvation. We were so hungry , we divided the hominy piece by piece.( I didn't care for hominy and haven't ate it for years but I got my share) <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> It was sort of a tastless, watery potato/spam/hominy soup. The worst thing was it didn't come close to filling us up. To add insult to injury, his brother griped the whole time. (he never wanted to go again <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />) That was over forty years ago and the only thing that comes close is freeze dried comercial bp meals or MRE's.

My worst meal backpacking was a tie amongst several of those freeze dried camp meals I tried. Generally I am an omnivore, but some of the meat versions are foul. I don't go out of my way to get the freeze dried pre-packaged meals now.

Off the trail it was some slab carne seca a guy pulled off his clothes line in the Chaco and rehydrated with some noodles. It took some fancy hand to mouth work to get the meat out and onto the floor where his dog could get it without offending the host. Poor guy was sharing his finest.

I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

worst camp meal. My wife and I were camped in the Sierras with a campfire and we cooked fillets mignons and corn on the cob on the fire and slathered butter on all of it, then we noticed a smell, the butter was rancid. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />


Worst cup of coffee - forgot my cup on 4 day trip - had to drink out of paper soup cup - black bean coffee is just too awful to express. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Jim <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Or was it the boy scout pancakes? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Hot hogs vomit deluxe - a concoction my old hiking buddy made once. Its name was derived from its taste. I only had it once and to my knowledge it has only been made once. I had to email him to get the recipe - he lol'd me. He thinks it went like this --

lol
It was a ramen and not so-fresh garden greens based, powdered egg thickened, instant grits and powdered cheese dish with crushed tortilla chips and baco-bits for texture. A light topping of raisans for sweetness and there may or may not have been honey and some spices added.
(heave, heave) I can still smell the aromatic steam it emulsed while cooling in my pot. *Patent applied for*

From an otherwise fantastic cookbook, I used a recipe called "Green Dragon Pad Thai"

The fact that it was neon-green should have been an indicator. I packed this meal for 5 days in the Sierras, made up a nice big two-person batch, then after one bite proceeded to bury it in a deep cat hole. I'm not proud, and know I should have packed it out, but it was best to keep this concoction as far away from civilization as possible.

Lesson learned: always try recipes at home first.

I once took a boat trip to the beautiful Misty Fjords in Alaska. We decided that instead of landing on shore to cook, we'd eat the MRE's that were stashed on the boat. They were just shy of their expiration date.

The main course and dessert were okay, but the "potatoes au gratin" side dish was horrible... the yellow cheeze was somewhere between grainy and lumpy, and the potatoes were tasteless. We added the pepper flakes that came with the meal, but they didn't help.

Oh, and when I was a teenager I went on a 2-night trip with my dad to explore an old airliner wreckage in the mountains near my home. He found TREASURE - a bent propeller blade that he had to take home. It was huge. It was also heavy enough that it slowed us down, and we ended up taking half a day too long to finish the hike. We were hungry, and the only food left was a jar of peanut butter. It didn't taste bad, but it's hard to choke it down by itself.

It must have been so bad that you repeated the story again in this thread. Albeit about 1-1/2 years later. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Wolfeye:

What did he do with the "treasured" <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> prop? It better have ended up hung over the mantle of the fireplace -- at least for a year.

Nope! It ended up in a pile outside their house - along with the rest of his "treasure". <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> The items I know about: a brass rudder from a rock reef, a cleat from a shipwreck, a whole bunch of fishing floats, a dozen or so blown glass floats from Japan, and a plastic beer keg. He couldn't figure out how to open the keg, like it might have been used to store beer at a brewery and not meant for sale. I don't think I would've tasted the dregs if he did manage to open it.

I wasn't fond of the backpackers pantry choc cheezecake bleackk. Goo at the bottom of a bag. Difficult to get out. No I would not recommend this to a friend.
I did enjoy their Jamaican chicken and rice and a Mt house Chili Mac. We mixed a pack of salmon with the J chicken. Yummm

JimShaw "black bean coffee is just too awful to EXPRESS."

Then you should have used a drip pot. I'm BACK! Brum

Glad to see you back on the board. I see the bandito's didn't get you. Tell us about your mission.

It isn't the flavor so much as the texture. Good lord, was that Silly Putty I just choked down?

Thanks your list. I will read and think about it.

Great thread, I'm hungry and just discovered it. Years ago we backpacked with another couple who always made a big production over every meal, wherever cooked. They brought the all the ingredients for shrimp bisque, but managed to simmer it over a slow "fire" of green pine. Truly inedible.

I was very nearly lynched on another trip for introducing my friends to fried polenta for breakfast. They also unanimously hated Grape Nuts with vanilla pudding mix the next day.

Geeze those meals didnt sound so bad FOS <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Fried polenta for breakfast? Sounds good to me! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Green pine? you know nothing. Green pine merely adds "flavour" - someone strong but
still flavour.

While not on the trail, I was once fed a campfire roasted burger at a bush party - it was truly horrible, I then looked at what the "chef" was cooking them over - the fire made from
extra creosote and oil soaked old CNR rail ties, which some helpful bozo had lopped into log size lenghts with a chainsaw and split with an axe like cordwood, because they were too dumb to wander into the bush 10 feet and find a deadfall to cut up. YUCK! I wonder to this day the carcinogen index of that half a hamburger patty.

Well, phat, I guess you would have enjoyed the bisque, then - there would have been plenty, because none of us could choke it down. I must travel with picky eaters. Nowadays I just stick with stuff you can't ruin, like spray cheese and bourbon.

(Shudder) - yeah I'll take the bisque <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Eugene:

I'm still wondering where they were hiking to catch the shrimp for the bisque.

Hey come on Kev, I watched Les Stroud scooping shrimp out of a pool in the amazon on TV, so I'm sure it was something like that <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Bubba always said "...shrimps is the froot of my looms..."

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BF <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Well there have been a few disasters (all part of the job of writing wilderness cookbooks I guess). The worst probably was the one where I accidentally double the water amount for rehydrating my spaghetti sauce. I couldn't even make a soup out of it. Tomato water anyone? lol

I have had good results with the 'cook whatever's left on the last night' method. You need some carrots and celery to balance whatever carbs you are adding. Also, salt is critical.

The worst meal I ever had camping was dried potato and onion soup with dried scallops. The scallops tasted like rubber bands and I threw them all in the fire.

What's NOLS?

National Outdoor Leadership School
http://www.nols.edu/

We have some alumni and former instructors on this site.