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What the heck is a food dehydrator? Good question. My only reference to this product was the "Ronco Food Dehydrator." Guaranteed to make the best jerky and fruit snacks!

I've been interested in one of these gadgets ever since my backpacking debut in '99. Like ants on a picnic, I became obsessed with creating compact, light-weight, tantalizing gourmet-ish dinners for one burner stove cooking. In the past, I've done more then a fair amount of car camping. I'd been used to cooking with steak, shrimp, fish and fresh produce on my hibachi. But Backpacking? I often wondered, "How can I carry this tasteful talent into the back-woods?"

Eating interestingly-well in the backcountry is appealing to me. In fact, it's a requirement! After a long day of hiking, the reward should be a FANTASTIC meal! A satisfying dining experience that crowns a long day on the trail.

I've tried the pre-packaged variety of freeze-dried meals and found them to be so-so. I've searched the 3W, books on backwoods cooking and Backpacker magazine for interesting trail meals. Using store-bought foods, I embraced a variety of trail-side recipes. I learned to accommodate recipes that called for meat and cheese by purchasing cured and vacuumed sealed products. Oscar's Meats (Warrensburg, NY) say their meats can be refrigeration-free for 2-3 weeks; cheese even longer! They're fantastic, but heavy.

While I've learned a lot and have truly improved my back-woods culinary skills since then… I've been limited to recipes that excluded compact, light-weight, freeze-dried ingredients like tomato powder, corn, chicken, beef, beans and a host of other cooking staples. So, what's a backpacker to do?

Enter... the food dehydrator. I had to have one!

Initially, I thought my biggest obstacle to purchasing a dehydrator would be the price. However, I was more likely to win the lottery then find one in the Capital District. So, when I learned that a nearby Boscov's carried them, I acted like a screaming maniac in pursuit of what turned out to be the last one!

A food dehydrator. What's the big deal? As an example, with minimal experimentation, I quickly concocted "g's" Killer Spaghetti Sauce with Portabella Mushrooms for SEVEN. Besides its thick rich taste, the compact ingredients for seven weighed-in at:

2 quarts of spicy killer spaghetti sauce (dehydrated

and ground to a powder) and dehydrated portabella

mushrooms = 8 oz.

2-1/2 pounds of penne = 2-1/2 lbs.

(This meal can be further spruced up be adding re-hydrated chicken chunks or "vegetarian meat" to the sauce.)

Here's the deal. A food dehydrator is a specially designed stack of round drying trays that has forced warm air pushed through them. It's purpose is to slowly dry food (while maintaining the foods nutritional content) and to prolong its life with minimal care. I purchased the American Harvester, Snackmaster Pro (by NESCO) for $60 (500 watts; adjustable temperature settings; 4 drying trays; suggested retail price is $80).

Essentially, you can take the moisture out of any food - Fresh, processed, raw and cooked. In my dehydrator, most fruits, vegetables and cooked meats become dehydrated in 8-10 hours. Many dehydrated foods can be stored at room temperature for 3-12 weeks, or up to 6 months in a refrigerator or freezer. While re-hydrated produce may be less appealing to eat on its own, it becomes the cornerstone of soups, sauces, rice dishes and stews. Dehydrated and re-hydrated fruit have multiple uses. Re-hydrated chicken and steak is great in stews and sauces. Then there's home-made jerky.

To answer the question… A food dehydrator allows anyone to create backcountry meals that are compact, light-weight, nutritious, and are endless in creativity.