Trip: A lot of people will just take out a, a bottle of olive oil just drink it out of the bottle, but you take three or four tablespoons of that and you put it into some ramen or you put it in the mashed potatoes and you add a bunch of calories and you know, you wouldn't necessarily do it at home but out here, you know …

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies it’s for eaters, I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. And this week our senior producer Emma Morgenstern is bringing us a story she’s been working on for a little while.

Dan Pashman: Hey, Emma.

Emma Morgenstern: Hey, Dan.

Dan Pashman: So what’s going on? What do you got for us? 

Emma Morgenstern: So in the summer, I love going hiking. I live in New York, so we're pretty close to one of the most famous hiking routes in the country — the Appalachian Trail.

Dan Pashman: Right. Although, I gotta stop you right there. Now, I grew up calling it the Appalachian Trail. I know some people say Appalachian. 

Emma Morgenstern: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: We actually looked into this. According to West Virginia Public Radio, there are no fewer than six different ways to pronounce it. I think, we’re gonna go with the northerner yankee approach, cause that's what you and I are

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman:  Right, Emma? Okay? 

Emma Morgenstern: Yes, I'm a Yankee. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: But we acknowledge there's more than one way to say this word, okay?

Emma Morgenstern: Yes, yes.

Dan Pashman: So anyway, the Appalachian, one of the most famous routes in the country, please go on.  

Emma Morgenstern: So, yeah, the Appalachian Trail — I've done some day hikes on it, in New York, New England and Pennsylvania. But there are people who actually hike the whole trail, which starts in Georgia and ends in Maine. It goes from the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The whole thing is more than 2000 miles, and it takes people five or six months to do it.

Dan Pashman: Wow.

Emma Morgenstern: And so, me being me ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: I always wondered, how do you keep yourself fed on a 5-month hike? 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Right. The consummate Sporkful producer always goes to the most important topic at hand. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: I'm wondering now the same thing, because I don't get on a airplane with less than three peanut butter sandwiches. I've usually eaten two before take off, so ... 

[LAUGHING]

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah when I go on a hike, I'll usually pack a ton of food. Like, I fill my backpack up with granola bars, trail mix, cheese, sliced turkey, crackers, an apple — of course, chocolate ... And that's for like 5 hours. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Right. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] So what do you do if you're going on a 5 months?

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I can't even imagine. What does that even look like?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, I wanted to know that too. So I went out and talked to a bunch of hikers on the Appalachian Trail. What I learned is that hikers have their own subculture, complete with language and customs and, of course, food. These folks have a very unique strategy for eating. And it was like entering this entire new food universe.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: All right, well now I wanna go! Let’s go!

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] We’re going! So, Dan I’m going to teach you a little bit of the language of hikers.

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Emma Morgenstern: So our first vocabulary word in that language: through-hikers. 

Dan Pashman: Through-hikers.

Emma Morgenstern: So that's the term for people who hike the whole AT — the Appalachian trail. 

Dan Pashman: So we’ve got a bunch of through-hikers hiking the ol’ AT.

Emma Morgenstern: Exactly. Next vocabulary word is NOBO, Northbound. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Emma Morgenstern: So most through-hikers are NOBO. They start in Georgia. They end in Maine. And they start around March usually, so they're hitting the halfway point, in Pennsylvania in about June. So last June, my husband Sam and I drove out to the halfway point so I could talk to a few hikers.

[CAR SOUNDS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Testing 1, 2 ...

Emma Morgenstern: The halfway point is at Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The general store there is actually a famous food stop on the AT, which we'll talk about a little later. So, Sam and I got there in the early afternoon on a hot, sunny day. Honestly, not the kind of day that you'd really want to hike. It was a little hot for me.

Dan Pashman: Okay.

[LAUGHING]

Emma Morgenstern: The general store is a little log cabin with a covered patio and some picnic tables. And sure enough, there were lots of through-hikers lounging around on the patio when we arrived.

Emma Morgenstern: Are any of you through-hikers?

Dan Pashman: How could you tell they were through-hikers?

Emma Morgenstern: How should I put this? They tend to smell a little riper than your average day hiker? 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: You don’t want to be downwind of the through-hikers is what you’re telling me. 

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, no shade to them. They don't get to shower very much on the trail, but ... 

Dan Pashman: Okay, all right. 

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, you can smell ‘em.

[LAUGHING]

Emma Morgenstern: So at that point when I met them, they’d already been on the trail for a couple of months, with at least a couple more months ahead of them. And the people I talked to had all different reasons for doing the AT, but a lot of those reasons boil down to needing to take a break from real life, wanting to accomplish something big. You know, that kind of thing?

Dan Pashman: Right.

Emma Morgenstern: But going into it is a little nerve-wracking for anyone.

Trip: The only time I had any kind of maybe regrets or doubts was honestly the first day.  

