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August 31st is National Trail Mix Day. Make your own blend with the options below.
While the concept of mixing nuts and dried fruit has been popular for millennia, “trail mix” as a concept for a modern, portable energy snack is relatively new.
The term refers to a mixture of high-energy foods such as dried fruit and nuts, combined with other tasty additions. Commonly added ingredients include chocolate morsels or M&Ms, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, and breakfast cereals including granola.
Before the name evolved to trail mix, it was called gorp.
> How to make your own trail mix, below.
> The year’s 90 snack holidays.
TRAIL MIX HISTORY
According to Wikipedia, two California firms, Hadley Fruit Orchards and Harmony Foods, claim that trail mix was invented in 1968 by two California surfers, who blended peanuts and raisins together for an energy snack.
But in the U.S., the birth of “trail mix” actually happened more than 10 years earlier. Trail mix is mentioned in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums, when characters plan meals for a hiking trip. To appear in a book published in 1958, it needed to be around a few years earlier. Variations of portable energy food have been carried by mankind since the beginning.
But the concept of gorp is easily earlier than that:
In Europe, the combination of nuts, raisins, and chocolate as a trail snack dates at least to the 1910s, when outdoorsman Horace Kephart recommended it in his popular camping guide. An Oxford English Dictionary listing of 1913 cites Gorp as a term for trail mix often used by hikers, an acronym for “good old raisins and peanuts.” In modern times, some people re-acronym gorp to “granola, oats, raisins, peanuts.”
The combination of nuts, raisins, and chocolate as a trail snack dates at least to the 1910s, when outdoorsman Horace Kephart recommended it in his popular camping guide.
Even earlier than that:
In Denmark, a mix known as studenterhavre (“student oats”) dates to an 1833 citation. Studenterhavre consists mainly of raisins and almonds, but at Christmas, chocolate pieces are added.
Mixes are popular in many other countries as well.
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[1] An elegant mix from Vital Choice (photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE).
[2] A popcorn trail mix from Delicious Meets Healthy. Here’s the recipe (photo © Delicious Meets Healthy).
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[3] A gourmet mix from Aurora (photo by River Soma | © THE NIBBLE).
[4] For a party bar, set out the ingredients and let people make their own party favors to go. Be sure to provide snack bags/boxes and Sharpie markers so people can blend and label their own (photo © Walmart).
[5] You can create a trail mix party bar that’s rustic, like this one, or in any other decor (photo © Selena Amelia | Pinterest).
[6] There are many styles of goodie/favor boxes from plain to elaborately decorated (photo © PH Panda Hall | Amazon).
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MODERN TRAIL MIX
Trail mix continues to be a popular snack—especially by hikers, campers, and people on the go—because it’s lightweight, easily portable, and requires no refrigeration. It’s a delicious, better-for-you- snack at home, school, work, and in lunch bags everywhere.
Keep experimenting with ingredients and proportions until you have your “signature” trail mix recipe. Then consider it as general gifts and stocking stuffers.
RECIPE: MIX YOUR OWN TRAIL MIX
Candy: butterscotch/peanut butter chips, candied orange peel, candy-coated sunflower seeds, carob chips, chocolate chips/chunks, chocolate-covered espresso beans, M&M’s, mini marshmallows, Reese’s Pieces, toffee, yogurt clusters
Cereal: Cheerios, Corn Flakes, graham cracker cereal, granola, mini Shredded Wheat, rolled oats
Cereal – Other: corn nuts, popcorn
Dried fruits: apples, apricots, banana chips, blueberries, cherries, coconut flakes, cranberries (Craisins), dates, figs, goji berries, mangoes, mulberries, pineapple, raisins
Exotica: crystallized ginger, Japanese rice crackers, jerky bits, seaweed crisps, sesame sticks, wasabi peas
Legumes: dried chickpeas, edamame (soybeans) or peas, peanuts
Nuts: almonds, cashews, flavored nuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, or other favorite
Salty snacks: mini cheese crackers, pretzels, sesame sticks
Seeds: chia, hemp hearts, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), sunflower seeds
Spicy: chili-flavored nuts, curry-flavor chickpeas, crystallized ginger
Keep experimenting with ingredients and proportions until you have your “signature” trail mix recipe. Then consider it as general gifts and stocking stuffers.
SET UP A TRAIL MIX PARTY BAR
It fits into any gathering where food is casual, interactive, and portable, from kids’ birthdays and game nights to rustic weddings and corporate offsites—and even wine and cheese get-togethers.
Let guests make their own party favors! Set up a table with:
Different trail mix ingredients.
Plastic snack bags or small goodie bags or boxes.
Scoops for filling the bags (we used our set of measuring cups).
Wide Sharpies so people can keep track of whose is whose.
[7] There are numerous ways to set out a trail mix party bar (photo © Avery).
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