Primitive cooking......

     Newsflash..  You can't set a campfire on med/low and go about your day,
and expect dinner to be ready at five.
     I love cooking over a campfire.  Not too many people in my little circle
share that love.  I mean we all have campers with gas and electric.  We all
have running water (in a sense) and most of the conveniences of home.  So
why would one go to the trouble of tending a fire all day and babysitting a
meal when it would be oh so easy to pop something in the microwave and
be done with it ? (The one appliance I refuse to put in my camper)  Oh we
all do the roasted hot dogs and marshmallows on the fire and even an
occasional burger or two.  But nobody ever tries to fix a 'real' meal outside.
Well almost nobody.  I have made soups, stews,  beans, baked cornbread,
regular bread, made deserts and even baked a cake.  Last weekend I
experimented with something new I read about.  Chili dog casserole..lol
homemade chili with corn tortilla wrapped hot dogs covered with
grated cheese and baked in a cast iron dutch oven.  This one needs a little
tweaking as you can imagine.  (I did make a homemade pizza in another
dutch oven as a back-up..lol)  But all in all it wasn't bad.
   Ok I'm rambling .. On to my story.  I think my fascination with outdoor
cooking is the same as why I practice a lot of the old ways of doing things.
Why would I collect pine pitch,charcoal and dried grass to melt together
into a hot glue stick when I can buy a much better product at Hobby Lobby
for pennies?  Why carve spoons and such from cedar limbs when plastic
ones are so cheap,and disposable?  The new wave preppers would have you
believe it because I'm some kind of doomsday prepper preparing for some epic
apocalypse but in fact I don't fear the future.  In such an event I know that
my maker has a plan for me and I'm content to follow his lead.  I do however
think the reason I love the old ways so much is because it gives me a better
understanding of how we got to where we are in this world.  What better way
to appreciate the things we have today than to relive the the hardships that
those before us had to endure.  And the blessing to us is that it's not a live or
die situation for us.. If we fail.. there's always McDonald's.
     This weekend I think I'll attempt to make some jerky.  Oh I could just
plug in the dehydrator and go on my way but I've been reading up on open fire
drying towers and you know what that means.. several hours of tending a fire
and soaking applewood chips.  And although my hunting skills have left me
with an empty freezer these past couple years , I'm sure the nice people at the
meat market have had better luck and can provide me with a couple steaks.
I might even catch some fresh fish and try drying them.  After all if those
Eskimos can do it I see no reason why I can't !