When I first got into hiking, a few years after my first foray into it, in college, I was determined I was going to be a “real hiker”. Even though I had no actual idea what a “real hiker” was. It apparently had more to do with me shopping out of paper catalogs in the waning years before the internet finally took over. There were two catalogs I shopped out of:
LLBean and Campmor.
LLBean was for hiking boots, pants, and a backpack that was so big I am still wondering how I got it on my short torso (5500 ci!). I hadn’t quite made it to REI, which was a long drive from our island to Seattle. Back in those days, Seattle had just become home to the new “flagship” store before Paul Allen built it up in the 2000s. It was pretty seedy, and my Dad would lecture me not to go there. It wasn’t like anyone would steal my 1980 Toyota Corolla Sportwagon that was missing half of its dash…
Going backpacking in the Olympic Mountains in the early 2000s.
The entire outfit was LLBean: shorts, boots, socks, and a wool sweater. From there, I got my first lightweight tea kettle and gas stove, and I even got my first Lexan spoon. I proudly wore it all that first year of backpacking.
I saw an ad in Backpacker Magzine, which is how I found Ursack around 2000.
That Ursack bag went on thousands of miles with me. Sitting in camp at Packwood Lake, in Washington State, in the late winter of 2004. I’d go on to buy more of them in various models. I could never shut up about it, all proud that my short self didn’t have to try to hang food bags…and a lot of people that hiked with me bought them.
It kept all my freeze-dried meals safe. (I learned the dumb way why one doesn’t leave packages of freeze-dried meals laying around in camp—because they will get ripped open by the tiny critters. But back then, no one had told me not to be an idiot. The Ursack cured that issue.)
This leads to the Campnor catalog:
Anyone into backpacking in the 90s and 2000s would eventually read a copy of Backpacker Magazine, and Campmor always had ads in the back…….
Always with the drawn images. Never photographs.
Around Y2K, I must have gotten my first catalog and was hooked.
As I flipped through it and dreamed of all the gear I had never seen before, I came to the freeze-dried meal section. I had no real idea what the meals were; they listed the brands and the meals they offered. MountainHouse Beef Stew. Alpine Aire Chicken Salad with crackers. Egg Nog packets.
There was no description of what you were getting, nor how big it was, how much water, and so on. It was truly the dark days. Now, one can look at the ingredients, dry weight, water content, photos of it prepped, and so forth.
But then? You just sent money and wondered what you were getting.
The first freeze-dried meal I remember eating was an Alpine Aire Turkey with Mashed potatoes. I had no idea what I was doing, as I sat in the woods pouring water in. The potatoes were lumpy with pockets of powder. Delicious! Years later, I realized I had bought instant mashed potatoes, freeze-dried turkey, and gravy mix for an inflated price.
The only reason I kept buying the meals is that I truly thought it was my only choice. It wasn’t until I found a couple of “turkey roasting bag” recipes that I realized a whole world was waiting for me in the grocery store. (Yes, that is what FBC, Freezer Bag Cooking, came out of—creating 100s of recipes for our readers.)
The Alpine Aire meals came in giant shiny Mylar bags with utilitarian typesets. The bags were two to four times too big, and you’d end up with food-covered fingers trying to eat. It wasn’t pretty food, either. It always felt like, in that period, all commercial freeze-dried meals were soup, not firm sauced pasta or rice dishes. They were always soupy! Back in the Campmor days, “No Cook” was a mystery until I realized what freeze-dried meant after my first purchase: Add boiled water.
The giant Mountain House meals of the early 2000s were something else back when the meal came in a turkey roasting bag that you tucked into the mylar bag (which was massive) to rehydrate. I still hold this particular meal as one of the worst meals I have attempted to eat. I have always felt they used converted rice in their freeze-dried meals, and it was one reason I hated rice meals so much (the texture was so gross).
The worst was Natural High. I remember when this one lured me in.
I am still unsure what I bought, but it wasn’t pizza. I mean…I definitely couldn’t believe it was pizza.
That was a special meal. And not in a good way. It was bitter tomato, crunchy cheese and dry biscuit dough.
But I’d say that at least my mail-order Campmor freeze-dried meals started me on my path to creating outdoor recipes. It gave me entry to a world of food so badly created because people would buy it no matter how it looked or tasted—you might remember the phrase “It’ll taste great in camp!” which was a total lie. Since it was all you had, you ate it.
I’d say modern times are better because at least you have more knowledge about what you are buying and, more importantly, more choices. Companies overall now have to try to impress consumers, not just wait for suckers to buy.
~Sarah