Gear Junkie: Cache Lake Camping Food

Bemidji-based NPO Foods makes "Camp food so good you'll want to eat it at home." Or so touts the company line.

Last update: October 9, 2007 - 4:42 PM

Bemidji-based NPO Foods makes "Camp food so good you'll want to eat it at home." Or so touts the company line.

Last week I took this proclamation seriously, cooking up several dinner items from the company's Cache Lake dehydrated camping food (www.cachelake.com) in my kitchen.

The food -- which included the likes of Sloppy Joes, beef stroganoff and chocolate pudding pie -- was a notch above the culinary fare I tend to take on camping trips.

The tradeoff: Preparation time is substantial, requiring frying pans, pots, a spatula, oil, measuring cups, measuring spoons and other items not usually brought into the great outdoors.

But for canoe trips, car camping and backpacking overnights, this quality dehydrated food can add hugely to the experience. My favorite item, Sloppy Joes with Fryin' Pan Buns, came in a plastic pouch with a pan-bread mix and vegetarian faux-beef. Preparation required a pot for water to warm and hydrate the "beef," and a fry pan for the bread.

Cache Lake food is cheap, starting at just $2.65 a serving. Taste-wise, it's fine -- good for camping, but not up to what I want from the kitchen.

STEPHEN REGENOLD

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