Campfires and food – a favourite combination
I have many memories which combine my loves of food and fire. The combination of the two things are one of my most favourite pairings.
It’s not that I would choose to have everything I eat cooked over coal or burning ember. Sometimes the connection is not so literal – drinking a beer beside a roaring fire in the early chill of autumn is one of my favourite activities of the year. The pop, crackle and warmth of an early winter burn makes the soup I eat beside it only taste better.
Some of the connections, of course, are very intertwined. I remember coring apples and stuffing them with brown sugar before wrapping them with tin foil and throwing them in a fire for a prolonged visit before enjoying a fireside desert. I also have a found memory of snorkeling in the Atlantic ocean, collecting mussels off a dock and surrounding rocks before cooking them in seawater over burning driftwood while watching sunset.
A different kind of fire burns in our modern ovens and through coils of my stovetop (I am without the luxury of gas, for now). I remember occasionally cooking on an old wood burning cook stove at our cabin as a child and marvel at what’s happened to our kitchens in the last 100 years.
My sweetest memories are from Boy Scouts and hunting trips where we cooked our own dinners over an open pit of coals. Fire pits offer a unique feature not available in a modern kitchen – the 360 degree cooking surface. Communal meals can be prepped and cooked in the middle of a conversation and the chef never has to turn their back on the waiting diners. The cooking becomes the focus and not a mere task or errand.
To this day I still cherish this act and recommend that everyone makes time to go back to this ancient technique from time to time.
Sometimes fire is just a great after dinner activity. A way to digest, to enjoy. It’s a wonderful host to a group of new acquaintances as was the case on Halloween for us at Grassroots Organic Farm. The fire pulled us in and we found ourselves meeting strangers that we hadn’t met earlier – despite the fact that we were all gathered in a relatively small space for hours before.
The crew had an old and broken upright piano that had been around the farm for many harvests. It was the feature of the evening (emptied of moving parts and undesirable melty-type things J). A pumpkin-headed scarecrow took it’s position at the keys and lit the night sky.
Pull up a chair around our fire and enjoy with us – I’d love to hear any of your fireside stories about campfires and food in the comments!
Comments
Some of the best fireside memories (and I hope to have more) are the fires up at hunt camp. Love, love, love sitting around the fire with good friends and a few beverages = pure, simple relaxation. There’s something about staring at the fire under the stars on a crisp evening listening to the crackling of the wood that is so zen. Even the fact that we usually have to swat at mosquitoes doesn’t spoil the fun! Add s’mores (with dark chocolate of course!) and it’s just bliss…
There’s something bred in the bone about sitting around the fire whether it’s a wood stove, a bonfire, or even catching a glimpse of the gas burners as they first come to life.
As a resident of a Gulf Island in British Columbia, I am acutely aware of the importance of fire, as many winter days we lose power due to storms etc. What always amazes me is the power to become mesmerized by the dancing flames. My husband often refers to this as “country television”.
Yes, I have prepared many a meal on top of the wood stove in the dozen or so years I have lived here, but more importantly I am reminded at just how wonderful our world is because of our quest for fire. From burning the refuse from pruning trees as fall comes to a close, to basking in the warmth of a glowing wood stove. I truly am thankful!
Mmmm – Campfires & memories. My favourites are from family days at the campsite. Dad taught us to whittle – we all had a jack-knife and he used to carve/burn pieces of cedar into bowls or little statues (the bear was the best). I’m very lucky to still have one of his coal bowls.
Food by the fireside too was the best – smores were great, popcorn was tricky. But the best, yummiest, artery-clogging-est was slab bacon & rye bread! The bacon goes on a skewer & you slowly cook it over the coals. The slice of rye is used to catch the bacon fat as it drips from the piece. Eat’em together. Mmmm!
My campfires have been many however the particular ones that stand out to me. Is when we would camp with my extended French Canadian family on the French River. This meant 4 Aunts and their families so about 20-25 of us. We would fish for barbotte (catfish) off the dock after dinner then my Mom and Uncle would clean all the fish. They were pretty small and full of bones. We had a huge communal frying pan almost like a paella pan. My Mom and Uncle would dip the fish in flour, salt and pepper then fry them in butter on the camp fire. I did not like fish as a child but this was the only catch I would eat. Sitting around the campfire, wrapped in sleeping bags and eating fish with our fingers off of paper plates. I remember how the butter would soften the plate and make them almost see thru you would throw them in the fire and the oily part would fire up like a little explosion. I can still hear the crickets and bull frogs which were many back then along with the crackling of the fire. My Dad and cousins playing guitar and singing Georgie Jones and John Denver songs. LOL yep thank god I’m a country boy!