  John Muir's Menu  by J. Parker Huber  Many hikers and climbers
know of John Muir's minimalist approach to preparing for a
wilderness adventure: "I rolled up some bread and tea in a pair
of blankets with some sugar and a tin cup and set off." (In this
he resembled the South African Bushmen, who make ready for a
journey of a thousand miles in 90 seconds.) A closer examination
of the dietary habits of the Sierra Club's founder suggests a
connection between Muir's Spartan fare and the elegiac quality
of his prose: the great man was starving to death.  Austerity
was part of Muir's heritage. As a child, he was raised on
paternal severity and Calvinist self denial. His Scottish diet
featured oatmeal porridge with a little milk or treacle for
breakfast; vegetable broth and mutton for lunch; boiled
potatoes, barley scones, and tea with milk and sugar for dinner.
"We were always hungry," Muir lamented, "about as hungry after
as before meals." As William O. Douglas noted in Muir of the
Mountains, at a very young age M