The cuisine of the road

I love food. I have a fast metabolism and therefore I'm constantly eating. If it's not a sandwich or a bowl of cereal, it's a chocolate bar or a packet of potato chips. I'm known for not saying no to a second helping if I still have space for it, and I almost never say no to dessert.

Being on the road with my band often leads to a change in eating habits, and most of the time means a change of menu. On our last tour, we were blessed enough to have a temporary home away from home that provided amazing cooked meals for us, but this isn't always the case.

Two-minute noodles: The world's most versatile and affordable touring food. Dry, cooked, plain or spiced. It never gets old. Okay, maybe after a solid few weeks of eating it twice a day.

I remember my first ever tour, back in 2005. I was only 17 and didn't have much money to spend on anything really. My mom packed a cooler box full of food and a big flask of coffee for the band to share (Thanks, Mom), which we finished before the end of day one. So the next 2 weeks were not going to be easy. I actually remember on the first night, we stopped at one of SA's famous Engen 1-Stop Wimpy restaurants, where I, being the cheapskate I am, brought my foil wrapped homemade hotdogs into the restaurant and ate them there. (Don't worry, I ordered a coffee. Well, only because we'd finished ours already.)

The band's basic diet for the rest of this tour (because all of us were pretty much at the same level of poor at this stage and decided it would be better to pool our limited resources) consisted of two-minute noodles and peanut butter sandwiches. We bought powdered milk for cereal and accepted any free meal we could get our hands on. We even went as far as having Mark and Bjorn do an impromptu acoustic performance in a shopping centre parking lot. It got shut down after about 10 minutes, but we made about R25. :)

Thankfully, things got a bit better on later tours. We eventually moved up to roadside pies, which I can assure you are the single greatest health hazard to a band, and now we actually eat real food. Hooray!

Bjorn and I had a brief facebook conversation around hunger this morning, which got me to write this post. In a nutshell, I was hungry and craving a second breakfast. This made me think about the various meals that I end up enjoying on tour. So after that incredibly long introduction, here they are!

Breakfast - Cereal. Normally Coco Pops.
Second Breakfast - A couple hours later. Maybe a sandwich, fruit or on a good day, chocolate.
Brunch - Quick snack an hour before lunch.
Lunch - I'm not explaining lunch, seriously...
Mid-afternoon snack - Similar to second breakfast.
Late-afternoon snack - Cookies or similar. Mmm...
Supper - Om nom nom...
Evening snack - If at home, cookies or similar. If out, N/A.
Post show feast - If playing locally, normally N/A. If on tour, whatever's still open at 4am or leftovers from supper.

And there you have it! Now you know my secret to my on-stage energy! hehe! :p Looking back at this, I'm surprised that I am actually able to eat so much. I'm just going to say I'm a gifted individual. :)