May 19th is World Baking Day, always the third Sunday in May. It was invented by Unilever to promote their brand of margarine. Do I bake? Do I bake while camping? Do I bake over campfire coals? Yes, yes, and yes. I like extreme cooking, at least cooking outside. I use dutch ovens. One can do any type of cooking in these cast iron pots, including baking.
These are my camping dutch ovens. The second from top, is an 8″ dutch oven I have had for over 50 years. Took it to Boundry Waters in Canada in the early 70’s. We lived on dehydrated food for 10 days, packed away in our canoes, unless we could catch fish. After five days of not catching a single fish, I angrily swung my paddle at a loon. Broke his wing. Went after, and killed it. Then plucked and dressed it, to be baked in that dutch oven. Loons are not tasty birds…dark, stringy, really tasted fishey.
To make matters worse, we canoed to customs/trading post the next day. Could buy beer…at first. Casually talked about cooking and eating a loon. Whoa! State bird of Minnesota. Protected as migratory bird. Found out in no uncertain terms, that entire group in trading post thought I was an idiot. My dutch oven and I barely made it out alive.
Two books that I use readily are “World Championship Dutch Oven Cookbook” by Juanita, Mike, Pat, Wallace Kohler and Pat and Dick Michaud, 1998. Have 11 recipes marked for easy cooking reference.
Also “Outback Cooking in the Camp Oven” by Jack and Reg Absalom, 1991. Great book on how they approach dutch oven cooking in Austrailia. While there are recipes for Emu and wild duck, none for loons. There are also lots of dumpling, scones, and bread recipes here, even a fruitcake recipe, that I would like to try.
Here are just a few more dutch oven cook books from cookbook collection. More exciting is is how to translate a regular recipe into one using dutch oven, and coals, while camping. That’s the real fun with dutch ovens. Every camping trip I take, (now with an RV and full kitchen) I still try to cook at least one thing in dutch oven, usually baking something for dessert.
Of course I use cast iron in the house. I have a biscuit pan for my buttermilk biscuits-I also make a pretty darn good gravy for them. I also have an old 3 quart combo cooker, that I use all the time in the kitchen. Have baked loaves and loaves of bread, especially sourdough, and no-knead marathon loaves in this pan with lid.
I knew a baker with red hair. He was a ginger bread man.
All you need is loaf.
Don’t go baking my heart.
How does bread court his sweetheart? With lots of flours.
What did bread say to his sweetheart when breaking up? You deserve butter.
How do you say hello to German bread? Gluten tag.
What is the worst thing about bread jokes? They tend to go stale.
Thanks for reading these half-baked puns.
Librarytomes 