Email
PrintRiverside Repast
We’ve come a long way since the days of freezer-burned elk
Veteran flytier and Snake River fishing guide Jay Buchner cooks trout and Tater Tots on a Wilson Handy Camp Grill in the 1970s. The grill sits on a steel rod and can be moved up and down with pliers when it’s hot. Cans of corn or beans are often placed next to the steel rod to be heated while the main course is grilling.
(page 1 of 2)
Picnics and cookouts by the water have served as highlights of organized outdoor adventures since the advent of the hook. On lakes and rivers in Canada and the Northeast, colorful woodsmen and Native American guides prepared shore lunches that evolved into feasts. Freshly caught walleye, northern pike, lake and brook trout, salmon, perch, and bass were introduced to cornmeal and sizzling lard or fatback, often served with a bucket of sliced and fried potatoes. Jackson Hole can’t boast of anything like the Thousand Island dressing that originated during these early guide-prepared fried fish dinners on Lake Ontario near Clayton, New York (which sits in the Thousand Islands), but through the years certain individuals in this part of Wyoming have escalated the preparation of streamside meals into an art form.
Longtime scenic float trip operator Dick Barker remembers hearing words to this effect from some of Jackson Hole’s earliest fishing guides, such as his stepfather, Joe Beerkle: “If you don’t catch ’em, you don’t have lunch!” The practice started back in the mid-1930s and continued through early ’50s, when Beerkle’s and Bob Carmichael’s guides tossed in the old steel or cast iron skillet, cornmeal, a can of Crisco, and mayonnaise, vinegar, and a head of cabbage for coleslaw.
“There was no problem building a cooking fire in the parks or along Jenny, Lewis, and Leigh lakes in those days,” Barker says. But by the mid-1950s, when he was attending Colorado State University and guiding Jackson fishermen on the Snake River during the summers, the lunch scene had become more sophisticated. “Most of our clients came from valley dude ranches, Jackson and Jenny Lake lodges, and these facilities provided very nice client lunches,” he says. “I quickly learned when they asked if they should bring along a lunch for the guide, to instantly say ‘yes,’ because it was much better than that old hunk of elk burger most of us existed on.”
Barker still chuckles over an incident in the early ’60s when a national advertising agency contacted Tom Carmichael at Carmichael’s Fly Shop in Moose to do some “streamside filming of the newly introduced Teflon skillets in action.” Barker recalls catching fresh trout and, for the photo session, frying them up in lots of real shortening. In the old skillets, he says, the final product turned out great. But the trout fried in the Teflon skillets stuck to everything, looked simply awful, and were a “total mess.” Streamside gastronomy wasn’t ready for modern science just yet.
Long before Teflon, the all-steel Wilson Grill had become a staple for horse-packing trips and hunting camps. Lew Wilson’s portable cooking creation started out as a Maytag washing machine lid with porcelain on one side and a metal loop tack-welded on the back side. The grill loop was sized to fit on a steel rod firmly pounded into the ground. When swung over a campfire, the grill could be raised or lowered with a pair of pliers to adjust the cooking heat. It wasn’t long before the Wilson Handy Camp Grill migrated to the Snake River waterfront aboard early inflatable rafts. Cleaned and headless cutthroat trout were split open lengthwise, a method known as “butterflying.” Next, the fish were coated with flour and cornmeal and sizzled to a golden brown either in cooking oil, Crisco, or the grease from a pound of grilled bacon. Joining the trout were hash browns, Tater Tots, or various cowboy potato creations. Cans of simmering baked beans and corn sat adjacent to the fire beneath the rectangular metal grill. When the fish were crisp and perfectly done, the guide/cook wielded a pair of needle-nose pliers or fishing forceps and magically lifted the bones from the butterflied trout. This luncheon spread often included a green salad or coleslaw, sliced melon, and homemade pie, cake, or cookies.
My first guide trips in the mid-’70s for Dick Boyer’s Rod n’ Reel Shop fortunately were two-boat affairs taken in the company of such river veterans as Louie Busch, Virgil Lowder, Jay Buchner, and Tommy Williamson. I marveled at all the extra time stolen from the fishing portion of the day and devoted to these luncheon productions. Eventually it dawned on me that the clients loved the lunch routine as much as, if not more than, the fishing itself. Many welcomed a relaxing noon break. This was supposed to be a vacation, after all, and these expert packers and their Wilson Grills regularly charmed any socioeconomic crowd. (JB Mechanical still manufactures upgraded, but authentic Wilson Handy Camp Grills that are available from Stone Drug in the Grand Teton Plaza.)
By the 1970s—unlike on the lower Snake and other rivers where open fires were allowed—Grand Teton National Park was permitting cook fires only in designated group areas. Many guides, when they were float fishing in the parks, still took guests who arrived with box lunches from dude ranches and the Rockefeller lodges. On these days all the guide had to do was to ice some drinks and include a snack for himself.
Those who preferred to make lunches seized upon a clever invention called the Kangaroo Kitchen, a two-part aluminum camp stove and carrying case that clamped tightly together. Packed inside was a stainless steel cooking rack, a sturdy aluminum griddle, and a twin-burner device fueled by then-new, sixteen-ounce propane canisters. Either aluminum cover piece, when placed above the burners, would serve as a frying pan or base for the grilling rack or griddle. By clamping both Kangaroo Kitchen halves together, an oven could be made to bake, roast, or steam meat, fish, and vegetables. Word has it bread was even baked in a few Kangaroos, but for the most part they produced more modest fare. Like a Wilson Grill, the Kangaroo griddle was excellent for breakfast dishes such as bacon, eggs, and pancakes. For lunch, a freshly cleaned cutthroat could be dotted with butter, dusted with Lawry’s seasoned salt and ground pepper, and then lightly folded in aluminum foil and baked to perfection in about eight minutes. Hamburgers and pork chops took slightly longer on the griddle.
