Smoke Gets In My Eyes - Memories of a Camp Cook
by Marye Roeser
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There was just no other solution but to axe that beef roast in half. The frozen roast was much too large to bake in the reflector oven and would have required at least a half a cord of firewood, which my husband wasn’t looking forward to chopping. I had included a pressure cooker in my kitchen box and half of that roast would fit quite nicely in the pot. Then the roast could finish baking in the reflector oven. Hmmm!
This perplexing dilemma occurred on the third day out on a seven day pack trip from McGee Creek Pack Station through the High Sierra. My husband, Lou Roeser, was the packer on this wilderness traveling trip and my job was camp cook. Russ and Anne Johnson, owners of McGee Creek Pack Station specialized in delicious camp meals and Anne was a wizard at turning out wonderful juicy roasts in a reflector oven. Lou and I were newly married and I wasn’t nearly so skilled.
We were camped along upper Fish Creek in a lovely glade that many years before had served as a camp for sheep flocks summering in the high country. An old log enclosure encircled the camp in earlier days, herds moved into the high country each summer over Mammoth Pass or Fresno Flats Trail from the present town of Oakhurst to the High Sierra. A crossing over the North Fork of the San Joaquin River is called Sheep Crossing and there used to be a swinging suspension bridge over which the sheep crossed the swift, treacherous river. In 1952, the year before this trip, the bridge had washed out and was never rebuilt.
Russ Johnson had built a pair of wooden kitchen boxes that were almost indispensable to a semi-organized camp cook. The two boxes were bung on either side of the mule’s pack saddle and were like traveling cupboards. They had drawers for kitchen tools, shelves, spices and herbs, and best of all I could always find the coffee and matches! Russ’s coffee pot was also ingenious. He had constructed it of sheet metal and besides making delicious cowboy coffee, on moves, the Coleman lantern was wrapped in newspaper and packed inside. We never broke a globe or a mantle.
Before the advent of plastic ice chests, backcountry cooks had to be innovative. A wooden pack box, lined with corrugated cardboard, served as our refrigerator/freezer. I had packed the frozen meat in the box with the last day’s menu on the bottom and progressed up to the first day’s meal on top. The well wrapped meat had been solidly frozen and then wrapped again in newspaper. Dry ice on top kept everything cold and the frozen foods frozen. More cardboard and a tarp covered the box. In camp, a canvas tarp was thrown over the box which was always kept in the shadiest spot. The frozen parcels remained frozen for many days, allowing fresh meat for the last days of a trip.
Having previously done my share of college starvation backpacking trips, I was especially grateful for those beautiful black mules who so carefully carried my kitchen and provisions into camp and even over a 12,000 foot pass! My favorite mule was Tagalong who was the tail mule in the string.
This particular day was a layover and our planned activity was a fishing trip with our pack trip guests to Virginia Lake on the John Muir Trail. Virginia is known for its large beautiful golden trout with their especially deep salmon colored meat. The California record golden trout, weighting in at 9 lbs. 14 oz., was caught here in 1952, the previous year. The proud fisherman had rolled the huge fish up in his sleeping bag and it stuck out on either end. Lou was packing at Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit that summer and he had packed the huge fish out, not realizing it would become a record. Lou saddled up the horses and our fishermen were looking forward to catching one of the golden beauties.
I packed lunches for the day and took the big chunk of frozen beef roast out of the chest to thaw while we were gone. Lou hung it from a pine branch in a relatively warm spot, well out of reach of hungry bears and an inquisitive pine marten. When we returned, I optimistically planned to roast the meat in the reflector oven while the guests watched it nicely brown. We all rode off in great spirits to the high timberline lake. It was a clear, cool day and the fishing was marvelous. How carefree I felt as we rode back to camp. As soon as we reached camp late in the afternoon, I hurried to my kitchen to begin dinner preparation.
