Being on the road, I have a limit on how much food I can carry with me. The right-hand pannier holds my Trangia cooker set and kettle, my mug, knife, fork and spoon, a 5l water container and three Tupperware boxes – one containing my beloved Yorkshire tea (loose), one containing washing-up liquid and a scrubber-sponge, and the last containing two lighters (to light my stove), a handle to hold a Trangia bowl, a tin opener, scissors and a multi-tool.
I eat two meals a day: my breakfast and my evening meal. For my breakfast I always have a mixture of muesli and all-bran, which is both filling and also essential for other things when you’re travelling. When I’m starting to run low I buy another bag/box of muesli and bran and then empty them into a large zip-lock bag. This keeps it dry and means there’s no packaging to take up space in the pannier.
I carry a couple of sachets of emergency boil-in-the-bag type food (just in-case) as well as the pot of jam I bought when I first arrived in Germany a month ago – which is lovely on brown bread. Most days I tend to start looking for a shop or supermarket and when I see one I do an emergency stop and buy my food for the evening. I like brown bread with nuts, which is thankfully quite plentiful in Europe, so a small loaf will last me a few days. I also buy UHT milk, so I don’t have the worry of my milk going off. I always carry an un-opened litre of UHT with me in-case I cant find a campsite just to make sure I have enough milk for tea and brekkie.
On my journey I’ve found some delightful things to eat. In Poland I found this wonderful brown bread with nuts and these jars of sausage and veg in tomato sauce. Very tasty, indeed.
The best so far was in Czechia. Doing some shopping in a supermarket I saw baked beans in tomato sauce – my fave – but not just any baked beans. They were spicy. I tried one tin that evening and loved them so before I left Czechia I bought a couple of tins, which unfortunately have all gone now. They had a great spicy ‘kick’ and I loved them. I was pretty sad when the last one was consumed – which means on my first shop back in the UK I’m going to buy some tabasco sauce to spice-up my future beans on toast….
And finally – tea… I love my tea and when at home I dutifully drink Yorkshire tea. On my previous trips I’ve taken Darjeeling loose tea with me, which although a bit too woody for me, still ticks all the right boxes when camping and saves space over using tea bags. A few weeks before this trip I was doing my weekly shop when I noticed that you can now buy Yorkshire tea as loose tea. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven so bought four 250g bags. I have a brew in the morning and two in the evening – before and after my dinner – and five weeks into this trip, I’m about half-way through my tea. This means I’ve got plenty of tea left for my trip, which is one less thing to worry about…
