Cooking over a Campfire

I was in third or fourth grade when I first cooked outdoors on my own, without any adults around. It’s a favorite memory, and always called up by the smell of bacon frying in the winter air. 

As kids we used to spend a lot of time up on Mt. Helena, the mountain that towers over my hometown of Helena, Montana. I lived in a neighborhood that bordered the mountain, and it was our playground growing up. This was long before  it was the developed area it is now, with new subdivisions and a busy basecamp park with a lot full of cars—and sometimes even busses— at its base, with hikers (and more recently bikers) going up and down the mountain from dawn till dusk. Back then it was open countryside, with rough trails, and we usually had the mountain more or less to ourselves. We’d fill up our canteens at what we called a spring—probably just a leak from the water reservoir that was at the foot of the mountain—and hike up one of its many trails. We’d always pack lunches and roam the pine forests and rocky cliffs, looking for adventure, and we played there year round. One winter we came up with the idea to hike up to a small box canyon that was one of our favorite haunts, a place with a nook up in the rocks near the top (marked by the arrow in the picture below–a view from the top of Mount Helena), and build a campfire out of the wind, on an almost level slab of sandstone with a natural spot for a fire. We were interested in all things outdoors, and passionate about hiking, and especially camping—and one of us had the idea of cooking over a fire, so we made a plan to make breakfast up there one snowy winter Saturday. 

It always felt a little illicit–maybe since my friend Mike’s parents forbade him from ever playing with fire (a reasonable rule, as we endure the burning up of the west these days). Brian and I, though, either had more trusting parents, or we managed to fly under the radar. (And besides, it was winter, with little chance of a forest fire; Mike’s parents were pretty strict!) We packed eggs and bacon (what else?) along with some boy scout cooking gear we borrowed from older brothers and headed up to our spot. I can still remember getting that fire started and the smell of pine burning, can still feel the dampness of the wet, melting snow, as we perched around the fire on the uneven incline, frying up the bacon and scrambling the eggs. I’m pretty sure the bacon was either raw or burnt in places, and the eggs a bit charred, since they burned easily in the camp kits we were using to cook them in–but they smelled and tasted pretty darned good. It’s my Proustian madeleine memory, one that brings me back home, to Mount Helena, a place I hike whenever I am back to see family. I often take a detour to the box canyon, and find that spot. And I’ve never tired of cooking over fire and in the open air. I think that’s why one of my favorite chefs is Francis Mallman, an Argentinian who has mastered the art of cooking over an open flame. When he cooks, his joy is palpable–and reminds me of the feeling my fourth-grade self experienced as my friends and I cooked bacon and eggs over a campfire.