“When we are young, we don’t take anything too seriously. But slowly, this set of daily rituals becomes solidified, and takes us over. We like to complain, but we are reassured by the fact that each day is more or less like every other.”
Spaghetti: Spaghetti and cheese. Spaghetti and homemade tomato sauce. Spaghetti with aubergines, spaghetti and pesto when we feel like spending the extra few bucks… and just plain noodles when we are low on supplies and have nothing else to eat with them. It’s a good thing I love noodles because they really are a cheap and fast meal while cycling, plus they are easy to find in most of the countries we have been through.
Here is the sauce that we tend to make: one kilo of tomatoes, an onions, and a whole lot of garlic along with whatever we happen to find at a shop that day (green onions, peppers, aubergines…).
Popcorn, as we have recently discovered, is one of the best post-dinner cycling snacks out there. It’s cheap and light to carry, it’s quick to make, and it’s easy to share with a large group of people. We have taken to carrying a supply whenever we can find it and often make it every night for weeks at a time.
I love potatoes; they are delicious (even plain), cheap in evey country, and always easy to find, but unfortunately they tend to take a lot of time, and therefore use a lot of fuel, to cook. Since here in Georgia it’s been so easy to make campfires whenever we please, we have taken to throwing some potatoes into the fire which have turned out to be delicious.
We have also tried to cook a few other things, such as meet and vegetables, over the fire and will continue to experiment with this fun new cooking method in the future.
Oatmeal: Though oatmeal is a staple in our diet, I actually can’t stand it. I really wish I did like it through cause it’s nutritious, easy, and cheap and therefore the perfect cycling breakfast for anyone who can manage to gulp it down. Recently we have been experimenting with making our own muesli (by frying it in butter, not as good as baking it but not bad considering our lack of cooking materials) and are trying to move towards more nuts and raisins for breakfast as well so that we no longer have to cook in the morning.
Rice: Rice is also cheap and easy to find, though I think Kevin and I were a bit burned out after a year of rice for every meal in Asia. That being said, we still do sometimes eat it it, occasionally with lentils, but more often than not plain (or cooked with a bouillon cube).
My favorite cycling food of all is fruit. What we get and how often we eat it really depends on where we are (and what’s in season) but any kind of natural sugar is wonderful fuel to keep us going, especially on hot days when a heavy meal doesn’t sound too appealing. Ice cream, of course, is always a good option as well (especially since in Georgia they have twenty-five cent ones).