The reflector oven, I used, was another clever invention by Russ and was constructed of flat sheets of steel that were easy to pack. However, the sheets had to be reconstructed in camp with many nuts and bolts. I was always so nervous about losing those precious little nuts and bolts that I carried the small metal box containing them in my most personal ditty bag. As soon as we arrived in camp, after each day’s move, my first priority was to put the oven together, as we used it for each meal. It was positioned in front of a blazing fire built against a large flat rock or boulder. I placed an oven thermometer on the center rack, and maintained the temperature by moving the oven closer or farther from the fire, or by adding more wood. It baked quite accurately, if the cook carefully watched the thermometer and her fire. Baking possibilities were unlimited. I baked peach cobbler, pineapple upside down cake, coffee cake, biscuits and even roasts. If a cook is so inclined, almost anything that can be baked in a conventional oven can be baked in a reflector oven.
Smokey campfires were a long way from UCLA academia and my sorority house, but I had been taught “Always do your best and if your role is to be a tree, then be the best little tree by the side of the road.” There were many far better cooks than I in my near vision, notably Anne Johnson and my mother. But I could build a campfire and use only one match! Even when it was raining. I could always find dry twigs, pine needles, and cones under heavy thickets. Dry “squaw” wood was available under thick forest canopies and burned hotter and with less smoke to get in my eyes. Newspaper, saved from the wrapped, frozen food, served as a great fire starter.
In a short time, the fire was blazing against the large slab of rock and the oven in place ready for the juicy beef roast. Wiping smoke from my reddened eyes and pulling roast down from the stout tree branch, I realized with a sinking heart that it was still quite solidly frozen. It really was a large roast too – it would require at least 3 hours to roast! Being a flexible and resourceful backcountry cook, I had to think fast. The guests would be coming to the fire soon. If the roast were smaller, it would fit in the pressure cooker and I could steam it for perhaps an hour and then hastily put it in the oven to finish roasting. The guests would see a beautiful roast in the oven and be amazed. The secret of a tricky camp cook is really showmanship.
Early in my camp cooking career, I learned to respect white gas. During a drizzling rainstorm, I had built a campfire using too many large wet chunks of wood which, of course, weren’t burning well. My smoke reddened eyes focused on a can of white gas, and I reasoned, I could stand well back and throw a little on the fire for a more respectable blaze. To my horror, the fire instantly traveled back into the gas can, which I held in my hands. Needless to say, I was quite fortunate that is was raining, or I would have had my own forest fire with a real dose of smoke in my eyes.
I attempted to slice into the roast but it was much too frozen. Then inspiration struck as I observed Lou chopping firewood. The axe! I quietly related my plan to him in confidence and we quickly carried the frozen meat out of sight behind a screen of pines. With a swift stroke of the axe, Lou split it in two! Quickly, half of the roast went into the pressure cooker on the white gas camp stove for pre-cooking. This stove didn’t generate smoke and once the roast was in the reflector oven, there was no bending over a smoky fire either.
By the time the guests had washed up, changed clothes and taken that leisurely walk along Upper Fish Creek, the meat, with fresh cloves of garlic inserted and artistically sprinkled with rosemary and ground pepper, was nicely browning in the reflector oven. We smiled serenely, accepting the accolades of the happy campers never divulging our emergency culinary shortcuts.
This camp was located near the junction of the trail to Lee and Cecil Lakes in Upper Fish Creek. These lakes contained large rainbows and were so remote they were seldom fished. Lee Summers was the owner of the Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit and his uncle, Cecil Thorington, owned the McGee Creek Pack Station. Years before, they had planted trout in the lakes, hence the lakes were named after them. Upper Fish Creek cascaded by and the lodgepole pines grew quite tall and stately, shading my camp kitchen. The camp stove was built on a pedestal of rocks which enabled “Cookie” (me) to cook standing upright, quite a plus even for a young back.
At that particular camp, we constantly waged battle with a brazen pine marten who was cleverly determined to invade the larder. The freshly caught trout were strung on a string between two trees with a sharp can lid on either end. Even so, we apprehended him trying to tightrope walk and climb over the can lid to the fish!
