TITLE: Expedition food
DATE: 2018-02-21
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
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While on expedition or fieldwork for research, food will probably
become a central part of the day, with meal times being one of the
few times to properly relax. Having good food and plenty of it is a
good way to raise morale when things aren't going to plan. However,
preparing interesting and nutritious food in the field isn't always
easy, with limited cooking utensils and often a lack of fresh
ingredients. It's important therefore to put a lot of thought into
what food you will prepare while on expedition, and how you will
prepare it. This is a collection of thoughts I have built up over
the course of a number of field research expeditions in remote
parts of Peru, Brazil, the Republic of Congo, Angola and Canada,
with additional things I've learned through doing lots of long
distance trail walking and camping in the UK.
Getting the right amount of food
It's easy to under-estimate how much food you need to consume while
on fieldwork. In the Peruvian Andes, where we had to trek up to 3
hours per day to get to and from our field sites, I worked out very
roughly through estimating my food intake that I was consuming
about 5000 calories per day, and even then I lost 5 kg of weight
over the course of the 2 month trip. Obviously this varies from
person to person, but for me, eating any more food during that trip
would have been quite unpleasant, I was already eating as much as I
could.
The best way to get calories into your body that will be available
throughout a day of hard work I think is through carbohydrate rich
food. This means things like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes. Sugar
rich food is also great, but apart from crystalline sugar, sugary
food will quickly go off without refrigeration, especially in the
tropical environments I am used to. Dried carbs on the other hand
will last a long time.
Unfortunately, carb rich food is often dull, so requires some
creative thinking to prepare meals with a variety of flavours.
It was not uncommon for us to have combinations of pasta, chips AND
bread with our evening meals in Peru.
Ingredients
As I've said already, I think dried carbohydrates or potatoes are a
really good staple that can be used in many different ways to
produce one pot meals. Tinned ingredients are good because they
last a really long time, and you ca be almost guaranteed they will
be fresh when opened, however, tinned foods are heavy.
To get fresh ingredients with the most longevity I would stick to
root vegetables for most of the bulk. Soft skinned vegetables like
tomatoes are difficult to transport and with bruising will quickly
go off, but if it's possible to bring them then definitely try,
fresh vegetables make food much more tasty.
It's surprising how long eggs will keep, even in hot places,
providing they aren't exposed to direct sunlight for too long. We
have had eggs in the field, unrefrigerated for 3 weeks before some
of them started going funny, and I'm sure others last longer. Eggs
are great for a quick morale booster breakfast in the morning, they
are a good source of energy without making you feel bloated like
porridge, and are tasty. They can also be prepared in many
different ways with minimal cooking equipment. Eggs can also be
mixed through rice to make it a bit more interesting and a bit less
gloopy.
Sauces are a difficult item to pack. Wet sauces are heavy and
sometimes packaged in glass, though sometimes you can find tinned
sauces and even more rarely as a dry powder. In the past I have put
together a curry sauce using a base of tinned tomatoes, with every
ingredient except the tomatoes being in powder form, helping to cut
down on weight.
Condiments are a really useful way of making food tasty. The
plastic bottles of fast-food style condiments I normally try to
take ketchup, mayonnaise, Peri Peri or some other hot sauce, all of
which can be found almost anywhere. I normally grab any other
condiments I can find in the country I'm in as well, there are some
surprising country specific fast food trends EXAMPLE. I normally
also bring garlic, salt, pepper and paprika, which can be added to
basically anything savoury.
Using local ingredients
When travelling to a far-flung country, it would be a mistake to
think you can cook all the things you normally would in the UK.
Even basic staples differ across the world, especially in less
European-ised countries. Because of this, I think it's always a
good idea to see what local people are cooking with the available
ingredients. Most of the time they know the best way to prepare
their ingredients and it will likely lead to a smaller food bill as
locally common ingredients are often cheaper as they're not
imported. Normally when buying food I try to include as many of the
field team as possible, including any local people that are working
with us. Having lots of people to bounce ideas off is a good way to
make sure any food preferences are listened to, and can make for a
more interesting menu.
Luxury items
It's easy to get into a masochistic mindset during fieldwork,
thinking that anything not absolutely essential to your physical
survival is unnecessary weight, but in most cases, this sort of
mindset isn't needed. Having some chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks
or even a cafetiere will help massively with your mental recovery
after a hard day. Having something to share around other members of
your team will give you something to bond over and will really help
to connect you to the rest of the field team.
Along the same lines, having a bit of whisky or some other spirit
alcohol is a good way to take the edge off and help you to relax at
the end of the day. If you aren't fond of drinking straight
spirits, pouring a dribble into a cup of tea is a good alternative.
Compartmentalising work and downtime can be difficult in the field
where you are constantly surrounded by your colleagues and
sometimes there isn't a clear geographical line between space you
work and the space you relax, so having a bit of alcohol can help a
lot to draw the line.
Bread
If I could have fresh bread in the field every day I would. Bread
is incredibly versatile, a good source of carbohydrates, filling,
and generally tasty, though that one might be purely an opinion.
Unfortunately though, bread is quite perishable unless it is
frozen. Some types of bread last longer, tortilla wraps in sealed
plastic for instance can last for many weeks, provided they aren't
kept in full sunlight.
In some places, bread isn't actually that common as a staple food.
In these places, if I can, I make flatbreads using whatever sort of
flour I can get hold of. Flour isn't easy to transport either
though, ideally you need a very heavy duty plastic bag that can be
tied tightly, to keep the flour dry and to stop it from leaking. I
make flatbreads even when I'm at home, normally for breakfast
alongside eggs, they're quick and easy to make with minimal
equipment.
