There's something about cooking over wood...

[elfs]

Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham has proposed that cooking was a necessary step in human evolution, because cooking breaks down fibers and improves the bioavailability of many nutrients we don't normally extract from raw foods

Comments

[rhonan]

Have you ever done eggs in a paper bag, over an open fire? Great stuff that! One of my best memories of childhood and summer camp.

[technoshaman]

Really? Tell me more, I'm about to be camping for a few days...

But WRT OP: Om nom nom, smoke.... :q

[rhonan]

Paperbag eggs are really simple. Once your fire has burned to a nice bed of coals, take a regular paper sandwich bag, and line it with sliced bacon, just beyond the level you expect the egg mixture to fill. Once you have the inside of the bag completely covered with bacon, add whatever you want to add to the eggs (ham, cheese, diced onions, diced peppers, & etc, and then top with scrambled egg mixture, up to the end of the bacon. Then place the bag a few inches above the coals

[technoshaman]

Neat! Same as boiling water in a paper cup, only the results are much more yummy... :)

As for brewski, being as I'm exclusively on two wheels these days and an FNG at it to boot, I'd have to settle for root beer or tea or some such, but it sounds like you've as many war stories as I do, and a wee session of chewing the fat (and the pepperoni, as the old Unix Users Group dude used to say) would .... probably last far too long for my bedtime, but still be time well spent.

(And you wouldn't be the first Bear I've disappointed and yet was still willing to hang out with :)

[acelightning]

That explains why the smell of meat on a barbecue grill is so irresistible - I know vegetarians who still, wistfully, enjoy the smell. (Meat was, of course, probably the first thing humans cooked over a wood fire.) It's probably also why smoked foods remain popular even long after we no longer needed to smoke things in order to keep them from spoiling.

[wyrdone]

Cooking over coals (not bbq brickquettes, but charcoal) is definetly the way to do it.

Try taking cornish game hens or a smallish chicken with you next time. Gather wild herbs like wild garlic, rosehips, crab apples, etc. (not sure if you get some of those growing wild in the PacNW though) Stuff into the cavity and wrap the bird with well washed grape leaves. Wrap in a layer of foil and bury in the coals for a couple hours. Mmm delish camp cookin.

You own a real dutch oven? (the kind with legs and a rimmed lid)

[wyrdone]

Oh and if you haven't read before the "Foxfire" series is a really good read.

http://www.amazon.com/Foxfire-Book-Dressing-Building-Moonshining/dp/0385073534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249048167&sr=1-1

There are 11 books in total. While the lore and stories are from Appalacia the general living off the land and rural crafts still apply to anywhere.

[technoshaman]

Moonshinin'? Did, ah say, did somebody give up the Recipe?!

Srsly. I might have to have a look at that book.

Sign me, high-tech hillbilly half-bred city slicker
(you can take the boy out of the country but you cain't take the country out of the boy :)

[wyrdone]

Making moonshine is easy. Making moonshine *safely* is hard. This is why the revenooers were all hot to trot about catchin dem shiners.

Seriously, moonshining is illegal in the US due to federal BATFE laws.

Now, on the philosophical topic, if you want to learn how to make it safely. There are a lot of resources on the web. http://homedistiller.org/ being one of the better sites.

[dossy]

... and yet, people love to crucify smokers.

[briar_fox]

Tobacco smoke =/= wood smoke. Besides, there is simply no comparison when it comes to exposure - people don't come to a party or sit in a restaurant with a smoldering log in hand.