In the morning, as I left camp to haul water from the creek, it was so lovely that I sat on a boulder watching the morning light through the trees. My brief reverie was shattered by an ear piercing shriek. A young woman flew out of camp as though she were pursued by wolves. The predator wasn’t a wolf or even a wily coyote, it was our foxy-faced camp robber peering at her, but our timid camper imagined this creature must have, at least been as large as a mountain lion.
In camp, the fresh produce was placed in a large pot and sunk in a quiet eddy of the nearby stream. Lettuce remains crisp for days in such a cooler. On occasion, I even made jello salad using just such any icy mountain stream for refrigeration. My favorite herb for barbecuing is rosemary which, combined with garlic, gives a wonderful flavor to meat. The filet steaks were grilling topped with a liberal sprinkling of rosemary and garlic when one of the guests strolled by to sniff the delectable aroma, gasped and gazed up at the spreading pine tree above the stove. “Oh my,” he murmured, “This pine tree is shedding needles all over these beautiful steaks!” Whereupon, he carefully removed all the rosemary leaves. Rosemary does resemble dried pine needles, and I didn’t have the heart to inform him that he was also removing a special flavor from the steaks.
When I was feeling particularly creative, I used a favorite biscuit recipe in which I added caraway seed to the Bisquick flour mix. I then rolled out the dough (with a peanut butter jar), sprinkled it liberally with cheddar cheese and chopped green onions (picked in the nearby meadow), rolled it up like a jelly roll, sliced the roll and readied the pan of biscuits to be baked in the reflector oven. A polite guest, who would not have dreamed of complaining about anything, strolled by to see what was cooking for dinner. She stared at the dough and exclaimed, “Oh, you even have a mouse problem out here!” As she surreptitiously began to pick out the caraway seeds, whispering, “I won’t mention this problem to any of the others”. I quickly intervened, showing her the little jar of caraway seeds while we laughed together.
After Labor Day, resort owners often took a breather before the hunters arrived in the middle of September. One of the local lodge owners had planned a holiday pack trip for himself and his son into Upper Fish Creek 0ver 12,000 foot McGee Pass right after Labor Day. After having served customers all summer, he desired to be waited on if only for a few precious days. He especially requested the luxury of having his early morning coffee served to him in his sleeping bag. Each morning on awakening, he would poke his head out of his tent and call, “Cookie, I smell coffee brewing!” Lou or I would immediately trot over with a steaming mug of cowboy coffee, while he sighed with ecstasy.
Another guest was less fun and we had diabolical thoughts during his stay with us. He was a business associate of Charlie, a frequent pack trip customer who was treating him to what he believed to be a special vacation. However, this obnoxious man complained about everything including the size of the trout. He claimed to have user larger fish as bait where he was used to fishing. Big McGee Lake had excellent fishing for big rainbows and this rude man actually caught some nice ones.
One evening, Mr. Cantankerous rudely ordered me to, “Cook me a fish”! By now, Charlie, our regular customer, was rather tired of this unpleasant guest and muttered, “Did we hear a ‘Please?” With my best ‘we aim to please’ smile, I prepared several plump rainbow trout in evaporated milk, rolled in Bisquick with a touch of cornmeal, and fried golden brown in the skillet. Grinning, Charlie eagerly picked up a nicely browned trout and holding it by the tail and head, happily proceeded to eat the fish like corn on the cob. Our grumpy guest looked on in disgusted horror and decided he definitely was no longer hungry. His vision of a sautéed fish filet with a basting of almandine sauce, nicely served on china, was clearly shattered. Charlie really got into his act then, eating the trout like a Neanderthal man, and including gross comments while winking at me. Lou and I hastily retreated behind a pine tree to smother our giggles.
However, cooking over a campfire always means that the cook gets smoke in her eyes. Smoke always seemed to follow me around the fire even while sitting on a log with a cup of coffee in hand. Along with the smoke are the soot blackened pots which have to be scrubbed, not to mention soot blackened hands. I devised all sorts of methods for coping with soot blackened pots and hands, but smoke in my eyes, I have never solved. The camp “cookie” can always be identified by the smoky smudges on her face, red eyes and soot blackened hands!
