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Post by Toby Benoit on Mar 2, 2007 8:02:14 GMT 12.75
Ya know how everything tastes better in hunt camp? How the bread tastes fresher and the vienna sausages always seem to satisfy you?
I was thinking over some of the wierdest meals I've eaten in various hunting camps and was wondering what were some of your most memorable, but entirely edible, favorites.
One that stands out in my mind was in Victoria, MS. After a long day of chasing gobblers we arrived back to camp to find that the previous visitors to my hosts mobile home-turned hunting cabin had taken the pots and pans home with them to wash since there was no running water.
There was one large aluminum pot left in the kitchen, so into this went three boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese fixed up, then on top of that went two cans of Castlebury's Chile. Into that was added a large sweet onion chopped up and a package of Oscar Meyer hotdogs cut up. Mixed together and allowed to brew, it well fed five hungry hunters who not only didn't complain, but we actually enjoyed it.
I can't imagine serving this to someone in my home, but in that hunt camp that night, we all went back for seconds. Go figure!
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Post by Paws on Mar 3, 2007 13:54:11 GMT 12.75
Now see there Toby; that's why you need the cook! You fill the pot with water and bring it to a boil, drop in your dogs and macaroni. poke a hole in the top of both chili cans and set them aside while the roni and dogs cook. Chop up your onion into fine dice and look around for some sweet relish, mustard, and ketchup. Roni and dogs done go ahead and plug up the sink and drain the boiling hot water off into the sink and set your chili cans in there to warm up. Set your dogs out into buns and dress them as you like, mix your cheese up into your roni real good and by the time that's done that chili ought to be ready for them dogs. Pop them barley pops and chow down. One pot to wash in the boiling water if there are no left overs! (You could broil those dogs under the broiler after they are boiled to give them a little more flavor!) You might want to rinse them cans out and save them for later as pots too!
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Post by raingauge on Mar 6, 2007 16:28:18 GMT 12.75
At the '96 American Mountain Men National Rendezvous, ol Doc Ivory "brought" a buff (came in a horse trailer) We butchered it, the women took the paunch, hung it in a tripod, filled it with various cuts of meat, camas, dried service berries, and some other green things growing in the area, and some water. The had heated rocks in a fire, and started dropping the hot rocks in the "soup." Two or three rocks for a few minutes, they would fish them out, and drop in a couple of more red hot rocks. After about an hour it was soup, served with raw camas, pemmican, dried berries. We roasted the hump and ribcage by the fire. Drinkin was raspberry shrub, or water, or various mixes of "Lightning". Once the soup is finished up, the "kettle" was edible, tripe, a little rubbery if I remember right. Just one of the memorable meals at rondyvoo.
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Post by Paws on Mar 7, 2007 3:13:04 GMT 12.75
That elk hunt I went to out to Idaho the boys chipped in and bought a pig which Ray Vincent raised over the summer and butchered just before deadline. We also had a Red Angus steer that one of the guys donated, butchered and delivered in quarters. Some of the guys nailed grouse, a couple of small deer, lots of trout and salmon and of course elk. I think there were four elk taken and two or three deer. There was no lack of meat for sure. Ray supplemented the veggie table with fresh produce straight from his end of season garden. You know if I live to be a hundred I'll never ever forget the flavor of that porterhouse steak carved off that Angus at 0300 and slapped over red glowing coals just as the last cuts of the last elk taken was packed into camp. We had steaks, burgers, sausages, pork chops, ribs, roasts, sirloin tips, spaghetti sauce with critter grind meat, chile made the same way, tacos, burritos, bacon, fresh biscuits every day and cobblers, cakes, cookies, and pies. Gallons of veggie soup was kept on bubble just in case somebody got hungry between meals. I ate more great chow in a week than most folk get in a lifetime and still managed to lose twenty one pounds! ;D
Hey RG, what are camas, and service berries ?
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Post by raingauge on Mar 7, 2007 3:42:03 GMT 12.75
Forgot I'm West of the river, we have things out here that don't grow there, and vice-versa. Camas is a little bulb type vege, grows in rather moist area, the flowers are blue for the safe ones, white for the Death Camas. The bulbs are about the size of a dime, or nickel, bout the size of starts you buy to plant onions. A democratic kind of vege, not much flavor, just sucks up it's characture from everything added to the pot. Service berries grow in big bushes, like plum bushes in the midwest, and usually grow along creek banks. They are small, smaller than a blueberry. When ripe the have a very mild sweet flavor, before then they are really bland. They are commonly dried for additions to soup, etc.
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Post by geiyserq on Mar 7, 2007 3:50:24 GMT 12.75
You are right. It does always taste better in huntin & fishin camps.
Fried pork chops, taters & onions, fried fish, swiss steak.........none of it can taste as good at the kitchen table as it does at the camp table after a long day in the field or on the water.
The wierdest i ever SAW, mind you i didnt eat it myself, was a business fishing trip. We went out to eat the night before at a good prime rib joint. Well one of the customers couldnt eat but half their prime rib.