Emma Morgenstern: This is Aaron Ausmus. His trail name is Trip.

Dan Pashman: Wait, what do you mean by trail name?

Emma Morgenstern: A trail name is a nickname that the hikers give themselves, that they pretty much exclusively use while they're on trail. So, like ... 

Dan Pashman: I think my trail name would be Tex.

[WESTERN MOVIE MUSIC PLAYS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Tex? Why Tex? 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I don't know. It just sounds like the name of a person who spends a lot of time on a trail. 

[LAUGHING]

Emma Morgenstern: All right, I'm gonna start calling you Tex from now on.

Dan Pashman: All right.

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: So anyway, back to Trip

Emma Morgenstern: Yes. So Trip, he's from Texas.

Dan Pashman: Oh, he might not like my trail name then.

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] 

Trip: My dad had to drive me out here 12 hours from Texas and I finally got into camp that night and had all my stuff set up and it was all kind of new to me and I had no idea how far I was gonna make it. But I kind of had this like, moment of reflection of like, what am I doing? I think that first day I was like, well, I'm out here now. So it's sink or swim.

Emma Morgenstern: That might sound a little dramatic, but actually those nerves are pretty real. The AT is no joke. The hikers, yes, they're are choosing to be there but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. The terrain is strenuous. There are a lot of wild animals like bears and rattlesnakes. And there are plenty of opportunities to get sick or injured or dehydrated. A few thousand people attempt the AT every year but only a quarter of them actually make it.

Dan Pashman: Okay, so this is — so most people don’t finish.

Emma Morgenstern: Right. So you can imagine that in such a wild situation, food becomes a focal point for a lot of hikers.

Redbeard: There's something called the "hiker hunger" that people start to get to where you just have a voracious appetite.

Emma Morgenstern: This is George Cone, aka Redbeard — that’s his trail name. Kind of a funny name to me because when I met him his beard was dyed blue.

[LAUGHING] 

Emma Morgenstern: So Redbeard and other through-hikers are averaging about 15 to 20 miles a day on trail, so you can see where that hiker hunger comes from.

Dan Pashman: That makes sense. I mean, like, you're burning a lot of calories on this hike.

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, so you’re really hungry and you also have to carry everything you’re eating on your back. So that presents a bit of a problem for hikers. There's a cardinal rule that they have, which is you want foods that pack as many calories into as little weight as possible. 

Dan Pashman: Right, you need as much sustenance with as little effort to carry it as possible.

Emma Morgenstern: Exactly. 

Redbeard: And usually, you want to get at least a hundred calories per ounce in whatever you're putting in your body, if not more, to make it worth it to carry with you. It feels a little opposite of the real world. We tend to get very calorie conscious in what we eat and it's like, which has the most calories, so ... 

Emma Morgenstern: The Appalachian Trail does cross through towns, so at least every few days the hikers are close enough to civilization that they can do, what they call, a resupply. But it's a lot of gas stations and dollar stores. Hitting up a Walmart or a grocery store is a big luxury. So all those constraints really limit what they eat.

Redbeard: I eat a lot of Clif bars out here and they're widely available at places. Quest bars, I find, are one of the most nutritionally dense bars that we can get out here. I even discovered their peanut butter cups the other day, which are 1.48 ounces, 190 calories, 15 grams of fat for the two cups. So they're very good.

Emma Morgenstern: You got this all like at the ready. You know all the stats.  

Redbeard: They're very good. I know these stats very well at this point. [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah.

Emma Morgenstern: Some hikers will do anything to get more calories. As you heard at the beginning of the episode, people will even drink olive oil straight from the bottle.

Dan Pashman: That’s hardcore.

Emma Morgenstern: It’s hardcore. This it's one of the things that surprised me the most about the way through-hikers eat. I tend to think of hikers as super-fit, athletic, concerned with their bodies, concerned with treating their bodies like a temple. You know?

Dan Pashman: Right, they need to put the right fuel in!

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, exactly! But because of the need for so many calories and their limited access to places to get food, it turns out they often stuff their faces with junk. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Okay, so what does a typical day of food look like for a through-hiker?

Emma Morgenstern: So, usually through-hikers are camping out overnight at a lean-to shelter or a campsite with a tent along the trail. So they wake up at the campsite, let's say. You might start off the morning with oatmeal at your campsite. You've got some options. You can either break out the camp stove to boil water for hot oatmeal, or maybe you'll just "cold soak" your oats. Think like TikTok overnight oats but not good. 

[LAUGHING] 

Emma Morgenstern: Okay, so you got your oatmeal. Then you pack up and start getting some miles in. As you're walking, you'll probably eat some more, again to get those calories. Popular snacks that you might be eating as you're walking are Honey Buns, Goldfish, Pop Tarts ... 