Another excellenet use for flour is to make pancakes! Contrary to
popular belief they can also be made without eggs if you add a bit
of vegetable oil, or even a bit of peanut butter. Pancakes are a
good food for a relaxed day off breakfast, because they actually
take quite a long time to make with a single pan
Packable lunches
Lunches in the field can be difficult, there is a trade-off between
packability and variety. Also sometimes in the field it's not
always easy to eat a proper lunch, if it's raining a lot, if it's
cold, if you have a long distance to walk etc. Often we make do
with sugary Nice style biscuits, which are ubiquitous across the
world, normally eaten with some fruit. A ziploc bag with sandwiches
is ideal, but the facilities to make sandwiches aren't always
there, especially with a shortage of bread on long expeditions.
In other places, eating lunch just isn't a common thing, instead
replaced by a huge breakfast and supper. In these cases I try to
abide by the local customs, but normally take a packet of biscuits
anyway just in case.
Cooking equipment
This will obviously vary depending on your fieldwork situation,
sometimes you will have a full kitchen, other times, especially
while camping, facilities will be much more limited. These are the
implements I would like to have in an absolutely minimal fieldwork
kitchen, catering for about 4 people, which I've found is a common
fieldwork team size:
- Gas bottle (9 kg size)
- Attachable gas ring
- A large boiling pot with a lid (~10 l minimum)
- A big wooden spoon or ladle
- A very sharp knife
- A chopping board, ideally rollable plastic
- A funnel to fit water bottles
- A water carrier (~15-20 l)
- A tin opener, a swiss army knife tin opener is sufficient, and
gives another knife for chopping
- Bin bags for waste
- Things to eat and drink from:
- 4 bowls
- 4 forks
- 4 knives
- 4 spoons
- 4 large plastic mugs
With this equipment you can make one pot meals with chopped fresh
ingredients that are combined with tinned or dried ingredients. A
large frying pan would be nice in order to make rice pilafs, or
eggs, but these things can also be cooked in the boiling pot, it's
just a bit more awkward.
Water and other drinks
In tropical places with a lack of fresh drinking water I would
highly recommend against thinking you can boil all of your drinking
water. With each person drinking between 1.5 and 3 litres per day,
even with a small team boiling this amount of water becomes
prohibitively time-consuming and quickly drains your gas supply.
Instead I would recommend either taking bottled water or purifying
water.
Bottled water is obviously pretty awful for the environment, but
these effects can be minimised by not buying imported water, and
buying the large 15 l water cooler bottles and investing in a
funnel to decant into personal bottles, rather than buying a whole
load of 2 l bottles wrapped in additional plastic.
Water purification is also a very good way of getting enough water.
For chemical purification I would recommend chlorine based tablets
rather than the liquid. Liquid is messy, causing a massive mess of
anything metal if the bottle leaks in your bag as it causes rust.
It also often requires pre-mixing two bottles of liquid, which is
time consuming and awkward. With a tablet you can just drop it in
the bottle and by the time you want your first drink of the day it
will likely have dissolved. Mechanical purification using a Sawyer
life straw or a similar brand is another really good way of
purifying water. If using either of these methods, I recommend
buying a plastic jerry can or other big liquid container to haul
the water from wherever you are collecting it from, back to camp.
[chlorine based tablets]:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LJTGIW0/ref=pe_3187911_189395841_TE_3
p_dp_1
Normally I would never drink tea, but on fieldwork I've found it's
a good way to get sugar and water into my body. Sometimes I make
the tea a bit better by adding some lemon juice, local edible
blossoms, or edible leaves to make an infusion. In northern Canada
I grew quite fond of making Labrador Tea, which is an infusion of
Rhododendron groenlandicum leaves, it grows in alpine areas and has
a nice sweet flavour as long as the leaves aren't left in for too
long. There are lots of species around the world which have leaves
that are good for making infusions from, members of the Lamiaceae
are a good place to start. It's normally best to observe what
locals are doing though.
Resupplies
In all the places I've done field work, there has never been any
need to take all of our food out into the field on day one.
Normally it is possible to either leave some food or a shopping
list to be delivered in the field at some future time, or it is
possible to take a day off and go buy some food locally. This is a
good way to keep a ready supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, and
to cut down on the initial weight being carried into the field.
Having deliveries also picks up morale, especially if you hide some
luxury items in the shopping bag.
A VERY basic shopping list
Some of these things might not be available in the place you are
doing fieldwork or there might be better alternatives, and I am
biased towards the tropics with my ingredient choice, but hopefully
the majority of things on the list will be available in whatever
country. Definitely add other ingredients to this list, this is the
bare minimum I think to keep you alive. Substitute ingredients with
similar locally accessible ones. For example, in many places in
West Africa, substitute potatoes with cassava root.
- Rice
- Pasta
- Potatoes
- Bread
- Porridge oats
- Flour
- Powdered milk
- Peanut butter
- Butter
- Vegetable oil
- Tinned tomatoes
- Tinned mushrooms
- Onions
- Garlic
- Carrots
- Courgettes
- Eggs
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- Tomato ketchup
- Mayonnaise
- Paprika
- Peri peri sauce
Update: 2022-04-13
While on fieldwork in Angola I revisited this blog post when
planning what food to buy. I realised that something I had
forgotten to mention was how to wash cooking utensils. A basic
washing kit consists simply of a scouring pad, some washing up
liquid, and a bowl. The bowl can be a pot used for cooking if
necessary. If a scouring pad isn't available I've seen people wash
pots with balls of tin foil, cling film, and the mesh bags that
oranges are sold in. This may seem like common sense, but it's an
easy thing to forget when your mind is focussed on buying food and
water.
