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One of the best attractions of a trek is the great food. When we first started on our 1989 trek, my wife was really impressed when she saw that Buddi had bought 2 kilograms of garlic, and over 8 kilos of onions, for a group of 10 people. She knew, this guy really knows how to cook. And she was right.
Buddi has a LOT of recipes; some are based on western supplies such as Knorr soups, or canned meats. Many are cooked up fresh with local ingredients. But Buddi has his own way to make them special. The kitchen boys do most of the cutting, chopping, and preparing the food, and then cooking it up. Budi manages the whole operation, and sets the tasks, checks the critical stages, and does the tasting and the adjusting of flavors. Obviously, Buddi is RESPONSIBLE for how the food tastes, and we really enjoyed it, almost all the time:
The Food
The proof of the pudding is, how did we like the food. I thought it was almost always excellent. Especially the fried foods. At least once a day, Buddi made something fried. Breakfast or lunch or dinner. We might have bacon puri and cheese puri for breakfast, or french-fried potatoes for lunch, or potato chops for supper. Or pizza. Everything was very delicately fried, not greasy. Even at the end of the trip, the fried foods were very tasty; the oil did not taste old or tired.
I have tried to keep lists of all the food - but I was not perfect at list-making. Still, we had some excellent taste treats.
At Jomosom we had spring rolls with our Goat McNuggets, for lunch.
At Tal we had baked beans with sausage and pancakes and cabbage salad. A couple places we had new boiled potatoes that we bought locally. Eggplant with veggies. Cauliflower. Spaghetti al Pesto. Lots of rice. DahlBhat with freeze-dried water-buffalo meat.
Breakfast always started with juice (hot juice when it was cold) and oatmeal or granola. Once we had choro, a local beaten rice cereal, fried and served with ham and onion. Excellent. Followed by breads or french toast or pancakes, or omelettes. Then tea and coffee, and hot water (so you could make hot chocolate, or herbal tea), and we were well fortified to hit the trail.
French toast. Omelettes with yak cheese, or with tomatoes, or with bacon, or plain omelettes. Of course, when you are out in the open air, and working hard, that makes food taste better. I ate with a big appetite, and still lost about 9 pounds. I've only gained a couple pounds back. Did I lose weight because I didn't like the food? Not at all! I think I lost weight because I was working hard, and because the tea-and-cookies we were served at 6 AM helped curb my appetite a little. But still I almost always ate seconds.
"Goat McNuggets"
Some of our members became vegetarians when they saw the cute white goat we bought in Jharkot. They petted it and patted it. When the goat stew was served for supper, they decided to eat vegetables. Actually, the goat stew was quite tasty; a little tough in spots, but very good flavor. Not gamy. But the idea of eating an animal that they had petted was just not acceptable. This was reinforced by the kitchen boys, who asked, "Would you like some Maa-aa-aa?" I think they did this because (over many treks) they had learned that if they described supper that way, fewer trekkers would eat the goat, and would leave more meat left over for them to eat. I guess that is what happpened. Good for them. I thought this was hilarious!
The next day in Jomosom, we did have "Goat McNuggets" for lunch, with spring rolls. Again, "Would you like some more Maa-aa-aa?" Some said "No-o-o"; others said "Ye-e-e-s". But they were very tasty. I had never actually eaten Chicken McNuggets, so after I got home, I went to a McDonalds and ordered some. They were very bland, not much flavor. Heck, the Goat McNuggets were better, more flavor.
Most trekkers did not want to see how the goat was killed and butchered up. But I wanted to see how they did it. The kitchen crew did an extremely professional, humane, neat, sanitary job of killing and cutting up the goat. I watched, I took video. They really knew how to do it. I wanted to learn how they did it, because I would certainly be willing to kill a goat if we were hungry and needed the food. But I didn't know how to do it, so I watched and learned. Most procedures made perfect sense. I did not realize that just pouring boiling water on the carcass would make the fur come off easily in just a few seconds. They used lots of boiling water, and were VERY clean. Then after they had scraped the skin very clean, they rubbed curry powder all over the skin - and shortly they washed it right off. Thanks to the pressure cooker, the stew was ready to eat, barely two hours after the goat was walking around.
So if you are carnivorous, but you wouldn't want to eat an animal that you petted - wouldn't want to see how the meat was prepared - but you'll eat it if you don't have to think about it - that's your choice. But when you see how carefully the meat was prepared, you have a lot of respect for the guys who have to work with the butchering - and they do it very carefully.
Likewise, the chickens we bought were handsome big birds. Some people were uncomfortable about eating a bird when they had heard it squawking. But the chickens sure were delicious. One item I recommend adding to your equipment: dental floss. Because little bits of the meat can get stuck in your teeth, even though it has been pressure-cooked.
Recipes
I can give you a couple of Buddi's good recipes. The first is just sort of a concept: any good cook can figure out how to execute this:
Potato Chops
Make patties out of mashed potatoes; dip in beaten egg, dip in bread crumbs, and fry. Buddi uses deep fat. Most of us do not have a lot of fat to use that way, but you could just fry them in a pan. I had never had them before. They were excellent. Obviously there are many variations you could make with different spices, garlic, etc, now that you have the basic concept.
Buddi's Ramen Soup
Buddi makes this up for lunch on cold days, such as at Ghora Tabela or Yak Kharka. It is a real warmer-upper. (He also serves a fairly bland chicken-noodle soup alongside this. I always sample that, but THIS is MUCH better.) Recipe for 2 people:
Take 2 packages of ordinary cheap ramen noodle soup, any flavor. Start with 3.5 cups of cold water, or the amount that the package specifies. Add diced or finely-chopped pieces of any raw vegetables available such as onions, peas or chinese peapods, carrots, broccoli, green pepper, whatever you like, whatever you have. Put veggies in the cold or warm water and bring to a boil. When water is boiling, add the noodles and cook per the instructions (just 2 or 3 minutes). The vegetables will not be really well cooked, but just par-boiled, a bit crunchy and al-dente. That is what I intend.
Open a can of tuna fish and break it up into small pieces. If you are working hard, on a cold day, you may even want to put in the oil from the tuna. When the noodles are cooked, add the tuna and the contents of the soup's flavor envelopes, and add hot pepper flakes to taste. I would recommend about 1/4 teaspoon, or more if you like it hot. Stir, serve. Excellent on a cold day. If you are really hungry, you might use 3 packages of Ramen for 2 hungry people. When Buddi makes it, I eat even more than that! Drinking a lot of salty soup is a good way to keep hydrated, on the trail. And the pepper really warms you up. Whenever you eat this soup, think nice thoughts about Buddi! / rap
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