Dan Pashman: If I started eating a bunch of honey buns in the morning, I wouldn’t have energy to hike ten more miles. Like I would sugar crash ... 

Emma Morgenstern: Okay, no honey buns for you, Dan.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, that's fine. 

Emma Morgenstern: Oh, sorry. No honey buns for you, Tex. 

[LAUGHING]

[WESTER MOVIE MUSIC PLAYS]

Emma Morgenstern: But the point being, you know, all of these snacks are all calorie dense. They're lightweight and something you can get at the dollar store. So then, let’s go to lunch, assuming you make it, Tex.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Emma Morgenstern: So for lunch, you might stop to cook something on the trail, but it's probably kind of a pain to get out your camp stove and heat up the food. So instead, I'm gonna bet you go for a tortilla with a packet of cooked chicken or pepperoni or peanut butter — or maybe all three. 

Dan Pashman: This is sounding more delicious to me now. I can go for the tortilla with — I mean, it's not great but I'm warming up to it.

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] So Trip told me that dinner is where people get creative. You've gotten your miles in, you've set up camp, you get your little camp stove out n...

Trip: Everybody kind of makes like their own concoctions of certain things. And a lot of times it involves ramen or mashed potatoes. 

Emma Morgenstern: And sometimes, it involves both ramen and mashed potatoes! 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Mixing those two makes, what through-hikers like to call, " ramen bomb". 

Dan Pashman: Okay, that's — I mean, that sounds like it might be amazing. Are these dehydrated mashed potatoes we’re talking about?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah. So Trip once made, what he calls, "trash potatoes". And that was mashed potatoes mixed with rice, with Doritos folded in for texture and spice. 

Dan Pashman: I like that you said, "Doritos folded in.", Emma. I like that you're using the correct culinary term for how you would incorporate Doritos ... [LAUGHS] ... 

Emma Morgenstern: Into ... [LAUGHS] ... 

Dan Pashman: With rice, into dehydrated mashed potatoes. [LAUGHING] 

Emma Morgenstern: Just like Ina taught us to do. 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

[LAUGHING] 

Emma Morgenstern: If you have a little more cash to spend, some of the hikers will get more gourmet dehydrated meals specifically geared towards hikers. Brands like Mountain House or Backpacker’s Pantry have meals like pad thai or beef stroganoff, and all you have to do is add hot water and wait for it to reconstitute. And some people don’t even need those brands to be gourmet, sometimes they'll bring their own gourmet skills. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Emma Morgenstern: So at Pine Grove General Store I met another guy named Dylan Barrett, AKA Dharma. He’s had his share of ramen bombs, but he’s a professional cook in his normal life.

Dan Pashman: Oh, all right. So this guy’s the guy to make friends with on the trail. 

Emma Morgenstern: For sure. 

Dharma: One of the first few days out, we were down in Georgia and then we all got, like, fresh ingredients and made an actual stir fry rice over a fire with like morels and onions, dried jerky that we rehydrated ... 

Emma Morgenstern: Dharma and Redbeard both raved about another great food source on the AT — and that's foraging. The hot ticket items are blackberries and ramps.

Redbeard: So ramps are a type of wild onion. There was a shelter called “the overlook mountain shelter”. There were just fields of ramps everywhere. So you can dig them up, they smell kind of oniony and garlicky. You can chop them up. Even if you eat the greens of them, they are still a little spicy, but it's very delicious. And I had some powdered miso soup packets around that time that I added them to. And it adds a little bit of flavor and a little bit of other…

Emma Morgenstern: Add a little freshness too, like fresh vegetables ... 

Redbeard: Yeah, a bit of greens on the trail. I mean, just fresh ...

Emma Morgenstern: Those fresh fruits and veggies don’t keep well, and they don't pack enough calories for their weight. So they’re at a premium. Consistently when I asked people what their best meals on trail were, or what they missed the most, they told me ...

Redbeard: A burger and a salad.

Karin: I miss kale. [LAUGHS] 

Trip: Probably the best salad in my life. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I mean, I enjoy a good salad, but I think you’re right, Emma, that these folks are in some sort of altered food universe when the single thing that they most miss is salad.

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, I like to think of salad being the new chocolate cake. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Another thing they miss is hot food, but luckily there are some restaurants people can stop at on the way ...

Trip: And they had a pizza place that makes a 28-inch pizza. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS]

Trip: And we ordered it. It was a $40 pizza. It was a big pizza and it came in a box. It barely would fit through the door. And I ate some of it for dinner, breakfast, and lunch the next day. 

Emma Morgenstern: How do you transport pizza?

Aaron: Like on the trail?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah.

Trip: So most people on the trail have like a gallon Ziploc bag and you put all your trash in there. So I just dumped my trash in the trash can at the park and then I just put the pizza in the Ziploc bag and carried it on the trail and then ate it that night.