To make a long story short, after supper we went out on the town until late. The next morning prior to fishing we all got up. Now the company had provided a nice big Edemans strudle for breakfast. But it was all gone. On the kitchenette counter of the condo all we found was the empty strudle box, a knife, and fat scraps from left over prime rib.
The customer looked at us and said he had woke up earlier in the night (still drunk) with the munchies. Since he couldnt find any bread he made a huge prime rib sandwich using our breakfast apple strudel. lol, he swore it was the best sandwich he had ever eaten........
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Post by Toby Benoit on Mar 7, 2007 5:31:03 GMT 12.75
I'll drive right by the finest steakhouse in the finest city in the country for a couple of cans of Vienna Sausages, some Saltine crackers, and a block of cheddar cheese to be eaten on the tailgate of my pickup in the Ocala National Forest. Mmmm-Mmmmm!
I have some great memories of them tailgate lunches with my Dad and Grandad. We'd bring along a cooler with cokes and such, but the best was when Granny'd brew up a gallon or two of sweet tea and send it along with us in an old milk jug, which we kept in the cooler and drank from paper cups.
One of the worst camp food memories revolves around a man named Willie Lewis. Ol' Willie was my Grandaddy's best friend. If there was something that they couldn't do together, seemed like it just didn't need to be done!
When he'd take the turn in the kitchen, you never knew what to expect. I awoke one morning to find Willie hard at work over the Coleman stove frying bacon. When the bacon was done, he threw a few link sausages in the grease and fried them. When they was done, he busted a half dozen eggs and fried them in the grease, then asking me if I wanted anything special, I joked some pancakes would be nice. Next thing I know, Ol' Willie'd mixed up some instant pancake mix and poured it into that skillet full of grease too. Deep fried pancakes in bacon and sausage grease.....woof!
I had no choice but to eat them, my not wanting to offend him and all. So, I sat in my treestand that morning listening to the wind in the pines and my arteries hardening up. I'd trade an awful lot to go back and enjoy that breakfast with Grandaddy and Ol' Willie again.....I sure would!
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Post by Paws on Mar 7, 2007 5:54:26 GMT 12.75
Plum bushes huh! I had one of those plum bushes in the back yard in Tennessee. It was thirty feet high and forty feet wide. One year I picked fifty five gallons off it. What color are those service berries there RG? Toby I never heard of taking food with you when you went camping or fishing until my Grandma Slater had worked her way to widow once removed and married up with old Harvy Smith. Chuck and Jim Malcolm (my cousins and runnin' buddies) had gone fishing with him a couple of times and just loved it. When I got around to joining them I discovered why! He had a trunk full of Vienna sausages, potted meat, Spam, crackers, and such. He took a lunch break around noon and everybody munched. I learned to carry all that I possibly can carry! On an overnight outing a few years ago I invited my Dad's neighbor and my buddy Ken to go fishing for cats one evening. Old Jim brought along his 20 year old boy. I took one of those butane hot plates and the gear to make sandwiches of some kind or another and fixed soup and sandwiches for everybody along with a couple pots of coffee. Darin standing there chomping down on fried bologna and cheese and bitching about people not knowing how to fish, bringing along food to eat! He never missed a chomp though! Never passed out a thank you either. (Never got invited fishing again either.)
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Post by Toby Benoit on Mar 7, 2007 17:39:36 GMT 12.75
Talking about eating on fishing trips reminnds me of pretty funny one.
When I was a kid we did a lot of mullet fishing. There was a place out on north Tampa bay called Pappy's Bayou and there was a bridge across it to cast net from. Every now and then Grandaddy'd bring along the coleman stove, a couple of lanterns, a couple of skillets and a coffee pot.
Along with all of that, he'd bring all of the fixin's to fry up the mullet right there along with hush puppies and a bunch of Irish potatoes he'd cut up into the skillet with a big sweet onion.
Ideally he'd plan to fish the incoming tide and fry and eat the catch while waiting on the outgoing tide and bring that catch home for the freezer or for Granny to can.
Anyway, one night Grandaddy loaded the truck and called my Dad and a couple of his buddies Willie Lewis and old Charlie Samples. By the time they got to the Pappy's Bayou bridge they'd missed the incoming tide and the first mullet run. Everyone was a bit upset about missing the fried mullet dinner, but down at the other end of the bridge was a feller they'd never met out there before and Grandady told them to stay where they were cause they might get that meal afterall.
He took off down the bridge to the other guy and talked for awhile before waving my Dad and the rest across the bridge. This other feller had got in a couple of throws and had thirty nice fat mullet in burlap sacks on ice in the back of his truck.
Grandaddy'd talked him into frying them up and joining them with the meal and when the tide turned they'd make a few extra casts and replenish what they's eaten.
