Yuka & Kosuke Yamato — Outdoors with a Twist.
Papersky Japan Story
Outdoors & Design 05
Yuka & Kosuke Yamato
Outdoors with a Twist
“We believe that we should look at things from a bigger perspective, then think and act as if it were about us.”
I’ve eaten a variety of food while hiking all over the world. Kendal Mint Cake in the British Lake District, full course meals washed down with wine deep in the Italian Alps, curry cooked atop open fires in the Himalayas to the ubiquitous Cup Noodles in mountain lodges here in Japan. It wasn’t until I visited Yuka & Kosuke Yamato at ‘DILL eat,life.’ that I found my favourite and now goto trail-food; The Small Twist Trailfoods. This is my journey to discover what goes into the most delicious trail-food I’ve ever eaten.
I first met Yuka & Kosuke Yamato in 2019 at their wonderful home and restaurant in Yamanashi Prefecture. But to tell this story we must first travel back further to 2012, joining them in California, hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT).
It was on this 350km hike from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, the seeds for a new life-style and food-style were organically sown.
As a chief & food researcher specialized in outdoor cooking, Yuka’s approach to cooking along the trail was somewhat unconventional. Preparing meals as close to their natural diet as possible, cooking raw vegetables and rice with other additive-free, freeze-dried ingredients.
You should know, there are only a handful of supply stores along the JMT, none selling fresh produce. Labouring to carry everything they needed in their packs they made their way along the trail, falling into the routine of cooking fresh meals each morning and evening at the campsite. Lunch usually consisted of familiar calorie dense, readymade action foods and bars. There is only so much you can carry, so when their action food began to run out, they had a creative new idea.
An excerpt from my Papersky Japan Story, please visit the Papersky homepage to finish reading.