Emma Morgenstern: There you go ... 

Dan Pashman: Look, as I think I’ve said on the show here before, I once spent a whole day walking around Chicago at a bachelor party with a pound of sliced ham in my pocket ... 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: So, I wouldn't be judging him either way.

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, I mean, so you’re not judging him for putting pizza in his trash bag?

Dan Pashman: No, I have no problem with that whatsoever. I mean, honestly, one time, the whole extended family was together. My nephew, Gabriel, threw out his French fries that he didn't finish. They were in the bag that they came in. And Janie was so upset because she wanted the fries and so I just took them out of the garbage and Janie and I and the kids all ate the garbage fries. 

Emma Morgenstern: Oh, so you guys are like raccoons? 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Oh! That’s your new trail name, Racoon. 

Dan Pashman: Okay, Racoon. [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: Forget Tex.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, Tex is dead. Long live Raccoon! 

[LAUGHING] 

MUSIC

Emma Morgenstern: So Dan, we've talked about how most people eat on the trail. But I met one person at Pine Grove General Store who was taking a pretty different approach. Her name is Callia Tellez, aka Cricket. She’s from Ohio. Cricket went so far as to mail herself boxes of food to receive along the trail.

Dan Pashman: Wow. That sounds like a lot of work. How do you even do that?

Emma Morgenstern: Well, there are some hostels along the way that will receive your packages for you. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Emma Morgenstern: Or you can ship boxes to post offices and then pick them up. But it becomes a whole logistical nightmare because you have to time it right. 

Dan Pashman: Ohh. 

Emma Morgenstern: So you might arrive at a post office counting on that resupply, and your package hasn’t gotten there yet. Or maybe you’re out of food and the next shipment you sent to yourself is waiting for you but it's 50 miles ahead. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Emma Morgenstern: So even with all of those challenges, Cricket did this anyway.

Cricket: So before I left, I just packed six or seven boxes of breakfast snacks, packed dinners ... So I dehydrated like rice and lentil stew. Some easy stuff, like rice noodles and little mushroom broth packets — things that I can mix together real fast, dehydrated vegetables — sent those ahead. I did that all the week before I left for trail. 

Emma Morgenstern: Oh my God. [LAUGHS] 

Cricket: Yeah, it was — I had that dehydrator running 24/7. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: So my question is why? As you said, Emma, this sounds like a huge pain in the butt. Why would she go to all that trouble when she could just buy food along the way, like everyone else?

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket has some dietary restrictions, some of which are related to an autoimmune condition …

Cricket: I don't eat red meat. I don't eat pork. I try to avoid gluten when possible. And a lot of like highly processed foods, while they're fun to eat, they like don't make me feel good ...

Emma Morgenstern: So the food boxes were a way for her to plan ahead to accommodate those needs.

Cricket: I know that that's what, you know, I need to feel good to hike the miles, so I do that.

Emma Morgenstern: I kind of identify with this too, because I have my own dietary restrictions and the prospect of winging it when it comes to food gives me anxiety. It makes me feel better to have some control over it. At the same time, when I'm at home I can barely plan what I'm eating for dinner tonight, let alone planning and cooking and dehydrating several weeks worth of meals, so I find what Cricket did to be very impressive. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I mean, right. It’s a lot of work. But even six or seven boxes of homemade, home-dehydrated food wouldn't last the whole trail, right? I mean, it’s five or six months.

Emma Morgenstern: Right. Exactly. So those boxes lasted her for a while at the beginning, but when she came across a good grocery store, she'd resupply for the few days ahead, like everyone else, and then she would also pack up more boxes that she mailed ahead to herself.

Dan Pashman: She’s mailing ahead to herself while on the trail?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, yeah.

Cricket: The logistics can be a little nuts sometimes, but it’s worth it for me.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: So, Emma, you mentioned at the beginning that Pine Grove General Store is not just the halfway point on the trail, but also a big food stop. 

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah. Pine Grove General Store is the home of the famous half-gallon challenge.

Redbeard: So the half gallon challenge is a celebration that hikers do.

Emma Morgenstern: This is Redbeard again.

Redbeard: It's a newer tradition that we just reached a halfway point on the AT, the Appalachian trail, today. And for some reason, somebody decided that eating a half gallon of ice cream would be a good, smart idea to do. If you complete this challenge, you get a small wooden spoon with a stamp on it. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS]

Redbeard: That says that you completed this challenge. 

Emma Morgenstern: That's yours? [LAUGHS] 

Redbeard: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Okay, and is there a time limit?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, they have 30 minutes to do this and it’s pretty brutal to watch. I found a YouTube video of a hiker named Kara Kirtley doing the challenge last year, so let me play it for you.

 CLIP (PERSON): What?

CLIP (KARA KIRTLEY): [LAUGHS] Do you want some?

