Starchy carbs are greatly appreciated when backpacking because you’re expending a ton of calories and most freeze-dried foods simply aren’t filling enough. One of the easiest starchy carbs to carry are dehydrated potatoes, “mashed potatoes”. Here I explore a couple of things.
The first thing I tried was that old standby, potato flakes, with something called “butter buds”. Result: Bleh. The potato flakes do *not* have the right consistency when rehydrated, and the “Butter Buds” do taste sort of buttery, but aren’t capable of converting blah potatoes into something more than barely edible. Score: D- (barely edible).
The next stop was the “premium” dehydrated mashers in the foil pouches. The first of these is Idahoan “Four Cheese Mashed Potatoes”, which has the subtitle “Made with 100% REAL Idaho Potatoes, Perfectly Blended with Cheddar, Bleu, Romano, & Parmesan Cheeses”. As vs. mashed potatoes made with artificial Idaho potatoes, I suppose (heh!). This called for putting 2 cups of boiling water into a bowl, then stirring the mashers into it.
So while the water was boiling in my electric teakettle, I opened the pouch. What was inside wasn’t the flakes that I expected. It was a fine powder, well mixed. So I stirred it into my water and hmm, the texture was pretty smooth. Not bad. Not like real mashed potatoes, the kind you make by baking potatoes then mashing them with a potato masher, but that’s impractical on a camping trip.
Then came the taste test: Is it edible? The result: a firm B. As in, “quite acceptable and above average.” It ain’t as good as the real thing, but what the hell is? In any event, perfectly okay for a camping trip. For what that’s worth.
– Badtux the Culinary Penguin
So what is the cost of the ‘premium’ mashed taters vs ‘barely edible’?
Let’s put it this way. It wasn’t expensive enough that I thought twice about buying it to carry on my recent camping trip or really noticed the price. The $6 freeze-dried meal that I ate, on the other hand, I remember that price just fine
. (It was freeze-dried spaghetti and meat sauce, which rates as a “C” — i.e., edible, but that’s about it).
Depending on the brand of two at the time, I remember a few good dehydrated dinners. It seemed the more ingredients like seafood, the worse they were. There was a vegetable dish that was excellent.
I have had some USDA food commodity “mashed spuds” that are excellent also.
I use a little cream (hard to pack, I know) and real Butter and they are about as good as I can find packaged.
I’ve had ideas like beef jerky for stew but never pursued that. Probably take too much cooking.
Best Camp food ever is that frozen steak I carry as ‘ice’. Worth every ounce.
w3ski
The potato flakes are fine if you can get real butter into them. Otherwise… bleh. But carrying real butter in a backpack ain’t happenin’, at least not in summer!
The three prepackaged freeze dried meals that I can stand are the spaghetti-and-meat-sauce, chili mac, and beef stew. Anything else is bletcherific. The beef stew in particular tastes good with the mashers. Assuming you’re talking about the good mashers.
I have had those taters several times and they are pretty good and down right cheap on sale.
Another bonus you didn’t really mention is that they are “instant”.
As soon as you mix them with hot water they are done.
Idaho Four Cheese instant potatoes were a staple for me on the Appalachian Trail. Mix in a packet of tuna and it made for a quick hearty meal.
Hrm, I dunno about the packet of tuna thing. A bit too sharp a taste IMHO. On the other hand, I’ve noticed some chicken in a packet lately. That seems to me like it’d go a lot better. Hmm, guess I better try that next time…
Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb. When I’m at our getaway place in the Eastern Sierra (where potato flakes are in my pantry and real potatoes are 35 miles away) I always add generous multiple dashes of Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb to the potato mix. Helps immensely.