After a long day in the sun paddling the Missouri River, I hopped off the canoe, walked along the sandbar, and began to set up my tent. As I unfolded the poles, I began to hear the clinking and clanking of knives chopping vegetables and metal spoons hitting the side of a mixing bowl. Soon, the crackle and smoke of fire began to spread over the campsite, and I got my first inkling that something tasty for dinner was on the way.
I walked over to the fire with my camp chair in hand, and took a seat to watch the show unfold. River guides, working double duty as chefs, deftly mashed avocados, tossed in lime juice and cilantro, and served up a guacamole that rivaled any I’d tried. As guests snacked, they began to work on the main course. They cut open sous vide bags full of marinated pork chops with a quick slice of a knife. Once the fire was roaring, they began to grill the pork chops, which sizzled as soon as they hit the grill.
Even though this meal was out on a sandbar in the middle of rural Missouri, the food could’ve earned a place at any upscale city restaurant. This is Big Muddy Adventures (BMA), a culinary and outdoor experience unlike any other.
What Is Big Muddy Adventures?
Mike Clark, aka “Big Muddy Mike,” founded the company in St. Louis in 2002. BMA takes guests on guided paddles of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers on fiberglass canoes that measure up to 29 feet long.
Trip options range from afternoon explorations of the Mississippi near the city’s iconic Gateway Arch to multiday overnight trips through remote river areas, with prices from $35 to $500. Some trips travel through small, charming river towns like Hermann, Mo., while others follow sections of the Mississippi Flyway, a major bird migration route. Almost all day trips, except the quick afternoon paddles, include dinner.
Trips generally run from spring through fall and are available to book online. Different trips meet at different starting locations, all within the city of St. Louis. BMA provides all the necessary paddling and safety gear. If you’re going on an overnight trip and don’t have any camping gear, you can rent everything you’ll need (tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pad, etc.) from BMA for two people for $60.
One of the company’s most popular offerings is the Rivertime Supper Club, which frequently sells out. Guests gather in the afternoon, paddle for a few hours on the Missouri, and then disembark at a small island for a gourmet meal. At $115 per person, a couple can spend $230 on a special date night that’s far more memorable (and maybe even cheaper) than just a dinner at a fancy restaurant.
For years, BMA has partnered with Farm Spirit, a local restaurant run by chef Ryan McDonald. It operates a farmers’ market breakfast stand and runs the food service inside a local brewery. McDonald focuses on live-fire cooking, which is, of course, a natural fit for the outdoors. As guests set up lawn chairs and begin to relax, they’ll start to hear the sizzle of a hot pan and smell the smoke of bacon in the air.
Farm Spirit also sources local ingredients as much as possible and has a major focus on preserving and pickling them, making its own chili crisp, black garlic, and pickles. The menu for a supper club might include Pimento cheese dip, a pork bulgogi bowl, or a tomato burrata salad. Guests can count on two things: The food will be fresh, and it for sure as hell won’t be bland.
The French Corridor Expedition
The truest expression of BMA’s ethos of connecting food to the landscape as an educational tool is the French Corridor Expedition. Run just once a year in September, this overnight trip follows “a historic route through the French settlements of Illinois Territory. Along this scenic path, you’ll explore the historic sites and river islands that were once home to French explorers and settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries,” BMA explains on its site. “Guests will learn about the pivotal role of river travel, food, and cultural exchange in shaping this region’s rich heritage.”
BMA has partnered for years with renowned chef Josh Galliano, who worked for years in some of the city’s premier restaurants, eventually becoming a finalist for a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest. Galliano currently works as the executive chef at Racquet Club St. Louis, and comes along on the trip every year to make magic happen.
GearJunkie spoke with Galliano via email about the trip, and it is clear that Galliano takes a high degree of thought and care in planning the menu. He aims to use local ingredients that people in the past would’ve cooked with, while also balancing seasonality and availability.
Preparation begins almost a year in advance. “During the winter time, I’ll start saving food that I want to have around for the French Corridor Trip … I’ll cryovac and freeze game meat (I’m not a hunter, but friends and family will gift me meat if I help to butcher and portion their harvests) or I’ll process muscadines from our vines or pick persimmons when they finally start dropping from the trees,” Galliano said. As much as he possibly can, he uses local ingredients; even the cornbread is made with cornmeal produced from a nearby mill.
Lewis and Clark began their famous expedition nearby in Wood River, Ill., and Galliano reads more and more every year to attempt to try to recreate dishes or use ingredients they would’ve had access to. He’ll take an element of their journey and modify it to fit today’s tastes.
A classic dish on the trip is “pepper and tomato-braised venison on top of a suet dumpling. This was a modernization of comments in the Lewis & Clark journals since the soldiers were prodigious hunters and Lewis said that Drouillard made the best suet dumplings he’s ever had after they harvested a buffalo,” Galliano explained.
Another all-star local ingredient Galliano loves to use is paw paws. This local fruit, which Indigenous peoples have eaten for thousands of years, has a distinct flavor that is a cross between banana, mango, and cantaloupe. He forages paw paws from local trees and uses them to make pancakes for breakfast. Last year, he also used them to make a rum-spiked lassi for a dessert-and-tipple combo.
Galliano realizes that for some folks, this trip might be the first time they’ve tried a paw paw or venison. “The food becomes a conversation starter more than just sustenance,” he explained. “The French Corridor can connect to many culinary traditions, and it gets related back to the different immigrant groups who settled the area and how they learned to adapt their foods to the area with the help and know-how of the Native Americans.”
Cahokia Mounds is a large Native American site just over the border in Illinois, and Galliano attempts to bring in Indigenous traditions as well into the menu, even when written records don’t exist. “The historical and culinary record for the native foods is scant, so extrapolations are used that are respectful while probably inauthentic. To help bridge the gaps, I rely on different sources like Sean Sherman’s Sioux Chef cookbook,” he said.
The trip also recognizes the historical identity of St. Louis as a French city. For lunch in the past, he’s made mini muffelata sandwiches (a New Orleans staple), or smoked andouille with pimento cheese on crackers. The sausage is a nod to LaPlace, La., the andouille capital of the world and the town where Galliano grew up.
There’s one dish that Big Muddy Mike has asked Galliano to recreate from the Lewis & Clark Expedition, but he hasn’t figured out how to add it to the menu yet. Apparently, the men back then were quite fond of beaver tail.
Every element of BMA is tied to the land and gives guests a true sense of place, from the water they swim in to the food on their plate. Most of the people who go on Big Muddy’s trips are area locals, and the experiences allow them to explore and more fully appreciate their own backyard.
In recent decades, the outdoor tourism and food industries have both become corporatized, generic, and bland. They meet the assignment — get people outside or fulfill someone’s hunger — but they don’t feed the soul or expand the mind. Big Muddy’s partnerships with local chefs and deep connections to the land mean its trips nourish both the body and the spirit.
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