CLIP (PERSON): You're going pretty fast ...

Dan Pashman: All right, it’s a big picnic table, just cartons of ice cream everywhere. People just shoving spoons into them.

CLIP (KARA KIRTLEY): This is nasty. This is so nasty.

Emma Morgenstern: They’re eating ice cream out of a tub. But it’s actually two tubs, because it’s like one of those big tubs you see in the freezer section, and then a pint, because the big tubs are a quart and a half.

Dan Pashman: Okay. All right, she looks like she’s gonna puke …

CLIP (PERSON): I thought you were gonna blow chunks.

Dan Pashman: She keeps covering her mouth with her fist, like she’s holding something in. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: But then she takes another bite though?

CLIP (KARA KIRTLEY): I'm almost done.

CLIP (PERSON): I'm done. 

Dan Pashman: The guy she’s with though, he's — yeah he’s downing it.

CLIP (KARA KIRTLEY): Ohhh! What's the time? Time? 

CLIP (PERSON): 20:59!

[CHEERING] 

Dan Pashman: All right the guy finished it.

Emma Morgenstern: Spoiler alert, she does not finish it.

Dan Pashman: I mean I love ice cream and I can eat a lot of ice cream when I put my mind to it. This feels like even a lot for me. 

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: But I would probably — I would definitely want two different flavors in the two different containers just for some variety.

Emma Morgenstern: The two-flavor strategy. That’s the one that Redbeard did. So he got vanilla for his quart and a half, and chocolate peanut butter cup for his pint. 

Emma Morgenstern: So yeah how you feeling?

Redbeard: I am feeling okay. [LAUGHS] The point of it is you need — you're supposed to eat the half gallon ice cream within 30 minutes. I did it within 15 and then I had a burger afterwards. 

Emma Morgenstern: Shockingly, Redbeard didn’t seem worse for the wear. But not everyone's so nonchalant about this challenge ...

Dharma: It was a nightmare. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Emma Morgenstern: This is Dharma again. 

Dharma: I really — I've stopped basically eating ice cream since before the trail in preparation today. And I was like, so when I get there, I'm gonna really want ice cream. And so yeah, we got here, got our ice cream, and like I was feeling pretty good. And then I actually started the 30 minute timer and probably like after my quart and a half, I was really, really not enjoying ice cream anymore.

Emma Morgenstern: What flavor did you get?

Dharma: For the big one I got vanilla. And then for the pint, chocolate Reese's peanut butter cup. 

Emma Morgenstern: So that's like what Redbeard — he did, yeah.

Dharma: Yeah, he and I got the same exact thing. 

Emma Morgenstern: Okay. All right.

Dharma: The only difference is he pounded both of his away ... 

[LAUGHING] 

Dharma: And I finished my pint and instantly like started crying into the vanilla because I was like, if I taste vanilla again, I will vomit. 

Emma Morgenstern: And did you vomit? 

Dharma: No, I didn't. I’m actually really proud of myself!

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHS] Did we have any vomiters today?

Dharma: No.

Redbeard: I did not see any.

MUSIC

Emma Morgenstern: So I’ll have you know, Dan, that Sam and I did a little hiking ourselves when we were on this trip to Pennsylvania. So we went car camping that night and we ate some hiker food for dinner and for breakfast, and then we hit the Appalachian Trail for a section hike.

Dan Pashman: All right, and how far did you go?

Emma Morgenstern: 8 or 9 miles.

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Emma Morgenstern: And then I practically collapsed from exhaustion.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Emma Morgenstern: Poor me, hiking 8 miles, while my friends I’d met the day before were racking up at least 15.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

Emma Morgenstern: So in any case, after my little jaunt to Pennsylvania, I kept in touch with a few of the people I met there, including Cricket — the one who was sending herself boxes of food. I was following her on Instagram, and it was really fun seeing her hit all these various milestones of the trail. But as I would learn later, she was really struggling to get through.

Cricket: I’m tired. I don’t want to be here. Why am I still out here? I don’t want to do this.

Emma Morgenstern: Coming up, things get a little scary for Cricket and she rethinks her approach to eating on trail. Stick around.

MUSIC

 

+++BREAK+++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, want to hear a special guest appearance by Janie? Everyone loves it when Janie's on the podcast, right? Well, stay tuned to the end of this episode when Janie and I head into the kitchen to cook up some spicy crispy chicken sandwiches using Hellmann’s spicy mayonnaise and a recipe from Hellmann’s own website. 

CLIP (JANIE PASHMAN): Yeah, the other thing is, like, our kids really like doing this. You know, you kind of set up an assembly line. So, if you have young kids, you could definitely put them to work with this. You know, our kids really love being a part of this assembly line. 

Dan Pashman: So stay tuned to the very end of this episode for that segment with Janie. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: All right, back now the Appalachian Trail, or Appalachian Trail, or just AT. And a quick note that in the second half of this episode there’s some explicit language and some discussion of disordered eating.

