. . : : eating outdoors - cold soaking : : . .
I'm going to post a couple of things about preparing food while hiking.
The first is an ode to cold soaking, an approach to eating while hiking that divides opinion. On one hand it can appear miserable, cold instant noodles? Cold couscous? Cold instant refried beans?
On the other hand it's the height of simplicity. All you need is something to combine your food and water in and some patience.
I present to you my humble cold soak jar. My current one has kept me fed for ~4000 miles through deserts, snowbound mountains, damp moors, windy fells, and canyons. It's a peter pan peanut butter jar, weighs ~32g, and can rehydrate a packet of top ramen. You can even drink your cold instant coffee out of it.
I tend to eat a couple of things from my jar: My standard breakfasts when cold soaking are oats, instant carnation breakfast, and some instant coffee. After breakfast I tend to chain eat instant noodles. I usually buy a bunch of packets, empty them all into one big baggie and crush them up. They take somewhere around 2 hours to rehydrate in cold water. So the pattern is: when you stop to refill water, or whatever, fill the jar with crushed noodles and cold water, close it up, toss it in your pack, and start hiking. After 2-3 hours, take a break and eat the noodles. I like to add things like olive oil, crushed fritos, cheesy crackers, nuts, etc. Once you've eaten, rinse the jar out (drink the water!), reload it with noodles, and off you go. It requires so little thinking or work and allows you to keep a pretty steady flow of calories to keep you bumping along.
Instant refried beans are tastier imo but a bit harder to come by. Either way the pattern is the same.
Here's to cold soaking and the humble plastic jar. You've kept me fed with some strange things in strange places!