This perplexing dilemma occurred on the third day out on a seven day pack trip from McGee Creek Pack Station through the High Sierra. My husband, Lou Roeser, was the packer on this wilderness traveling trip and my job was camp cook. Russ and Anne Johnson, owners of McGee Creek Pack Station specialized in delicious camp meals and Anne was a wizard at turning out wonderful juicy roasts in a reflector oven. Lou and I were newly married and I wasn’t nearly so skilled.
We were camped along upper Fish Creek in a lovely glade that many years before had served as a camp for sheep flocks summering in the high country. An old log enclosure encircled the camp in earlier days, herds moved into the high country each summer over Mammoth Pass or Fresno Flats Trail from the present town of Oakhurst to the High Sierra. A crossing over the North Fork of the San Joaquin River is called Sheep Crossing and there used to be a swinging suspension bridge over which the sheep crossed the swift, treacherous river. In 1952, the year before this trip, the bridge had washed out and was never rebuilt.
Russ Johnson had built a pair of wooden kitchen boxes that were almost indispensable to a semi-organized camp cook. The two boxes were bung on either side of the mule’s pack saddle and were like traveling cupboards. They had drawers for kitchen tools, shelves, spices and herbs, and best of all I could always find the coffee and matches! Russ’s coffee pot was also ingenious. He had constructed it of sheet metal and besides making delicious cowboy coffee, on moves, the Coleman lantern was wrapped in newspaper and packed inside. We never broke a globe or a mantle.
Before the advent of plastic ice chests, backcountry cooks had to be innovative. A wooden pack box, lined with corrugated cardboard, served as our refrigerator/freezer. I had packed the frozen meat in the box with the last day’s menu on the bottom and progressed up to the first day’s meal on top. The well wrapped meat had been solidly frozen and then wrapped again in newspaper. Dry ice on top kept everything cold and the frozen foods frozen. More cardboard and a tarp covered the box. In camp, a canvas tarp was thrown over the box which was always kept in the shadiest spot. The frozen parcels remained frozen for many days, allowing fresh meat for the last days of a trip.
Having previously done my share of college starvation backpacking trips, I was especially grateful for those beautiful black mules who so carefully carried my kitchen and provisions into camp and even over a 12,000 foot pass! My favorite mule was Tagalong who was the tail mule in the string.
This particular day was a layover and our planned activity was a fishing trip with our pack trip guests to Virginia Lake on the John Muir Trail. Virginia is known for its large beautiful golden trout with their especially deep salmon colored meat. The California record golden trout, weighting in at 9 lbs. 14 oz., was caught here in 1952, the previous year. The proud fisherman had rolled the huge fish up in his sleeping bag and it stuck out on either end. Lou was packing at Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit that summer and he had packed the huge fish out, not realizing it would become a record. Lou saddled up the horses and our fishermen were looking forward to catching one of the golden beauties.
I packed lunches for the day and took the big chunk of frozen beef roast out of the chest to thaw while we were gone. Lou hung it from a pine branch in a relatively warm spot, well out of reach of hungry bears and an inquisitive pine marten. When we returned, I optimistically planned to roast the meat in the reflector oven while the guests watched it nicely brown. We all rode off in great spirits to the high timberline lake. It was a clear, cool day and the fishing was marvelous. How carefree I felt as we rode back to camp. As soon as we reached camp late in the afternoon, I hurried to my kitchen to begin dinner preparation.
