The sun had been down about an hour, dropping the temperature the appropriate amount of degrees for my camp-mate and I to pull on our windbreakers. Slipping the aluminum gripper into the clamp on the side of the pot, I scooted our just-finished jambalaya out of range of the coals and over to a cooler part of the campfire grate, then stirred in the kielbasa I had scored at Zup’s meat counter in Ely before we jetted down the Fernberg. The lot was scooped between the two blue enamel bowls I’d packed as our mess tins and we settled our backs against opposite logs, our headlamps illuminating the lively vapors emanating from our dinners like klieg lights.

Recipes: Campfire Pintos ‘Charros’ & Campfire Adobo Seasoning

The bowls were almost too hot to hold, the food almost too hot to eat. Almost. We tucked in with little bites, sporking in mouthfuls and chasing them with an intake of the cooler night air. The field mice had long ago announced their presence, so we were mindful not to set down anything edible for fear of having it sullied by their filthy mitts or masticators.

Time and temperature took their toll on the high heat of our spicy rice and we began shoveling it in, too famished to comment. A few requisite loon calls punctuated the quiet. As I slowed to catch my breath, Eric pocketed his spoon and looked over the lake.

“It’s too bad,” he ruminated, “that we can’t eat like this in real life.”
Before I could concur, he chuckled and added, “On the other hand, it doesn’t really get more real life than this…”

I’ve often said that one of the quiet miracles of good food is that it can take us anywhere that we’d rather be. During the darkest parts of a Minnesota winter or the uglier weeks of the off-again, on-again, schizophrenic thaws of March and April, South Asian curries, fish tacos, or Caribbean coconut rice and beans frequent my family’s dinner table. Moreover, as a five-decade, card-carrying member of the Self-Declared History Nerd Club, I’ve long believed that food can also perform its role as a facilitator of time travel. 

Everyone knows the story of Proust biting into the madeleine pastry, its flavor engaging a tsunami of visceral childhood memories that mark the introduction to his magnum opus, “Remembrance of Things Past”. One would have to walk the earth without a soul to not have a similar flavor or aroma of their own…

Aromatic vegetables and a smoked ham hock browning in butter as the foundation for bean soup,

Ginger, garlic and chilies shocked to life in the boiling oil of a wok,

The fat cap from a beef roast caramelizing carrots and onions in an enamel pan,

Sauerkraut, sausage and potatoes freed from the lid of a dutch oven…

Taking the concept a bit further, one can acknowledge the fascinating research done for a niche subculture of the cookbook industry dedicated to less subjective, personal histories. Forget about the “Paleo Diet” – anyone can now source recipes to prepare dinners that would have taken place in Ancient Roman villas, Incan plazas, T’ang Dynasty dining halls, or a Shoshone campfire after a successful hunt. As merely interesting and entertaining as the work of studying and preparing these foods can be, it is just as important that they pay great respect to our ancestors regardless of our origins. They offer homage to our collective journey as a species. The idea that all of Mother Nature’s flavors are a story… 

I have long believed that our neolithic efforts to learn one another’s languages was born out of inherent desires to make our food taste better, often invoking the mise-en-scene of a communal cooking pot surrounded by strangers slightly mistrustful of one another. In a pensive act of courage, one of them produces a pouch from their robe and adds its contents – herbs, ground spices, nuts, or a grip of dried berries – to the simmering dinner they’re about to share as a way of saying:

“I want you to taste where I come from…” 

My first visit to the Boundary Waters etched it in my heart as a Terrestrial Time Machine; one of the very few remaining places on Planet Earth in which hundreds of square miles look as they did forty years ago, three hundred years ago, or seven thousand years ago. I found in it a vast and sacred location that – especially when paired with the right food – can transport us to a time where we might rather be. 

For some of us, that may be a more innocent and unburdened history where we caught our first fish with a parent or were taught how to start a campfire by a cousin… or a first bite of fresh fish, breaded and pan-fried in bacon fat, skin perfectly crisped, white flakes of flesh steaming, lifted upward into the liberty of late afternoon sunlight beaming through bamboo blinds. 

It’s easy to take our mediations even further back and wonder when our spirits paddled waters like Ashigan Lake or portaged rapids as ravenous as those on the Kawishiwi long before the internal combustion engine was even an idea and we left our only written languages in animal shapes and hand prints crafted on walls of stone. 

But therein lies the rub; even when we work our way through the wilderness and achieve the peace of a tidy campsite and the modest fire that will prepare our meal, our minds tend to wander elsewhere. It almost becomes a struggle to remain present, to plant our hearts in the here and now and give thanks for what we have, not what once happened or could have been. 

As much as food can assuage the frustrations we may have with our day to day lives, as much as we can be apt to take refuge in flavor rather than simply savoring it, preparing a meal in a wild place is one of the most simple and rewarding acts of pure purpose – and pure presence – that we can perform. It doesn’t matter whether the dinner is scratch-made or freeze dried, simmered over coals or sliced cold and served on crackers, remaining mindful of what we eat, where we eat it and with whom, and of the work we’ve done to earn our hunger is far better seasoning than a good story or a sweet memory. Indeed – it is what they are made of.

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recipes

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Campfire Pintos ‘Charros’

Ingredients

• 15 oz can refried beans
• 15 oz can pinto beans (do not drain)
• .5 cup diced yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic, clipped and chopped
• 2 slices bacon, chopped
• 4 oz beer (or water)
• Half lime, cut in wedges
• Campfire Adobo Seasoning to taste
• Hot sauce to taste (if desired)

Preparation

1. In a saucepan or large cast iron skillet, begin to cook bacon over medium heat.  When bacon renders out fat and fat becomes translucent, add onions and garlic., stirring often.
2. When garlic begins to brown, add cumin and oregano, stir well until evenly distributed and aromatic, then add beer and reduce heat to medium low.
3. Allow beer/water to simmer for about five minutes, then add both cans of beans and stir together until well-mixed.
4. Simmer, stirring often, for about thirty minutes.  Add salt until and hot sauce until satisfied, then squeeze in juice from limes.  Serve hot!

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Campfire Adobo Seasoning

Ingredients

• 2 cups kosher salt
• 4 tbl lemon pepper
• 2 tbl ground cumin
• 2 tbl onion powder
• 1 tbl granulated garlic
• 1 tbl dried thyme
• 1 tbl ground Aleppo pepper (or 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground sweet paprika

Preparation

1. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl and whisk together until well incorporated. 
2. Transfer to spice container for storage.

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