Dan Pashman: I wanna welcome back Senior Producer Emma Morgenstern.

Emma Morgenstern: Hey, Dan. 

Dan Pashman: Let’s pick it up here.

Emma Morgenstern: Okay. So when I met the hikers in June, they mostly seemed in good spirits. But Pennsylvania is a notoriously difficult stretch of the trail, and they were just at the beginning of it. So I talked with Cricket …

Dan Pashman: She’s the one who sent herself food boxes?

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, exactly. And her food situation was about to change because of what happened after we met. I caught up with Cricket once she was off-trail, and she told me all about Pennsylvania.

Cricket: Pennsylvania is one of the hardest states mentally because you don't get much views. And they call it Rocksylvania cause there's so many rocks in the trail. Your feet hurt. 

Emma Morgenstern: Rocksylvania got to Cricket pretty quickly. 

Cricket: I think one of the biggest challenges is that I had a toe infection all of Pennsylvania. And of course, I'm like sticking my infected toe in a wet, moldy sock inside my wet shoe and hiking through a flooded trail every day.

Emma Morgenstern: Things kept getting worse. Cricket is a woman of color, and in Pennsylvania she felt like a target. Mostly, she was hiking with her trail family or hiking partners, but there were, of course, stretches when she was alone. And one of those times turned a little scary.

Cricket: I was walking through the town of Duncannon by myself. I had this local stop me in the road and say, 'The best thing you can do for yourself is to get the F outta here as quick as you can.' And I'm like looking around and there's, like, Trump flags everywhere, and I'm just feeling like not safe. And the next day, I had someone tell me that I shouldn't be hiking alone because of all the sex trafficking in the area. And here I am, like my toes infected. I'm tired. I don't wanna be here. And I thought like, 'Why am I out here? Why am I doing this?'. I'm not even that far away from home. I live in Ohio. Like I can come to Pennsylvania anytime. I would wake up in the morning and my first thought would be, 'Why am I still out here? I don't wanna do this.' 

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket was really close to quitting the trail in Pennsylvania. At the start of the trail, when she found a well stocked grocery store on trail, she’d send herself food boxes. Now, in Pennsylvania, she stopped doing that. It was partially because she didn't have the mental energy to figure out the logistics, and partially that she wasn't sure if she'd even be on trail in a few days or weeks. Instead, Cricket focused on something else.

Cricket: I told myself, your job is to listen to Harry Potter and you have to walk through Pennsylvania while doing it. And I thought, okay, well when you say it that way, it doesn't sound like that's the worst job in the world, so ... so I got through it. Yeah, I walked into New Jersey, got through all of Pennsylvania. 

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket sent me a voice memo after leaving Pennsylvania.

CLIP (CRICKET): The day I crossed into Delaware Water Gap, ao that's the border with New Jersey, I was very happy that, one, I was done with Pennsylvania. [LAUGHS] But, the only place that we could resupply there, there was like two gas stations. And I remember walking into those gas stations and thinking, 'What the fuck am I going to eat here?' And across the street was this like beautiful deli with fresh baked pies and sandwiches and cookies. And I was like, okay, I'm going to eat that food and that sort of unlocked [LAUGHS] this, like, you know, I'm just gonna like do what I can to survive right now. So, through New Jersey and New York, I absolutely deli blazed.

Dan Pashman: Deli blaze? The picture in my head I’m getting is of a stoner smoking a turkey sandwich.

Emma Morgenstern: [LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: Is that deli blazing?

Emma Morgenstern: Although I could imagine that happening on trail, that’s not what it means. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] 

Emma Morgenstern: So you know those little symbols on trees, either paint or plastic markings on trees when you're on a hiking trail ... 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

Emma Morgenstern: Those are called blazes. Along the AT in New Jersey and New York, there are enough delis that they call that section "deli blazing."

Emma Morgenstern: Now that we know what deli blazing is, let’s step back for a sec because I was shocked to hear about this complete 180 with Cricket. When we talked in Pennsylvania, she wasn’t eating gluten, she was limiting her processed foods. And she said that’s what she needed to feel good enough to hike the miles. Now, not even a month later, she was abandoning those restrictions and she was a deli regular.

Cricket: Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said there about letting go of control and accepting that you can't control everything all the time. And that's a big deal for me to have that lesson with food cause I used to be a ballerina. So I've, for a long time, lived in a world of disordered eating and the need to control my food. And, you know, I have tried almost every diet. And I've gone back and forth with being very restrictive. So, it was a big deal for me to just let go and say, you know what, like I'm trying my best and I'm just going to accept that I can't control my food right now.

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Emma Morgenstern: After 150 miles of deli blazing bliss, Cricket made it to Connecticut.