The reflector oven, I used, was another clever invention by Russ and was constructed of flat sheets of steel that were easy to pack. However, the sheets had to be reconstructed in camp with many nuts and bolts. I was always so nervous about losing those precious little nuts and bolts that I carried the small metal box containing them in my most personal ditty bag. As soon as we arrived in camp, after each day’s move, my first priority was to put the oven together, as we used it for each meal. It was positioned in front of a blazing fire built against a large flat rock or boulder. I placed an oven thermometer on the center rack, and maintained the temperature by moving the oven closer or farther from the fire, or by adding more wood. It baked quite accurately, if the cook carefully watched the thermometer and her fire. Baking possibilities were unlimited. I baked peach cobbler, pineapple upside down cake, coffee cake, biscuits and even roasts. If a cook is so inclined, almost anything that can be baked in a conventional oven can be baked in a reflector oven.
Smokey campfires were a long way from UCLA academia and my sorority house, but I had been taught “Always do your best and if your role is to be a tree, then be the best little tree by the side of the road.” There were many far better cooks than I in my near vision, notably Anne Johnson and my mother. But I could build a campfire and use only one match! Even when it was raining. I could always find dry twigs, pine needles, and cones under heavy thickets. Dry “squaw” wood was available under thick forest canopies and burned hotter and with less smoke to get in my eyes. Newspaper, saved from the wrapped, frozen food, served as a great fire starter.
In a short time, the fire was blazing against the large slab of rock and the oven in place ready for the juicy beef roast. Wiping smoke from my reddened eyes and pulling roast down from the stout tree branch, I realized with a sinking heart that it was still quite solidly frozen. It really was a large roast too – it would require at least 3 hours to roast! Being a flexible and resourceful backcountry cook, I had to think fast. The guests would be coming to the fire soon. If the roast were smaller, it would fit in the pressure cooker and I could steam it for perhaps an hour and then hastily put it in the oven to finish roasting. The guests would see a beautiful roast in the oven and be amazed. The secret of a tricky camp cook is really showmanship.
Early in my camp cooking career, I learned to respect white gas. During a drizzling rainstorm, I had built a campfire using too many large wet chunks of wood which, of course, weren’t burning well. My smoke reddened eyes focused on a can of white gas, and I reasoned, I could stand well back and throw a little on the fire for a more respectable blaze. To my horror, the fire instantly traveled back into the gas can, which I held in my hands. Needless to say, I was quite fortunate that is was raining, or I would have had my own forest fire with a real dose of smoke in my eyes.
I attempted to slice into the roast but it was much too frozen. Then inspiration struck as I observed Lou chopping firewood. The axe! I quietly related my plan to him in confidence and we quickly carried the frozen meat out of sight behind a screen of pines. With a swift stroke of the axe, Lou split it in two! Quickly, half of the roast went into the pressure cooker on the white gas camp stove for pre-cooking. This stove didn’t generate smoke and once the roast was in the reflector oven, there was no bending over a smoky fire either.
By the time the guests had washed up, changed clothes and taken that leisurely walk along Upper Fish Creek, the meat, with fresh cloves of garlic inserted and artistically sprinkled with rosemary and ground pepper, was nicely browning in the reflector oven. We smiled serenely, accepting the accolades of the happy campers never divulging our emergency culinary shortcuts.
This camp was located near the junction of the trail to Lee and Cecil Lakes in Upper Fish Creek. These lakes contained large rainbows and were so remote they were seldom fished. Lee Summers was the owner of the Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit and his uncle, Cecil Thorington, owned the McGee Creek Pack Station. Years before, they had planted trout in the lakes, hence the lakes were named after them. Upper Fish Creek cascaded by and the lodgepole pines grew quite tall and stately, shading my camp kitchen. The camp stove was built on a pedestal of rocks which enabled “Cookie” (me) to cook standing upright, quite a plus even for a young back.
At that particular camp, we constantly waged battle with a brazen pine marten who was cleverly determined to invade the larder. The freshly caught trout were strung on a string between two trees with a sharp can lid on either end. Even so, we apprehended him trying to tightrope walk and climb over the can lid to the fish!
