Shipwreck: A Historic Fire Lookout Dish
Last weekend, my husband and I attempted to stay at Surveyors Lookout in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest near Avery, Idaho. Fire towers are an iconic part of western forests. Before the advent of aerial surveillance and satellites, fire lookouts watched for fires. While some towers are still in use today, the U.S. Forest Service manages others, like Surveyors, as rental properties. Sadly, it was too smoky to see the views. With rain in the forecast, we didn’t feel like braving a thunderstorm in a fire tower with a leaky roof. Leaving was the smart decision; it poured rain on our drive home.
Before our trip, my husband surprised me with a copy of The Lookout Cookbook Region One, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service in 1966. This is an updated version of a 1938 Lookout Cookbook also published for Region One, which covered western Montana. These cookbooks are geared for cooks who have limited ingredients. Most fire towers are in remote, difficult to access locations. Lookouts had to bring in several weeks of provisions at a time. This meant lots of canned goods.
Managing several weeks of rations was no small task. The cookbook starts with some basic nutritional information. It stresses the importance of a balanced diet with a variety of vitamins and minerals. As I mentioned in an earlier post on wartime nutrition, government guidelines focused on making sure people had enough nutrients.
The book also has practical cooking tips for things like keeping perishable food fresh or making ingredient substitutions. The best cooking tip was for determining the temperature of an oven using some flour on a baking sheet. Temperature can be estimated by timing how long it takes the flour to brown. That’s a valuable tip for baking in cantankerous wood or propane ovens.
The book is full of simple, hearty recipes that can be made with canned goods and dried staples. The only fresh ingredients are butter, eggs, and long-lasting vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. Casseroles of canned beef, ham, or fish feature prominently, as do quick breads. Interestingly, there are no recipes for fresh trout. Presumably our hypothetical fire lookout knows what to do with a fresh caught fish. The book does include a few “salad” recipes. I used that word loosely, as Americans have a habit of calling any cold side dish a salad. In this case, that includes a “salad” made from cold canned pork & beans, chopped onions, and mustard. I suppose lots of things taste good if you’re hungry enough.
To get into the spirit for our fire tower visit, I decided to make a recipe called “Shipwreck.” Not only was the name intriguing, so was the description. The instructions recommended the recipe for “when the ranger or some ‘big shots’ are arriving.”
Shipwreck
- 2 large onions, sliced
- 4 potatoes, sliced
- 4 stalks of celery, chopped (or celery salt)
- 1 pound hamburger, cooked
- 1 can tomatoes
- 1 small can kidney beans
- salt & pepper to taste
Into a baking pan layer half of the potatoes, followed by the raw onions, celery (or celery salt), hamburger, salt, and pepper. Repeat with a second layer. Over this pour tomatoes. Cover and cook 2 hours at 350 degrees. Add kidney beans on top ½ hour before serving.
I cut the recipe in half since there’s only two of us. I used my great-grandma’s old Corelle Ware casserole dish. It still has remnants of her name on it from being taken to potlucks.
The final product was tastier than I expected. It would make a satisfying meal after a day of hiking.
Next time we rent a fire tower, I’ll be prepared with historical, Forest Service approved recipes. I’m looking forward to trying some of these out in the wild.
