Taking food with you

A snowHead

Hi all,
I was wondering how you take food with you whilst out on the mountain? Are you able to bring food from home or is it only feasible to bring bars and packaged goods? If so why
Many thanks

A snowHead

Take a backpack, bring what you like - the traditional french family lunch is Made on the mountains.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As long as you have a back pack, or large enough pockets, then no reason why you can't take food with you.

When we go we usually probably split it 50/50 as to whether we take food up with us or eat in a restaurant up on the mountain.

If we take food up it's a fresh baguette bought on the morning from the supermarket with some kind of cheese and/or meat filling.

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Okay thank you so much, does the baguette ever get squished or cold?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Find a bakery, buy whatever fits in pocket. Eat breakfast pastries in gondola.
Always have a chocolate/cereal/energy bar as top up (i usually bring these out from uk with me). Share a baguette if they are big and grab a plate of chips to share if its cold. I cant do big meals on the mountain, so tend to to have lots of small bites.

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I just buy whatever whenever. Especially in Italy where it is cheap.

After all it is free

This is a very strange question.

Anyhow, this year our groups' standard lunch menu has been, (bearing in mind mostly we're skinning so we obvs all have packs, - on the odd lift served days, packs left by picnic area)

Fresh bakery bread, ideally and best, the "fendu, if they haven't sold out, sliced (30c extra).

Choice of:
Smoked trout w/optional cream cheese, black pepper and lemon
Italian cotto ham
Salami
Hard and soft cheeses
Coronation chicken, if we could be bothered
Various flavours of crisps

N.B. it's easier to bring everything up separately and make sandwiches on the spot. Plastic cutlery advisable. And tissues. And rubbish bags.

Beverages:
Prosecco (handily Denner sells little 200ml cans, otherwise Sodastream bottles work well)
Red and (chilled) White
Selection of artisanal beers

We've had quite a few excellent lunches, just like that Happy

Bread, dried meat, hard cheese, wine, Swiss Army knife. The Valaisan have survived in the mountains on this fodder for years. Works a treat

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In some (but by no means all) mountain lift buildings/visitor facilities there is a room set aside for people to sit down and consume their own food and drink. Handy if the weather outside isn't too great. Smile

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@BobinCH, but ... that is basically all they eat. Day in, day out, 4 times a day. Sometimes melting the cheese.

I think I prefer our version.

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We have noted (and been impressed by) those who create their picnic "in the wild", but we make our's "at home". Saves on implements.
Sandwiches go in a plastic box so they don't get squashed.
Cereal bars and Chocolate (cadbury's dairy milk for us).
Thermos of mint tea with honey
And "rusty nail" in hip flask.

@Jonpim,

You know it makes sense.

We always take some sliced «pain de seigle aux noix» with some «Gruyère salé» and sliced meat and sliced apple (easier to pack), even if we intend to eat in a café/restaurant. If we don't use it on the mountain it makes for a nice snack when we're back in the apartment. But on more than one occasion it's been a life-saver on those days when you find yourself exhausted after encountering difficult conditions and in need of a boost, or just in the wrong place at lunchtime. Most of the bigger lift stations in our area have relatively good indoor «pique-nique» rooms, so if the weather turns foul and the cafeterias are rammed, it's often more pleasant to eat in the picnic rooms. We also buy a big pack of individual apple juice cartons which again, are easier to pack than a can and don't explode with the shaking-'round. I always ski with a rucksack, as I found stuffing unwanted/contingency layers into jacket pockets gets cumbersome, so there's plenty of space for a carton and a small lunchbox. As BobInCH mentions, a Swiss Army Knife is also very useful.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The small plastic sandwich boxes are also brilliant for keeping gels and museli bars in.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Also nothing quite compares to the piquante aroma of spilled smoked trout going unnoticed in a backpack for a few days... mmmm...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@LaForet, Even with a hearty breakfast I tend to have an energy crash around 11:30 and always have a little brioche bread in pocket/pack with ham and cheese, for that very moment.

It usually gets eaten.

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I like s baguette with ham or salami and cheese. Maybe a cake from the breakfast buffet or an almond croissant from the bakers. Wrapped up in tin-foil so easy to re-wrap if you don't eat it all. Might get a bit squashed but I take a lot of the centre out of the bread anyway. Doesn't always get eaten do makes a snack when I get back instead.

For those that take the makings of sandwiches and assemble on the mountain, presumably on your knee or a rock, what do you see as the advantage of doing that over doing it in the morning?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@adithorp, we are typically a group and different folks bring different elements. One couple live next door to the bakery, so they always bring bread. I like the smoked trout and cheese, so we bring that. Sis in law invariably has salami to use up, and usually hard cheese ...

coordinating the building of sandwiches as a group effort would not be feasibly possible! Plus, if someone turns up with particularly nice ham smuggled across from Italy, then one can avail.

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Going with action outdoors (n.b. own chalet rather than UCPA) would eat out on the mountain one day/weeks skiing (usually on the day in courmayeur rather than Chamonix due to better/cheaper food...)

Otherwise would stop at bakery first thing to pick up baguette and pastry/snack to eat on the mountain somewhere... Depending on the weather quite often in the middle of nowhere having skiied or hiked a fair distance from obvious civilisation to maximize ski time, with at least half of each days meal eaten on a random lift. Otherwise bigger lift stations have picnic rooms, usually with coffee (and in at least one case beer) available. Bakery isn't quite as cheap as making at home/hotel, but still a fraction of what you pay up the mountain...

Off piste you should have a backpack (where else do you keep vital shovel and probe) so carrying is fairly easy, and most baguette fillings survive a lot of backpack abuse...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@under a new name, makes sense.

After all it is free

I like my chef to prepare lunch for 12.30 sharp, nothing too heavy maybe gambero rosso cebiche with a playful Arneis followed by a frittata al tartufo, bianca naturally paired with a montepulciano say 2000 Asinone with a little snooze in the heli to burn off the alcohol before the next glide down sun kissed faces untroubled by previous skiers. Pip pip Jeeves

@adithorp, oh, and I should note if it's just the pair of us or I'm meeting mates for a proper skin, it's pre-prepped at home. I don't find stuff moves around to get squashed in a well packed pack, and who cares anyway?

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Taking food with you

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