Great topic!
When hiking along the Appalachian Trail in the Eastern US, the "through hikers" who walk the entire route from Maine to Georgia often have food caches mailed to rural post offices to pick up along their route every 4-5 days, whereas others learn to glean suitable foodstuffs which are readily available from chain grocery stores in the small mountain towns along the way. I am of the latter group.
While freeze dried "backpacking" food is quite tasty and light weight, it is also expensive, especially when bought at small stores in the towns along the AT, as they seem to mark-up prices above the suggested retail for benefit of the "touristas" because they are money grubbing bastards....
I have developed a basic list of grocery items which I can find in any US grocery store, which will last me 4-5 days until I get into the next town having a hotel with hot showers, brew-pub, all you can eat buffet and a salad bar! Urrgh!
These staples also constitute the contents of bucket food caches I may have friends pre-position place along my route.
A 1.5L Hawkins pressure cooker is a great piece of kit which does wonders in cooking tough game meats. It does up a great job for cooking up pre-soaked dry beans and rice quickly with little fuss. The 1.5L size is just right for two people to eat well and have no leftovers. But if travelling light I leave it behind....
My normal ration routine is to measure 1/4 cup each of split peas and lentils, adding to 1/2 cup of rice, 1 tablespoon of dried onion powder and 1 teaspoonful each of curry powder and salt into a Nalgene wide-mouth bottle with 1-1/2 pints of water to it top-off, carry and agitate while I walk the trail during the day. By sundown, after soaking and mixing by the jostlig of my rucksack, the stuff cooks up quickly in 30 minutes or so for a satisfying meal.
Without a pressure cooker, even if you pre-soak dry beans, you are stuck with long cooking times which waste fuel and require attention better used for other things, like SLEEPING when you are dog-tired! Split peas, lentils and rice with some daily variation of seasoning work much better. Coconut, peanut butter and curry are my favorite!
When traveling light I do not pack the pressure cooker. But one should stay in the vehicle kit!
On the trail my grocery staples to be sought at each town along the way are 1 lb. each of dried green split peas, and lentils, 5 pounds of rice, a small tin of Madras curry powder or Chipolte, a bag of shredded coconut, a pound of peanut butter, another pound of fruit jam, several small tins of evaporated milk, tea bags, beef or chicken bouillion cubes, instant oatmeal for breakfast, a pound of honey or brown sugar, two tins of SPAM, and a pound or so of corn tortillas or flat bread, then I am good to go for 4-5 days until the next town! Get it all for less than $20 and weight is less than 1 kg per day for food.
I cook everything up in my old Army mess tin. Yes, it gets boring after a while, but if you can manage a hot meal and a bath in a B&B once a week you can do this for a long time before going completely bonkers. In my misspent youth I was actually good for a month or 1000 km! Every week or so a pub with live music and good munchies might actually keep me in town a few days!
Link with useful info
http://at-trail.blogspot.com/2011/03/app...-food.html
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