Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
I don’t need to dwell on the one year anniversary of the pandemic here, so instead I’m going to mark the year by reflecting on the ways I’ve used a birthday present I received exactly one year ago.
I received a set of stainless steel pots and a tiny camp stove from my in-laws at a birthday dinner, one of the last social gatherings I attended last year before the shutdown.
The set includes a 1.5L pot and a 2L pot. They’re stainless steel and weigh 601 grams with a handle and lid that fits both pots. They’re a little battered after one season of use, and I feel a sense of confidence and pride in my comfort and skill using them to cook over the gas stove. Cooking outdoors isn’t hard, but I already feel so much better at it. Before the trip I calculated how many grams of fuel I needed for the planned meals. Eventually I was able to light the stove without thinking about it. I balanced my ingredients and foldable cutting board on the flat-topped logs near the fire pit. And I folded the tiny stove into its little coffin-like case after the dishwashing water was heated.
Over the summer, my friends or I cooked thirteen meals with my pots in the backcountry. Here are some of them: mushroom ragout over quinoa, lentil sloppy joes, pancakes and blueberry sauce, burritos, lentil dahl over rice, beans and sautéed vegetables to eat over fire-baked potatoes.
I made many cups of lukewarm mediocre coffee before I became less afraid of the jet engine sound that came from turning my gas stove up all the way for water to boil. It sounded like it was going to explode or liquify the metal pot; it didn’t. It just efficiently boiled water. By the last morning of my last trip this past year, I realized that after it boiled, I could just keep the flame on low to keep the water heated until I needed it for the very last cup of coffee.
For one of my favourite backcountry meals I fried trout in oil in my largest pot over my camp stove. It’s silly but it was Ontario trout I brought to Algonquin, despite trout swimming in the lakes. None of my pals or I have delved into the world of fishing yet. But I felt like a genius for my battering system of three Ziploc bags; one contained flour, one contained seasoned panko and sesame seeds, and another I cracked two eggs into. I shook each piece of fillet around in each bag and fried.
I indulged my curiosity about the cooking pots of the past and found they haven’t changed all that much.
In 1912 Kathrene Pinkerton and her husband set off to live in the wilderness near Atikokan, Ontario, northwest of Thunder Bay. After they scouted a site for their log cabin they enjoyed a few months of canoeing and camping before they started to build.
Kathrene wrote about how carefully and economically they outfitted themselves from Abercrombie & Fitch, back when it was a sporting goods and camping outfitter. She had multiple cooking kettles; aluminum pots probably similar to the ones that appear in the Abercrombie & Fitch 1916 catalogue. The catalogue only offers pots twice the size of mine or larger, of comparable weight.
In the 1930’s Esther Keyser started a tripping business taking clients, mostly women, to camp in Algonquin Park.
“My cook kit consisted of three differently-sized pots, cups, plates and silverware. Everything fit into the largest pot, including a frying pan with high sides and a collapsible handle.”
The pots pictured at Esther’s campsite above are quite large, like the ones in the A&F catalogue. But I’m not sure why camping pots got smaller?
In addition to the 10-12 cups of tea Esther estimates she drank every day, some of the pot-or-pan-required meals she made for her friends and clients included onion-potato-cabbage stew, bacon, eggs, pancakes, and oatmeal. Most inspiring: freshly caught trout rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon fat. Definitely caught in Algonquin lakes!
Esther even used her camping pots to bake:
“If the largest pot was turned on its side with the opening facing a moderate but constant flame, we had our own version of a reflector oven. The frying pan without its handle became the baking pan.”
She impressed her friends and clients with freshly baked coffeecake, biscuits, cornbread, and even pie made with blueberries they picked in the backcountry.
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This year, with my campsites reserved for spring and summer I’ve been thinking about meals to repeat from last summer and new ones to try. I’m intrigued by the confidence backing this (repulsive? delicious? definitely interesting) recipe. I’m thrilled my friend and fellow tripper Allison has announced her intention to try Esther’s pie method this summer in Algonquin (though we’ll probably bring our own blueberries just in case).
Have you enjoyed any great camping meals in the past? Any recipes you want to share? I’d love to hear about them; let me know in the comments or reply to this email.
This felt so warm and joyful ... reminding us that canoeing is worth the effort! Your meals are ambitious!
The new generation of bush mamas arising ... Glad to hear you know about Esther!
Without a doubt, that was one of the best cups of coffee I ever had! It inspired me to propose we open “Backcountry Coffee”, an outdoor cafe where we only serve coffee made by camp stove.