Date: 2005-02-22
To: Of Meals and Egos.
Miles today: 0.0

People often ask about food on the trail, and people on the trail often think about food. Food occupies the thoughts of hikers without a doubt more than anything while on the trail. Other thoughts may come and go, but food is always there and food will always be there for hikers to dream about in the waking hours and in sleeping as well. Some may think about the infamous Ice Cream cravings, and some may want the hardiness of a chili-cheese burger with bacon, and a shake, but you can lay your money down on the idea that after a while on the trail, a hiker quits thinking about the things one would expect to think about on a hike, such as the meaning of life and the direction they want to take theirs in , and instead they turn to what matters,like eating anything that isn¢t dehydrated, freeze dried, and processed¢¦For this reason, hikers cannot subscribe to that beautifully simplistic and romantic idea of feeding themselves off of the land. A hiker needs to know food is available and that they can get it at that moment they feel the urge to cram a load of GORP (Trail Mix Usually consisting of dehydrated fruit, etc) into their emaciated bodies to continue ascending that prevailing last 6000 feet of climbing before they reach their destination of the day where they can immediately begin to once again focus on food as they start to prepare dinner. There is also no way anyone could forage for about 6000 calories every day and still have time to hike¢¦I have only eaten off of the land once for hunger's sake and it wasn¢t a great experience in my limited culinary expertise, but more of a humorous episode of four friends in high school who each tried to be funnier than the other, and actually ending up eating tiny pieces of half cooked Bluegill fish in the process.My three friends in I were out fishing during a grand high school summer of epic proportions. The three running mates of mine in high school were Dave, Kyle, and Justin. We were about to graduate and nothing that summer could stop us from having fun and getting a little crazy at any opportunity.So anyways, all four of us left for a small wading creek to do some fishing that day and we had just eaten before we left, but like good high school boys should, we started to get hungry again only hours into our fishing expedition on this little Indiana creek. Kyle¢s hunger started affected his fishing and after his body was taken over by the hunger; he made it known to us that no one would enjoy their days fishing unless he had food, and quick. We decided to try something that day that no one had really done before, but we figured how hard could it be to cook up some fish, with absolutely nothing but lighters and fishing gear. I mean, we could build a fire and catch fish, what else would we need? ! Well, obviously spices and a good knife might have helped, because even though the fish we caught were so tiny that they didn¢t even make a good sized, ¢Fish Nugget¢, it was meat nonetheless, and we had nothing to make it flavorful, let alone a grill to cook it on.Dave and I prided ourselves on being, ¢Hardcore¢, regardless of the detrement placed upon ourselves in the process, and so we decided that a rock placed next to the fire with these tiny, ¢Fish Nuggets¢, on it would provide adequate heat to cook our little fish scrapings.The rock proved itself invaluable, and by invaluable I mean that it wasn¢t worth a penny, because it sure didn¢t cook the fish and it sure wasn¢t going to provide a pleasant dining experience. Dave and I, after weighing the other one¢s intentions and feelings of the fish cookout gone awry still decided that the other was planning on eating these sloppy half cooked meat pieces on a rock.Well, we bit down, and soon realized not to chew but to just swallow and make this mistake in our mouths go away as soon as possible and try to make it look not that bad in the process. I guess we succeeded because soon after that, Kyle and Justin wanted in on the action, and we all shared something special that day, one of the worst tasting meals that any of us had ever eaten.I don¢t think we were hungry for quite some after that, but not because we were full. I think we were probably so disgusted by our willingness to eat that Bluegill Nugget disaster earlier that day and the raunchiness of it all, that anything else in our stomachs would have seemed inedible as any food seemed horrendous after that. That day was a great day though, and it provided me some valuable lessons on how to definitely plan food accordingly and to never eat anything not prepared on a rock, or anything freshly caught without the right planning.