Cricket: I just started like resupplying like a normal hiker on trail. I wasn't sending myself boxes. I was just going to the Walmarts and the Price Choppers and it was kind of like novel.

Emma Morgenstern: She wound her way through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. And by the time she sent this message to me, she was already in New Hampshire.

Cricket: I am currently sitting outside a Walmart and I just did a resupply. I'm coming outta the White Mountains right now and the Gulf Wilderness with Mount Washington and Mount Madison. You know, that's really challenging stuff. And definitely dreaming of home cooking again. Yesterday, my hiking partner and I just like talked for a couple hours about all the things that we would cook when we're back.

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket really missed making breakfast with her roommates at home, and she missed making stir fries and sushi at home, too.

Cricket: As always, the trail has a way of having you experience total polar opposite emotions at the same time. You know, wanting to go home but wanting to stay out here longer — being totally physically exhausted, but also feeling so strong and like such a badass for making it this far.

Emma Morgenstern: The next day, Cricket crossed into Maine, the final state on her journey. It was just over four months since she started, and she still had 300 miles to go.

Cricket: I'm confident that physically I can get through anything the trail has to throw at me at this point. It really is a mental game. And mentally, I'm kind of experiencing a low right now of just feeling so exhausted, so ready to be done and be home. And I know that to get through this part, cause you know, I've been thought these lows before, I really have to remind myself that this feeling will pass and that I will get something out of it, if I choose to persevere, if I choose to hike another day, even though today feels so challenging. But I think I do want to end on just reminding myself again to make space for that gratitude every day. And I think that is really going to help me get to the end.

Emma Morgenstern: The last stretch of the AT is also one of the most difficult. It goes through the Hundred Mile Wilderness, which is pretty remote and rugged, and there are no places to resupply. Then you get into Baxter State Park, and there is Mount Katahdin. That is the end of the trail.

Cricket: Katahdin, it's not part of a particularly large or widespread range, so it seems like this lonely mountain in this beautiful flatland of Maine where there's thousands of lakes. You're supposed to be able to possibly get a view of Katahdin from the Bigelows, which is one of the last big mountain ranges, but we couldn't. So I actually didn't see Katahdin for the first time until I was in the a Hundred Mile Wilderness. And you poke out onto the beach of this lake and you turn a corner and it's right there. And it is this intense mountain flat on top and rock slides, bare alpine zone. It looks so intimidating.

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket got to the base of Katahdin a couple days after she spotted it, and camped out at the bottom. The next morning, she started up the mountain.

Cricket: It's so fun because it's the last thing you do and you come back down the same way, so you don't have to carry all your pack gear. You know, we got to ditch our stuff and then go up with an empty pack. So it didn't feel that physically taxing because we were like suddenly weightless. So it was pure fun. 

CLIP (CRICKET): What did we do to deserve weather like this? 

Emma Morgenstern: Cricket made it to the summit of Katahdin. But after the summit, she didn’t really have a plan.

Cricket: So we came down and we hitchhiked as we do everywhere. We hitchhiked out of Baxter State Park  to a pizza place cause we were so hungry that we couldn't even figure out where we were gonna sleep that night until we got food in us. 

Emma Morgenstern: what was your pizza order? 

Cricket: It was a Greek pizza, so it had like olives and peppers and spinach and feta — and I loaded it with red pepper flakes.

Emma Morgenstern: How did it feel eating it? 

Cricket: I was so hungry. I ran outta food at 1:00 PM that day while on Katahdin. 

Emma Morgenstern: Oh my God. [LAUGHS] 

Cricket: And I'm used to eating every hour, like eating a bar every single hour. And we didn't get a hitch out of Baxter State Park until 7:00 PM. So that was like from 1:00 to 7:00, like no food. I think my hiking partner gave me an old tortilla that he had in his pack. 

[LAUGHING] 

Cricket: So I was hangry and exhausted, so it felt pretty awesome to eat that pizza. 

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Emma Morgenstern: When I had this conversation with Cricket, it was just four days since she'd finished the AT. And I asked her about that crucial decision, a couple months earlier, to stop sending herself food boxes and instead embrace the more typical hiker diet.

Cricket: I had that fear of like, oh gosh, if I’m not eating my food then I’m not going to be able to do all this endurance activity. But I still hiked to Katahdin. I still got through 20, 25 mile days. I still got over the next mountain. Like my body still got me through it, So I think I'm a little more resilient, um, than I think I am. 

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Emma Morgenstern: Thanks to all of the hikers who talked with me for this episode, the ones I met at Pine Grove Furnace State Park, and the ones I talked to on Reddit. And thanks to my husband, Sam Anzaroot, for accompanying me on my reporting trip and trying dehydrated rice and beans with me.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Did you rehydrate them?

Emma Morgenstern: We did, yes. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Okay. What did Sam think of them? 

