Taylor Boucher, founder and owner of Portage Eats, shows off meal kits on Wednesday. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)
Thanksgiving dinner with gravy and cranberry sauce.
Ramen with foraged mushrooms and green beans.
Corn chowder with seaweed.
Partridge pot pie.
Hot pot.
These meals aren’t from a restaurant or home kitchen. They are on the menus of Registered Maine Guides while they are on trails or in the woods.
“I’ve done everything from Beef Stroganoff to cherry pie,” said Lisa DeHart, of West Gardiner, who has been guiding canoe trips for nearly 30 years.
Camp cooking isn’t just about fun and flavor. A nourishing meal is fuel for a successful adventure, guides said, and safe practices are critical to avoid getting sick in remote places. Experts shared their tips for eating well in the outdoors — whether backpacking or in a campground.
“Things taste better when you’re camping,” said Taylor Boucher, founder and owner of Portage Eats, a new South Portland-based business that makes meal kits for the campsite.
PLAN AHEAD
Candace Sabol of Corinth started cooking at hunting and fishing camps across the state years before she became a guide herself. Sometimes she is working in a lodge, and other times she is cooking in a tent camp without access to electricity or running water.
Preparation is key, she said.
“What comes up with you is what you have for the whole week,” Sabol said.
Chris Toy, a Registered Maine Guide, cooking instructor and cookbook author who lives in Bath, said he often freezes meals, such as shrimp stir fry or chili, for overnight trips to Chimney Pond at Baxter State Park. Not only does that strategy reduce the amount of chopping to be done after a long day of hiking, but he said it also prevents contamination of raw ingredients and reduces the amount of gear to carry up the mountain.
“If you’re not going to be carrying cleavers and cutting boards and ways to clean up, the more you can do at home, the better,” Toy said.
When he is car camping, he still does all the slicing in advance, but more room in the trunk means more equipment. That’s when Toy packs his divided hot pot, which he said is a perfect option for a large group with varied tastes.
“One side could be spicy,” he said. “The other side could be, as I like to joke, wimpy.”
DeHart started a YouTube channel called “3 Minutes with a Maine Guide” in order to archive the skills she learned from her mentors and has used over decades. Many are about camp cooking — how to set up a dishwashing station, how to cook over an open fire, how to choose the right gear, how to make biscuit dough or pie crust in advance.
In a field with so many variables, especially the weather, guides said food is one thing they can control.
“No matter what happens that day on a river for anybody, you can always pull out a day with really good food, and really good food in the middle of nowhere makes a guest feel safe,” DeHart said.
GET CREATIVE WITH CALORIES
Sarah Holman of Portland always checks the nutritional information on her dehydrated meals. She aims for 800 calories for dinner while backpacking and has learned that a package that advertises two servings might really be one.
“I pick snacks that are the highest calorie-to-weight ratio — like nuts,” Holman, who runs a guide service called She Hikes Mountains, said in an email. “They’re heavy, but they provide excellent fat, protein and nutrients.”
Sarah Holman, who has a guide service called She Hikes Mountains, enjoys ramen while backpacking. She added green beans from her garden and wild mushrooms that she foraged. (Courtesy of Tom Patrick)
Guides make meals that aren’t just about taste. Toy often makes soups for clients, he said, because they offer extra hydration. Holman has recently been adding candied ginger to her almonds in part because it can help settle an upset stomach.
In some cases, guides are sourcing their ingredients on their adventures. Holman said the best ramen she’s ever had was in the woods. She added green beans from her garden and five types of wild mushrooms that she foraged.
Sabol said she doesn’t eat meat except wild game, and often introduces clients to her favorite recipes, such as partridge pot pie.
On Thursdays, Sabol’s camp tradition is to make pizzas with bear heart, barbecue sauce, red onion, mushrooms and jalapenos. Some guests are skeptical, she said, but her recipe wins them over. This week, she planned to use the heart from a bear she shot herself, a milestone she was proud to share with her fellow guides and clients.
“It’s so much more than cooking for people,” Sabol said. “It’s helping people celebrate and share their harvest that they worked so hard for.”
LET SOMEONE ELSE DO THE WORK
Boucher has spent a lot of time thinking about food packaging for the outdoors.
“The packaging really is the most important piece,” she said. “Because you have limited space, and things are being jumbled around.”
When Boucher was planning trips as a Registered Maine Guide, she said she always enjoyed figuring out the food logistics for the group. She now works for the University of Maine and no longer leads trips professionally, but she still wanted to help people figure out those important details.
“My biggest goal is to make it easier for people and help them get outside,” Boucher said.
Taylor Boucher, founder and owner of Portage Eats, seals a meal kit after adding the directions to it while working at Fork Food Lab on Wednesday. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)
The meal kits from Portage Eats contain fresh ingredients sourced in Maine and come with instructions for basic cooking. Boucher assembles and distributes the meals at Fork Food Lab in South Portland. She’s about to wrap up her first season and hopes to partner with campgrounds next year to reach more people.
She said her favorites include the seaweed corn chowder and the steak tip kebabs.
Jennifer Scism, who ran a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York and won the TV show “Iron Chef,” said her Kittery-based business Good To-Go started in part because she was experimenting with her tabletop dehydrator and her favorite comfort foods.
Good To-Go can be found in stores nationwide. Most meals only need a little hot water.
Scism said her favorite is the chicken pho. The staff sets aside a bulk bin for her so she can eat it multiple times a week without wasting single-serve packaging, she said.
“No matter what kind of adventure you’re on, whether you’re summiting Katahdin or taking a leisurely walk through the woods,” Scism wrote in an email, “your meal should be something you genuinely look forward to at the end of the day.”