In the morning, as I left camp to haul water from the creek, it was so lovely that I sat on a boulder watching the morning light through the trees. My brief reverie was shattered by an ear piercing shriek. A young woman flew out of camp as though she were pursued by wolves. The predator wasn’t a wolf or even a wily coyote, it was our foxy-faced camp robber peering at her, but our timid camper imagined this creature must have, at least been as large as a mountain lion.
In camp, the fresh produce was placed in a large pot and sunk in a quiet eddy of the nearby stream. Lettuce remains crisp for days in such a cooler. On occasion, I even made jello salad using just such any icy mountain stream for refrigeration. My favorite herb for barbecuing is rosemary which, combined with garlic, gives a wonderful flavor to meat. The filet steaks were grilling topped with a liberal sprinkling of rosemary and garlic when one of the guests strolled by to sniff the delectable aroma, gasped and gazed up at the spreading pine tree above the stove. “Oh my,” he murmured, “This pine tree is shedding needles all over these beautiful steaks!” Whereupon, he carefully removed all the rosemary leaves. Rosemary does resemble dried pine needles, and I didn’t have the heart to inform him that he was also removing a special flavor from the steaks.
When I was feeling particularly creative, I used a favorite biscuit recipe in which I added caraway seed to the Bisquick flour mix. I then rolled out the dough (with a peanut butter jar), sprinkled it liberally with cheddar cheese and chopped green onions (picked in the nearby meadow), rolled it up like a jelly roll, sliced the roll and readied the pan of biscuits to be baked in the reflector oven. A polite guest, who would not have dreamed of complaining about anything, strolled by to see what was cooking for dinner. She stared at the dough and exclaimed, “Oh, you even have a mouse problem out here!” As she surreptitiously began to pick out the caraway seeds, whispering, “I won’t mention this problem to any of the others”. I quickly intervened, showing her the little jar of caraway seeds while we laughed together.
After Labor Day, resort owners often took a breather before the hunters arrived in the middle of September. One of the local lodge owners had planned a holiday pack trip for himself and his son into Upper Fish Creek 0ver 12,000 foot McGee Pass right after Labor Day. After having served customers all summer, he desired to be waited on if only for a few precious days. He especially requested the luxury of having his early morning coffee served to him in his sleeping bag. Each morning on awakening, he would poke his head out of his tent and call, “Cookie, I smell coffee brewing!” Lou or I would immediately trot over with a steaming mug of cowboy coffee, while he sighed with ecstasy.
Another guest was less fun and we had diabolical thoughts during his stay with us. He was a business associate of Charlie, a frequent pack trip customer who was treating him to what he believed to be a special vacation. However, this obnoxious man complained about everything including the size of the trout. He claimed to have user larger fish as bait where he was used to fishing. Big McGee Lake had excellent fishing for big rainbows and this rude man actually caught some nice ones.
One evening, Mr. Cantankerous rudely ordered me to, “Cook me a fish”! By now, Charlie, our regular customer, was rather tired of this unpleasant guest and muttered, “Did we hear a ‘Please?” With my best ‘we aim to please’ smile, I prepared several plump rainbow trout in evaporated milk, rolled in Bisquick with a touch of cornmeal, and fried golden brown in the skillet. Grinning, Charlie eagerly picked up a nicely browned trout and holding it by the tail and head, happily proceeded to eat the fish like corn on the cob. Our grumpy guest looked on in disgusted horror and decided he definitely was no longer hungry. His vision of a sautéed fish filet with a basting of almandine sauce, nicely served on china, was clearly shattered. Charlie really got into his act then, eating the trout like a Neanderthal man, and including gross comments while winking at me. Lou and I hastily retreated behind a pine tree to smother our giggles.
However, cooking over a campfire always means that the cook gets smoke in her eyes. Smoke always seemed to follow me around the fire even while sitting on a log with a cup of coffee in hand. Along with the smoke are the soot blackened pots which have to be scrubbed, not to mention soot blackened hands. I devised all sorts of methods for coping with soot blackened pots and hands, but smoke in my eyes, I have never solved. The camp “cookie” can always be identified by the smoky smudges on her face, red eyes and soot blackened hands!