Emma Morgenstern: We were both pretty impressed, I would say. I would say the texture suffers a little bit from the dehydration, but flavor is pretty good And I think they punch you in the face with the flavor, so you don’t think about the texture.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] All right. Well, Thanks so much, Emma.

Emma Morgenstern: Yeah, thank you, Dan.

Dan Pashman: Quick reminder, stick around till after the credits of this episode to hear Janie’s special guest appearance as we make spicy crispy chicken sandwiches together!

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Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, as we celebrate the Fourth of July, we share some American food history when I tour the kitchens of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and hear about the enslaved chefs who worked there whose contributions to American cuisine resonate today. That’s next week.

Dan Pashman: While you’re waiting for that one, check out last week’s episode with comedian Zarna Garg. When she was kicked out of the house at age 14, she had to use her sense of humor to get dinner invitations. So food is complicated for her. It’s a funny and thoughtful conversation. Check it out. 

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+++ BREAK+++

 

Dan Pashman: Who makes the best spicy, crispy chicken sandwich? I mean, this is a question that the Internet could debate for a millennia. But what if I were to tell you that the answer is you? Yes, you have the power to make the best spicy, crispy chicken sandwich you've ever eaten in the comfort of your own home, thanks to Hellmann's Spicy Mayonnaise and the recipe that they have on their website, which I'm going to cook right now, with the help of the foremost expert in fried chicken breasts in our household — this is her department and she's fantastic at it, please welcome to the show, my wife, Janie!

Janie Pashman: Hi.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] Now, to me, there's a few things that I want in my spicy, crispy chicken sandwich. The first is a lot of crisp. Crispy, craggy perimeter around that chicken and then the spicy mayonnaise and then pickles. It's got to have pickles. And beyond that, there are a few things that this recipe does that I think really make it stand apart. So let's get into it. We're going to pound the chicken breasts. [POUNDING] We whisk together some buttermilk [WHISKING] and Hellmann's spicy mayonnaise, which are gonna flavor the chicken with spice and rich creaminess — it’s so good. Now, meanwhile, we've also combined flour, cornstarch, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. And that's that's our dry mix. And we’re going to drizzle a little of the buttermilk into the flour mixture which is going to make it a little bit sort of moist and shaggy and clumpy, which is going to give us crispy fried bits, extra crags. The exterior of a piece of fried chicken should sort of look like the coastline of Maine, and I think that’s what this move is going to get us.

Janie Pashman: When I have the kids do something like this, they tend to use their fingers and get coating all over their fingers but you really should be using a fork. You know put the chicken cutlet in the fork, dip it into each of the steps, keep your fingers clean. Yeah, the other thing is, like, our kids really like doing this. You know, you kind of set up an assembly line. So if you have young kids, you could definitely put them to work with this. You know, they're touching raw meat, so just make sure, you know, they clean their hands and they're careful. But our kids really love being a part of this assembly line.

Dan Pashman: It's true. When we get the assembly line working now, we get the chicken, we got the dredging, we got the coating. It's all happening now. And I should say we're walking you through this recipe, but don't stress about the details. The whole thing is on Hellmanns.com. We have our chicken breasts. They're breaded. They've soaked in buttermilk and Hellmann's spicy mayonnaise. And now we fry. [FRYING] Is there any more beautiful sound to the human ear? Now, Chef Janie, what are you watching for here?

Janie Pashman: You know, the first few take a little longer. And then once the oil really gets hot, you know, the next batch is going to cook a lot faster. So just once you see the edges start to brown a little bit, turn it over to the fork. 

Dan Pashman: Now on our brioche roll, we're going to be putting lettuce, pickles and Hellman's spicy mayonnaise. Let me chop those up now. [CUTTING LETTUCE] These chicken breasts are golden brown, lots of crags, edges, coarse on the outside, just like I like it, like the coast of Maine. A lot of fried crispy goodness in here. And there's going to be a lot of flavor from the buttermilk and from using the spicy mayonnaise as a marinade. All right, now for the sandwich. [TAKING A BITE] Mm-hmm. That is something else. It is so crispy. You get the tang from the buttermilk, pickle flavor and the crunch from the pickles and the lettuce. And then, of course, tying it all together, both marinated into the crispy chicken exterior and spread on your bun, the Hellmann's spicy mayonnaise — made with real chili peppers. It's got the classic creamy flavor of Hellmann's mayonnaise, but with a bold twist. Hellmann's spicy mayonnaise is a great way to spice up everyday meals by adding deliciously rich and creamy flavor. If you wanna get the recipe for this spicy, crispy chicken sandwich and many, many other delicious dishes. Head to Hellmanns.com/spicy for more deliciously spicy recipes. Again, that's Hellmanns.com/spicy. Deliciously spicy, 100% Hellmann's. I'm gonna finish eating this sandwich.