Road kill is quite good. You've got to see the car hit the animal, though, to know it's fresh enough. Or you can just smell it, but that takes practice.

Carrying a stove helps. Raw road kill isn't very pleasant. But you do need plenty of fuel to cook it. The recipe for roadrunners calls for onion, garlic, water, salt, a few veggies, the bird, of course, and a rock. Put all into a pot, bring to boil and simmer for two hours. The rock helps retain the heat.

At the end, throw the bird away and eat the rock. But I did make my sleeping bag out of all the feathers I've gathered up. And the fur's been put to good use as cycling gloves.

Ultimately, it depends where you are touring and what services are available along the way. Mom-and-pop stores (what a quaint saying that is), or supermarkets? Are you omni or vego? Can you cook at home (believe it or not, this is a prerequisite to being able to cook on tour!!!)? What are your tastes in food?

Me? I cook my own, make use of fresh vegetables and meat when possible and flavour with curry powder and mix in rice or noodles or pasta; eat porridge for breakfast; and whatever goodies (especially custard filled chocolate eclairs) a bakery can serve up on the way for lunch, morning and afternoon tea. A bottle of wine or beer in the evening rounds it all off. And if I don't feel like cooking, I'll gather together ham, cheese and something like a baguette in traditional French style.

It's also useful to plan your packing of panniers and bags to leave a little room for carrying each evening's fixings, and to have an emergency ration of, say, instant noodles or pasta. Travelogues are rife with people going hungry at least once a tour in a difficult location at night.