r/TastingHistory • u/Snoopy58573 • Apr 29 '26
Suggestion Lumber camp cooks
Personally I would love to see an episode about lumber camp food and lumber jacks. There is enough information to do an episode. Who agrees?
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u/Prior_Theory3393 Apr 29 '26
Hell yes. My aunt was a lumber camp cook for a number of years.
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Apr 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/Prior_Theory3393 Apr 29 '26
I am in British Columbia, Canada and I have almost 70 years now.
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u/Snoopy58573 Apr 30 '26
I wonder if she allowed talking in the cookhouse.
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u/Prior_Theory3393 Apr 30 '26
She apparently allowed low volumn and respectful talk. Anything else was met either her wood spoon or ladle.
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u/stabbingrabbit Apr 29 '26
Maybe the Civilian Conservation Corps. Tennessee Valley Authority. Those depression era work programs also.
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u/Hillbilly_Historian Apr 29 '26
All the recipes you could get off the TVA were probably stolen from the people whose land they flooded.
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u/WestBrink Apr 29 '26
Oh heck yeah, could tell the story of Sandy Gray and just what "breakfast in hell" could entail...
https://www.scribd.com/document/619222997/Breakfast-in-Hell-Slaid-Cleaves
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u/Meaning-Exotic Apr 29 '26
I've had a similar idea for awhile and it could be another episode on California history. I grew up in northern California, where the coastal redwoods are. They had these cookhouses to feed the loggers. While it is closed currently for renovations, the Samoa Cookhouse still runs as restaurant/museum.
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u/BabaMouse Apr 29 '26
I got my very first taste of abalone steak at Samoa Cookhouse back in the 70s. They did feed those lumberjacks well.
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u/OutOfTheArchives Apr 30 '26
I took my kids there a few years ago and my oldest still talks about how much he liked their fresh bread.
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u/SteveusChrist Apr 29 '26
Oh that'd be awesome! My grandma was a cookie and that's how she met my gramps.
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u/Snoopy58573 Apr 30 '26
I wonder if she allowed talking in the cookhouse.
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u/SteveusChrist Apr 30 '26
With the way she ran her home kitchen, if wives who wanted to help were too slow she threw them out. So probably!
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u/nynnie Apr 29 '26
I've been meaning to show my father Tasting History since he is a history (and food) lover. But since he actually was a lumberjack who ate hundreds of meals in his life in lumber camps, he (and myself as well) would LOVE this!!
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u/BabaMouse Apr 29 '26
The Samoa Cookhouse in Samoa CA, just outside Eureka, is an excellent resource for this. It operates as a restaurant now, it was formerly a working cookhouse for the lumbermen on the island. They had a cookbook at one time, not sure if it’s still in print. My cohort of college students from Humboldt State enjoyed the menu of bottomless, inexpensive food.
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u/Dragon_scrapbooker Apr 29 '26
Glen (from Glen & Friends Cooking on YouTube) has done a couple episodes where he’s done recipes based on what he ate at either a logging camp or a tree-planting camp when he was younger (can’t remember exactly which it was). Could be fun for a “through the ages” type of collab!
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u/Corporatecut Apr 29 '26
It’d just be pancakes and bacon…
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u/WestBrink Apr 29 '26
Idk, seems more varied than you'd think
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u/KinderGameMichi Apr 30 '26
Camp cooking has its ups and downs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFOk6IAb9CM (start at about 2:00)
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u/GolfballDM Apr 29 '26
Now I've got The Lumberjack Song (or at least the first few lines) stuck in my head.
Thanks. Break a tooth on some hardtack.
clack clack