Our Bikepacking Kitchen: Gourmet Meals in the Wild

Yummy, yummy, yummy. What is this? This is really nice. Like tuna with olive sauce. Hi everyone. As you might know, Ryan and I are currently cycling from Patagonia to Alaska. After being months on the road here in South America, we've developed some routines to stay well fed and energized. You want a puppy? Yes. We both love to eat. And when you're cycling, food is your fuel. We do eat good, you know. And let me tell you, we're feeling mighty hungry almost all the time. How does Elsa feel? Hungry. Hungry or hangry? We hope these tips will make your own bikepacking adventures a little easier and more accessible. Let's start with dinner. Ladies and gentlemen, the tarantia. Tarantia. For both dinner and breakfast, our tarantia stove is of vital importance. Granted, it's not a lightweight option, but it makes our trip so much more enjoyable and luxurious. The pan is ideal for frying up veggies, eggs or bacon, and the two pots handle every dinner dish we make really well. Most of the evenings, we stick to a simple rice, couscous, pasta or polenta dinner mixed with dried veggies. Or, if we have leftovers from town, fresh veggies. I'm carrying an onion. If we're feeling really fancy, we mix it up with some canned tuna or chorizo. The ultimate trick for our dinners is to spice it up or add a sauce package. That's why we always carry some spice mixes in bags, some grated cheese or packages that will add flavor to any dish and make it just a lot more enjoyable. To thicken watery dishes or watery soups, we use instant potatoes. And if we're feeling really lazy and nostalgic for our thru-hiker days, we simply make a ramen bomb. A little cold and grumpy, I guess. No, it's completely frozen. It got very cold in the night. Everything froze. But we've countered it by sleeping in. It's like 10 o'clock. I think it's after 10, 10.30 right now. Breakfast is pretty simple. Some cereal or granola with milk-powdered water and a cup of mate or coffee. Yeah, that's right. We couldn't live without our precious tea kettle anymore. We love making hot drinks. This is definitely a luxury item, but it's a good one. Tea at four o'clock. Spill the tea. Lunch is usually bread or wraps with salami and cheese or peanut butter and jam. Being on a bike, it's a whole lot easier to carry bulky breads and delis, and we take full advantage of that. Sometimes days go by without passing a single store. And then we resort to wraps, which was always our first choice on every hiking trip, because they're so light and easy to carry. Yeah, you're tired of wraps, huh? I'm so tired of cold wraps. How did we do this when we were hiking? Throughout the morning until lunchtime, we hold ourselves up by snacking on bars, cookies, fruit, and nuts. Just an easy snack. Great idea. Right now we've got capacity for about five liters of water, one and a half liter bottles on the forks and on the down tube here, and then another liter up top, a couple of water bottle mounts here. I had a two liter water bladder for inside the frame bag, but that also disappeared. We both carry about six liters of water on the bike. We've got three water bottles of stainless steel that are one and a half liters each, plus two smaller plastic bottles in the front for easy access. With 12 liters of water combined between the two of us, we usually go for two to three days, including cooking and drinking, of course. We could probably stretch this a bit longer, but we're so fond of our mate and tea breaks. This is the yerba, and the mate is the gourd that you drink it out of. The straw is called the bombilla, and it's basically a caffeinated tea. It doesn't have quite as much caffeine as coffee does, but it has a lot of other, I think they put it in energy drinks to just, yeah, I don't know, help offset that caffeine. I'm too sleepy for science talk, but this is yerba mate, and I've really been enjoying the ritual in the morning. It's my new favorite way to get caffeine now. In the afternoon, in the evening, all day. It does give you like a big spike sometimes, doesn't it? When I drink it, I feel it everywhere. So this is how we cook. Pretty simple, pretty chill. Alongside highways, it's not always glamorous, but... This goes in here, right until the hole. I might have to show this to everybody. Oh, and this is like nails on a chalkboard, but it's only a few seconds. You don't like that sound? No. Wave! More enthusiastic. Good.