We check out Reiter's super convenient, lightweight, freeze-dried camping meals.
Reiter Travellunch
Camping Food - Quick Taste
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Price:
£3.50 (mousse) / £4.25 (pasta)
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Weight:
118
grammes (chocolate mousse) 148 grammes (Vegetable Pasta Siciliana)
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Features: Lightweight,
freeze-dried camping food in a pouch, ingredients courced from most
recent harvest, high energy values, vegetarian options, wide range of
menus.
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What's It
For?
Travellunch is aimed squarely at lightweight backpackers, campers and
adventure racers. It's been formulated to be light, convenient to use -
no pans needed - and quick and easy to reconstitute. Reiter say they
have been created to 'offer the right balance of energy and carbs'.
The Techy
Bits
Produced in Germany, Travellunch meals are freeze dried to preserve as
much taste and texture as possible and the ingredients come from
'recent harvests' with a wide choice of menus from pasta like we tried,
via bacon and fried potatoes, through to mousse au chocolat, which we
also sampled.
The food can be reconstituted in the foil pouch then eaten straight
from it, which means there's no need to carry multiple pots, just a
lightweight camp kettle or pan to boil enough water to mix with the
food, so you save weight twice over.
How It
Performed
Previous experience of dried camping food meant that we
approached the Travellunch with some trepidation, sneaking up on it
armed with some serious preconceptions. Fortunately they mostly proved
to be groundless.
First the Sicilian pasta- preparation is simple. Tear open the pouch,
fill with around a pint of boiling water, mix up and leave to stand for
ten minutes. Easy. The result was a concoction of chopped up spaghetti
in a creamy sauce mixed with olives and vegetable pieces and it was
actually very palatable.
Not in the cordon bleu restaurant standard, but quite acceptable and
the olives, which had actually retained their olive taste and texture,
gave the whole thing a lift and we ate it, voluntarily. It was slightly
salty, but then olives generally are and as Reiter points out, when
you've been working hard, you do need to top up your electrolytes.
According to the packet, there are about 500 calories in the 125
grammes of dried food and while the ingredients include hydrogenated
vegetable fat and modified starch, there aren't any visible e-numbers.
And the big bonus is that you cook in and eat from the foil pouch,
saving a lot of hassle - not least, no washing up needed.
Next up was the mousse-au-chocolat. Mix in 100ml of cold water
thoroughly and leave to stand, then simply eat. The mousse was a bit of
a revelation to be honest and would have gone down great on a hard
mountaineering trip. It's smooth, rich and chocolatey with added small
bits of crunchy chocolate adding texture and interest and a scary 500
calories or so.
It really would be a bit of a treat on the hill, though the ingredients
list includes hydrogenated vegetable fat, modified starch and
thickening agent (E401, E412) which will either concern you or not. You
could of course just take a simple choccy bar instead, but there's
something faintly decadent about a mousse, even one eaten out of a
pouch, oh, about 500 calories from the 100g of dried mousse.
Not cheap, but very light and very convenient with a decent calorie
count if you've been working hard. It's also quite palatable, not in
the fresh food class, but a lot better than most dried and
reconstituted stuff we've tried and the olives, for example, did keep
that distinctive olive taste and texture.
Buy for
lightweight convenient dining on the hill with half reasonable taste.
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Very convenient,
lightweight, quick and pretty edible with it. Vegetarian options.
Mousse
packs E numbers and hydrogenated vegetable fat.
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