The Camper's Cookbook (Alma Pillot and Deborah Roth, 1976) is a very slim volume-- only 32 pages total, and the last two are just blank cards for cooks to fill in with their own recipes. Still, I couldn't resist the art.
If the waiter in fancy dress and coonskin cap isn't enough to draw you in, the cartoons of families unable to light a fire, trying to grill a live fish, or suddenly learning that a bear wants to share their meal should sweeten the deal.
Is the cooking gourmet, as the cover promises? Well, it depends on what you mean by "gourmet." As far as I could tell, in this book, "gourmet" translates as "piling extra stuff onto familiar fare."
You know, like making sloppy joes with onions, peppers, mushrooms, and baked beans, then packing the filling into scooped-out French bread cylinders and topping with tomatoes, lettuce, and Russian dressing.
Or it might be frying egg salad sandwiches in an eggy custard.
Or it might mean throwing everything you can find into the "Sweet-ish Meatballs."
Cranberry sauce! Orange and lemon juices! Tomato catsup or chili sauce! Dehydrated onion soup! Egg! Mashed potato flakes! And don't forget the rice or Chinese noodles for serving. I guess we're just lucky this doesn't call for miniature marshmallows or Cool Whip....
As much as I love the slightly demented recipes, though, my favorite part is the pictures, from the somewhat stereotypical, like the dog gleefully running off with a whole string of sausages...
... to the inevitable attempt to grill in a downpour...
(Gotta love that big frown for having to use the umbrella to protect the charcoal rather than the cook!)
...to the imaginative warning about the dangers of washing dishes in a stream.
If washing dishes could lead to getting one's arms bitten off, well, better play it safe and use paper plates! I'm sure I would have loved to have used that excuse as our family's main dishwasher when I was a kid.
In short, the recipes in the book are somewhat fun, but I really enjoy the scenery!
Nothing like the extra danger of making sandwiches that need to be held together with toothpicks. First, they probably won't hold their shape while cooking. Then, the danger of accidentally eating one of those toothpicks once you declare the mess to be done.
ReplyDeleteI also think that they forgot to tell you to prepare the French bread for the super sloppy joes a few days in advance. That sandwich sounds like it will turn into something you need to serve in a bowl with a spoon shortly after being put together with all of those moist ingredients. Yes internet, I used the hated word moist. Moist, moist, moist...
There should be a law against those meat balls, and the angry cook holding the umbrella looked like they were improperly wearing a mask at first glance. I guess that observation is a sign of our times.
Even fresh French bread is usually hard enough to use as a baseball bat. I'd worry less about its structural integrity than most other types of bread.
DeleteHa! I can see where you're coming from with the improperly-worn mask bit. I never would have thought of that.
That is 100% true! And you know there's no way that people with all those supplies are going to be washing dishes in a stream. The RV (or house) has a sink.
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