The Wayƒarer
On the first day of March 1978, Tommy begins his 2058 mile thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail (AT).
Thru-hikers on the AT make it a practice of choosing a trail name. Often such choice of name has special meaning for the individual, representing something important in their life. Trail registers are signed using trail names and many are only acquainted with others thru-hikers by their trail name.
As he continues walking north from Springer Mountain, the southern terminus, Tommy chooses the Wayƒarer as his trail name. He has begun his thru-hike carrying enough food to last for two full weeks, enough he believes, that will sustain him until he reaches his first mail and resupply stop 160 miles to the north.
However, in a short time, he realizes that his choice of sustenance is altogether inadequate for the high amount of calories being used daily on the task at hand, that of climbing mountains on a wilderness trail while packing a heavy burden.
The food supply in his burden becomes completely exhausted in half of the expected time and with still seventy miles before his first scheduled stop, he arrives at a small riverside town with a whitewater rafting outfitter. Here, he is happy to find that this outfitter has ample dried food provisions available for purchase.
First Resupply Stop
Upon arriving at his first supply stop, Fontana Dam, North Carolina, he retrieves his supply box at the post office, which has contained in it food and other items he had previously mailed while he was in his home in Texas.
Then with his pack full, he begins the transverse of the Great Smoky Mountains but on the last day in the Smokies, he is beset with a horrible stomach problem, one which is to cause him much discomfort and misery throughout his thru-hike.
Searching for Relief
This problem gives him much concern because he is not sure what the cause of the problem is nor what will prove to be the solution. Thinking it has been cause by a pathogen, when arriving in the town of Hot Springs, North Carolina, he speaks to a health professional who after testing, assures him the cause is not a pathogen.
Nevertheless, the health professional does suggest and encourage him to carry and eat whole foods, particularly whole grains, nuts and dried fruit.
This change in his sustenance initially provides him with a necessary diet for the work at hand but repeatedly eating only primarily
whole grains would later prove to bring on its own complications.
However, as the the work at hand, that of traveling on the mountain continues, he develops recipes to cook his food, which through trial and error, even creates some very enjoyable meals. He records the best of these recipes in his journal.
A Wayƒarers Recipe Book
The pages which follow on this web site contained within A Wayƒarer′s Cook Pot, include what amounts to a wayƒarer′s recipe book, one which contains those recipes recorded on the pages of the very same journals mentioned just above.
The recipes in this recipe book are it divided into three chapters:
Backpacking Recipes; Classical Recipes; and Living Food Recipes.
The three divisions have come to be periods of his life which he now calls the:
Why Three of the Same Recipe?
As his knowledge about sustenance and nutrition increases, he would make changes to the recipes and then record each of the new recipes in his current journal. When going back to read his older journals, he would find the recipes that he recorded there and would say to himself, That recipe has changed a lot!
Thus each of the three sections have recipes with the same name. However, if when you compare these recipe, you will notice changes have been made, changes which reflect the increasing knowledge he is learning about sustenance and the nutrition it has to provide.
For example, within each of these sections you will find a recipe for A Wayƒarer′s Fudge. Each section shows the ingredients of the fudge during each of the three separate periods of his live. Comparing these three three recipes may provide the reader with some insight about nutrition and the concept of how to eat healthy foodstuffs which provide the most nutrition for you and your family.
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