Food on Foot: A History of Eating on Trails and in the Wild

by Demet Güzey

What did great adventurers eat during their expeditions to the far corners of the world? How did they view the role of food in their survival and wellbeing? What about hikers and backpackers today who set out to enjoy nature, pushing their own boundaries of comfort for adventure. How does food impact their experience? And what do they have in common with pilgrims and soldiers?Food is a significant element of our relationship with nature. Whether a historical expedition or a weekend camping trip, a journey made on foot requires sustenance. Without mastering our relationship with food we would have not been to the South Pole or summited Mt. Everest or expanded to the west of America. However, in the reporting of these expeditions so far food has rarely taken a central role. It is possible to take a different stance and look at our time on trails with food as the leading character. Here, Demet Güzey offers a fun and interesting read on the social and cultural history, developments and challenges in food on trails and in the wild. She explores personal accounts, news articles and anecdotes to highlight how food has accompanied us in mountaineering, desert travel, and pilgrimage, in the army or on the street. From tinned foods to foraging in the wild, worm-infested hardtack to palate-dulling army rations, loss of appetite in high altitude to starvation at the trenches, no stone is left unturned in this tour of how we manage food on foot, and how disasters happen when we do not manage it so well. Readers will delight in both the stories of many of the famous explorations and the more current journeys.

Genres: Nonfiction

213 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2017

Reviews

[Scott Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief note: I think this is a 3.5 star book. The previous reviews put it at 3 stars, so to split the difference I'm rating it 4, a little higher than I otherwise wood. Other people on the fence may wish to counterbalance this. ;)

I'll say this for it: the author definitely covers all possible types of food that are eaten while walking. Chapters on food for expeditions (to deserts, mountains, and the arctic), pilgrimages, militaries, even just street food eaten while touristing around. There is some amazing trivia about the people who developed some of these foods (when they have a single originator), which sent me scurrying to look up more about them, and some interesting coverage of studies about what the human bodies needs or likes at, for example, high altitude. If you engage in any of these activities, totally worth a read.

The weakness is generally in the organization, which is somewhat scattered (tidbits you would think would be placed in one chapter pop up in another), and there isn't much of a point to it all, really - if there is a thesis, a grand statement he is making about foots eaten on foot, than it is largely absent. And hey, maybe it's just supposed to be a survey of the types of food, but...it would have been a stronger book if there was some kind of solid, perhaps even grand, conclusion he took form all this study.

That said, I'm a hiker (esp high altitude) and a traveler, and I enjoyed this book - you might well, too.

[Drucilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the others in the series, Food on Foot is filled with fascinating trivia. Geuzey covers a wide variety of environments and manages to make the information in each section clear and almost breezy to read (which is something a few of the other books had trouble with). All in all, one of the better books in the series.

[Jennifer]

I was looking for more ideas and this was more of a history. The bit about women hikers was interesting. I am not going to review because for what it is its fine, just not what I was looking for