Book Review: Cooking in Canoe Country by Robert Black

I picked up this book at the Algonquin Visitor's Centre the other day and thought I'd give a quick review on it.

First off, if you're looking for recipes where everything is dehydrated, this isn't the book for you.  This is, as the title says, for canoe camping (or car camping I suppose) where a mix of fresh and dried ingredients can be taken along.

What I liked most about this book was the way it was divided.  Unlike most books who categorize recipes in the typical breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks way, this book takes it a bit further.  You have a section on fancy dinners for the first night out, where you may take frozen meat, another section for mid-trip dinners on travel days, and another on late trip dinners on travel days. There is also a chapter on what the author calls "duff-days"or what you might refer to as rest days.  This is a nice approach and gives you a better idea of what kinds of meals you can make during the stages of your trip.  It's easy to simply take all dehydrated meals, but if you can make the first night's dinner a fabulous feast, why limit yourself to dried chilli?  Similarly, if you are taking a rest day and have time to bake brownies or cook something that takes a bit of time, why not?  That's the beauty of canoe camping.

Though there isn't a huge number of recipes in the book, they all look good and don't require odd ingredients.  (I hate that, when 75% of the recipes in a book call for things you can't buy because they are only available in the USA.)

The book also discusses camp stoves, cooking over a fire, preparing fresh caught fish and packing tips. I'm really looking forward to trying out these recipes and will post my thoughts on them when I do.