Hi Boys and Girls,
I hope you are enjoying the race this year. Several of you have asked about food for both the dogs and humans along the trail. We’ve talked a lot about what the dogs eat but not about what the humans eat. Mary Calore contacted me and said she was Matt’s mom and she had prepared all his food the last year when he ran the Iditarod. She wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a story about it. I gave her a big howling “YES”.
Matt Calore has run the Iditarod twice, once in 2007 as a rookie and again last year in 2008. He didn’t run this year but is preparing to race again next year. The first year, Matt froze mostly pizza and sent it in his drop bags. Last year, his mom Mary, made his food for the trail. I was able to interview Mary about the types of food she made and the process she went through to make sure the meals would be easy to prepare and eat. One of the biggest issues was that Mary lives in Massachusetts and Matt lives in Alaska. So not only did the food need to stay frozen and safe in the drop bags, it had to make it from Massachusetts to Alaska first.
How did you plan the meals?
“Matt and I spend several long phone conversations discussing the number of meals he would need, the food he wanted, and the types of meals he needed. He felt that he would finish the race between 12-15 days, and so needed food for 16 days. He also figured that he would receive about 5-6 meals at the different checkpoints along the route. This meant that I made him 15 breakfasts, 14 lunches, and 14 dinners. I also included snacks and “special Mom treats”.
“We discussed his need to have really substantial food that would give him lasting energy, something to look forward to when he was tired, cold and hungry, but most important, something that was easy to prepare in the cold, in a pot containing dog food and melted snow, and when you are exhausted and starving. We decided that he needed fats, carbs and meat – so much for too many vegetables! We also thought about food that would be tasty even if he didn’t get it hot, but had to settle for warm. This was not the time to try out new recipes!”
What kinds of food did you make for Matt? Were you able to make his favorite foods?
“For breakfast, I made burrito wraps with scrambled egg, cheese, Canadian bacon, salsa, and flour wraps. These were favorites of his on the trail because he enjoys salsa and spicy things. I sent one in each package, but figured that he would eat two in a meal. I also made egg, cheese, and sausage English muffins – yup- MacMuffins. These were easier for him to eat without utensils. I wanted to send cereal, but couldn’t figure out how to send milk without having it freeze, and knew that dry would only make him very thirsty.
The rest of the meals were for dinner or lunch – or a midnight stop along the trail. These were more difficult.
I made him lasagna, but I did not have cheese on the top. I had the cheese inside as I was afraid that it would stick to the bag in which it was frozen and then cooked. The lasagna had hamburger and sausage meat in it, some spinach – yes, as a Mom I wanted him to have vegetables! – and a thick tomato sauce. The pieces were about 4 inches by 6 inches and one was a meal. He had about 8 lasagna meals.
Matt also likes rice, so I made him his favorite rice, sausage, green pepper, onion, tomato and cheese casserole. He said that he liked this for any meal – even breakfast! I had to make two big pans (6 quarts) of rice! I think he had about 10 of these.
I also made him cheeseburgers. In addition to plenty of cheddar cheese, I put salsa on the burgers and used whole wheat rolls. I had to drain the salsa so that the rolls would not get too soggy.
Matt also like shrimp fried rice, so I sent him two meals of homemade fried rice. I found a tasty chicken fried rice at the store that I mailed him and he said that it was good, but mine was better!
He loves Italian sausages with sautéed onions, mushrooms and green peppers in sub rolls. I decided that this would not work too well, so I put the sausage, mushroom, onion and pepper in one bag and froze the rolls separately. I think this worked OK. He had five of these.
I also made beef stew with mostly meat and potato, but I included some onions, carrots and peas too.
He wanted some homemade pizza, so I included slices of my own pizza with pepperoni, mushroom, pepper, and extra cheese. Matt loves cold pizza for breakfast, so I knew that this would be one of the meals that he would heat until it was warm, but not so warm the cheese would melt and make a mess.”
Did you make any special treats for Matt?
I made him about 30 of my special brownies. They are double batches to make them thick and I put a bag of chocolate chips in each batch to make them really chocolately and moist. These I froze in twos after cutting them into about 2inches by 3 inches. I also made some oatmeal caramel bars which can be gooey, so I added extra oatmeal bar part.
I also made up a lot of bags of trail mix as it has protein and oil in nuts, carbs in the pretzels and cereal, and energy in the chocolate and peanut butter candies. I also found some really good, but not too salty, jerky – beef, turkey and buffalo which he has always liked. I tried to get as many ingredients without salt as he did not carry too much water to drink for himself.
Matt’s dad bought him some of the special army meals and granola bars – the bars had over 2,000 calories in each one! He said they were pretty good, but there were some left over and none of my food left.
How did you package the food?
As I made the food, I would cut it into meal size portions, put it into plastic containers and freeze it. Once frozen, I popped it out of the container into a vacuum, food sealer bag, and using the food sealer machine I bought, sealed each one separately. Now Matt could put the bag into the water and dog food mix that he was heating on his butane stove, and it would not be spoiled by the dog food. When he was at a checkpoint that did not feed the mushers, but provided a microwave, he could heat his food inside too. I made sure that he had a sharp knife to cut the bag as they are very strong and the seal is melted together. I had to be sure to freeze the meals first, because the sealer pulls out all air, and usually most of the liquid put into the bag. When it was frozen, the liquid could not be pulled out! I now had a very full freezer.
How did you get the food from Massachusetts to Alaska?
I vacuum sealed ice cubes, froze the ice packs we got from fish stores, and collected heavy Styrofoam containers – like those the Omaha steaks come in. We filled them to the top with all of the food, put them into cardboard boxes layered with newspaper and sealed them. We mailed them US Mail special delivery – next day delivery – to Anchorage from Massachusetts. This was very expensive! A friend of Matt’s picked them up and brought them to him where he kept them in the snow outside.
How did Matt pack his drop bags?
When he packed his drop bags, he put in snacks and a treat bag or two. Matt had planned the places where he would stop to snack the dogs and himself, where he would camp and cook food, and where he might just need something to chew on. He then had separated the meals by breakfast and “other” and put whatever he grabbed into the bag. He was careful to include only the number that he needed so he would have enough for the whole race. Matt said that the ice was still in the boxes when he unpacked to put the food into the drop bags.
Are there any problems with the food in the drop bags for long periods of time?
Once in the drop bags, the food stays frozen as long as it is cold outside where the bags are kept. I heard that there has been some trouble this year with ravens getting at the bags! Last year it was warm and some of the bags got too warm and the food started to thaw! Matt was lucky and none of his thawed.
Is there anything you would do differently next time?
Matt said that I put too much of the stew and rice in the bags which made them fat and very hard to thaw in the middle. Oh, the rolls for the sausage and peppers shriveled up and looked really funny when I tried them in the vacuum bags, so I just wrapped them in plastic, put them in zip lock bags (good for trash!), and froze them that way. I did the same with the brownies and bars, who wants shriveled, mangled brownies? I did not freeze the trail mix, which I had packaged in single serving vacuum bags, but it was packed in with the frozen food when we mailed the packages.
Thanks to Mary Calore for telling me about preparing human food for the trail. It sounds like a lot of work and Matt is sure lucky to have a mom to do this for him. Mary said she and her husband are planning to go to Alaska for the 2011 Iditarod and hopes to be an Idita-rider. Have a great time!
And Matt, I’ll be watching for you next year!
Happy Trails,
Gypsy