So Grandaddy set up his little outdoor tailgate kitchen and they all enjoyed a great fish fry. When the last mullet had been eaten and the last hush puppy and tater accounted for, when the last drop of coffe'd been drank, they decided they was too full to castnet anyways and they all went home leaving that other feller standing at the end of the bridge with a pair of empty burlap sacks and a turning tide! ;D
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Post by Two Tales on Mar 7, 2007 17:50:39 GMT 12.75
Last day of camp ment "Mulligan" for breakfast..it's not your traditional mulligan either..Mulligal in our camp came from every left over that was in the cooler or camp box..started out with all the meat being fried up this could be, but not limited to, hamburger,steaks bacon, sausage, hotdogs and lunchmeat, then anything that resembled a bean in any form, canned or other wise.. then any and all the fresh veggies that happened to be left in the box..including matters, peppers etc... then the eggs, they was whipped up in a bowl and poured in on top of everything else..when they looked like they was done we ate...most of the day it just kinda sat there in the pit of your stomach and rumbled...normally this produced such an array of expelled gas that the ol'man ran with the window rolled down most of the way home...
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Post by Paws on Mar 8, 2007 2:37:24 GMT 12.75
Generally I lean on the resident campers to fix breakfast for the camp. That is if in Ohio I volunteer to do breakfast cause I figure I'll be the last out of camp and the closest to home so I can do clean-up a bit more conveniently than the out of towners. So last day breakfasts are pretty much normal. I'll tell you though I sure like that cook the buffalo from the inside out idea! Don't know what the buffalo might think about it though!
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Post by Snake Eyes on Sept 1, 2007 16:59:36 GMT 12.75
Don't have anything really weird or unusual to report....Just to say camp food really does taste better for whatever the reason. snake-eyes
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Post by Paws on Jan 20, 2008 3:04:10 GMT 12.75
When I was a kid and running with my buddies who generally were my brother and cousins we never bothered to take any food or gear with us at all. If we were fishing we might have a cane pole or two or maybe a hand line in the pocket. Bait we would dig up or score a few minnows or tadpoles along the edge of the water or creek somewhere. Everybody had a pocket knife and I wore, still do, Coke bottle glasses so we had fire makings handy and they did the job just fine. For pots we'd find cans or lids maybe a stick or make a grill basket by crossing sticks together or sometimes just a flat rock to heat up. Sometimes one of us would have a 22 rifle or maybe old Long Tom Zulu out for rabbit or squirrel. From where we hunted and fished the nearest store was about a mile and a half so if we really needed something we'd draw lots to send somebody after it. That meant too that whoever went also would need to find and sell enough pop bottles to pay for whatever it was we needed. That usually meant a couple bottles of pop, maybe a small jar of instant coffee, and sometimes even a pack of cigarettes! We ate what we caught or killed sometimes dug up, picked or gathered. We could spend the whole week-end from Friday night to Monday morning in the woods alone with no problems and a couple of times we might just stay there through Monday and watch as the school bus went by! Can you imagine a group of kids 11 to 13 years old doing that today?
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Post by Toby Benoit on Jan 20, 2008 17:09:07 GMT 12.75
Good times I bet!
I did something similar to that in my late teens. My folks bought a lot on a canal of the Tsala Apopka chain of lakes here in west central Fl. Those canals led out to miles and miles of kicker trails through huge stretches of lily pad fields and sawgrass which connected all of the major lakes...some three hundred thousand acres of it. Out in that marshy, swampy, mess is dozens and dozens of small islands.
Me and my buddy Mike Lanning got into survival training and we'd take the outboard out to one of them islands that was accessible by boat and carry nothing more than a windproof lighter, a couple of hunting knives and a pot or skillet.
We'd eat fish we'd trap using traps we built on site with whatever was on hand, baited with worms, minnows we'd catch and mash up, and such. Mostly, we'd sneak up on armadillos rooting around in the palmettos and catch them for dinner. He was better at outdoor cooking than me so he did the most of the cooking if I'd do the cleaning of the dillers.
We made simple shelters, ate fish, diller, a couple of times a snake, gopher turtle, and plenty of cattail root, swamp cabbage, and one island had a small stand of pecan trees we'd hit whenever they were falling.
We both pretended to love those weekends...and we did, but rarely did we pass up a Mcdonalds on the drive home Sunday nights. ;D
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Post by azslim on Mar 18, 2008 15:48:31 GMT 12.75
When I was 17 my Grandad and I backpacked into Dry Creek on the Wind River Reservation in Wy. We took the usual spuds, mac & cheese and oil for the fish but gramp got tired of fish. One hole a couple miles upstream from camp had some rock chucks around. So I packed my .22 up there, tipped over a chuck, cleaned it and hauled it back to camp. Grampa sewed up the belly with fishing line, dug a hole under the fire pit, tossed in the chuck belly down and covered him with dirt then built the fire back up. He cooked him several hours like that, in the skin under the fire. When he dug him out that evening it was yum, yum. We made short work of the thing. Day or so later it was blue grouse, these we roasted on a spit over the fire. I have good memories of that trip, I was 17 and he was 72. Stayed back in the hills for 8 days, caught a bazillion fish and just enjoyed ourselves.
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