I was asked about what we will be eating while we are on the expedition, so I thought that I would share with you what a typical day of trekking, base camp and on the mountain food is like.
When we are in Kathmandu we will be eating well. There are so many different restaurants there...even a pizza place called Fire and Ice that I am sure we will visit at least once. The other highlight is our free meal at the Rum Doodle restaurant, and I just can't wait....just to be there again and look at our Yeti footprint that is hanging there.
Once we start trekking we will likely be staying in tea houses. There is always one big room where everyone gathers and they are all set up the same way. Deep benches along the walls that are covered in blankets, and in front of the benches are tables. The tables are not like here where you can put your legs under the top, but rather they have sides so that it is difficult to sit and eat with your food on the table, plus the tables are quite low so I usually just bring the food onto my lap and eat from there.
A typical breakfast is oatmeal or tsampa a form of cooked breakfast, sometimes pancakes are available and eggs if you like. The eggs are usually hard boiled, and are served by themselves....no bacon and eggs with potatoes and toast here, it is just eggs! Lunches are usually noodle soup or fried rice or potatoes if we stop to eat. The sherpas usually only eat two meals a day - breakfast and supper only so sometimes we eat a granola bar that we carried with us and keep on going. Supper on the trail is always great, because we are done for the day and can now rest and relax, and if we feel like splurging we may have a bit of water to wash our hands and face. The meal always starts off with soup to help with the rehydration, and my favourite is garlic soup. Main course offerings are fried rice with egg or cheese or veggies like carrots or boiled potatoes with cheese or veggies. The best however is dal bhat. Lentil soup poured overtop of steamed rice, and frequently a bit of veggies like carrots and cabbage. This is the best, and everyone makes it just a bit differently. For desert almost every tea house serves apple pie and I have never seen so many different ways to serve apple pie!!! Yummy after a long day!
I am thinking that at base camp the food will be similar to to when we are trekking. We will have a choice just like when we are trekking, but usually rice or potatoes that can be served in a multitude of ways.
For on the mountain things will be a bit different. We have chosen food that doesn't require cooking, but rather just some rehydrating. For example breakfast is oatmeal. Domhnall has the packaged kind while I have made my own mix. A bit of oatmeal with some cream of wheat, chia seeds, hemp hearts, slivered almonds and cranberries with a dash of cinnamon and bit of powdered milk and brown sugar. For an extra special treat I added a few white chocolate chips to a few bags! Yummy!!!
Lunches will be on the go, meaning we will not stop to boil water, so that means a granola bar or sharing a chocolate bar. This is all that we usually have so that we don't have to stop.
For supper we have quite a selection. It will always start with soup to which we can add any of the following: dried veggies like corn, peas or green beans, sundried tomatoes, dehydrated roasted peppers, onion or garlic flakes or even some dehydrated parmesan cheese. If we are making this our meal we also have some tuna or salmon that we may add. As a main course we could choose from a selection of purchased dehydrated meal, or a couple of my own such as lemony lentil bisque with dehydrated feta cheese or a curried Indian stew with sweet potatoes, peppers and chicken. All the meals have to be rehydrated by just adding boiling water as we will not be carrying up any extra fuel to cook with, so that means no pasta or anything else that needs cooking.
For an extra special treat we may have a desert. I have some pudding mixes that we only add cold water and powdered milk and shake in our covered cups until it thickens. To this I may add some reconstituted berries and then topped off with some dehydrated angel food cake for a bit of crunch.
If all of this sounds a bit decadent....well it is! Eating on the mountain is so important to keep our strength up. Due to the lack of oxygen we often feel a bit nauseated and not very hungry because our bodies do require oxygen to digest our food. For this reason I try to bring foods that I enjoy in the hopes that I will eat a bit more. When I really don't want to eat, my last resort food choices are Pringle's chips and a few bites of beef jerky!
This is what we will be enjoying while we are gone. Please send in your ideas for anything else....I still have a couple of days before we leave to dehydrate!!!!
