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Cooking for yourself on the road.
I had a long conversation with Jimmy of Jimmy’s Roll Back Service twenty years ago. He was towing my car on his rollback vehicle from Whiteville, Virginia where my car broke down, to Charlotte NC, which was as far as he could take it based on my insurance coverage. I had a son living outside of Charlotte at that time so that was an acceptable option. Jimmy was an interesting man who had had a very hard life. He didn’t know I was a physician until he tried to describe some of the medical problems he had dealt with and I said that sounds like Steven-Johnson’s syndrome to me and he got very excited. Yes, you are right he said. We bonded over that exchange I guess.
We talked about his life on the road. The majority of his life was based on countless hours and days delivering cars that could be placed on a rollback vehicle and transported everywhere and anywhere around our vast nation. He was very proud of the fact that he always ate well. He had learned that if he wrapped a beef roast with some potatoes and carrots in a foil packet and placed it near the front manifold of his truck, he had a meal that was better than anything a truck stop could sell.
So I am curious, if you had to feed yourself on a meal you put in a foil packet, what would you put in it?
Published in General
According to my youngest brother the truck driver, although he hasn’t driven long-haul with a sleeper cab etc for about 10 years, it is (or at least was) fairly common for long-haul truckers to have a DC-powered “oven” that would slow-cook meals in standard-size aluminum pans for up to several hours. Some drivers prepared their own, but many larger truck stops also sold pre-made meals in pans that could just be bought, cooked, and eaten.
There could be a pretty large variety of options, depending on where you were, but roast beef, potatoes, and carrots was a common one. I’ve made the same thing in a crock pot myself, using new potatoes, baby carrots, and pearl onions.
I couldn’t even imagine doing this.
1. I have no clue where the front manifold is. Is there a rear manifold? Or a side manifold?
2. How would you know when it was done? Time, miles, speed, outside temperature?
3. What happens when you hit a pothole and your potroast is out on the highway for the buzzards?
When we travel I make turkey sandwiches and put them in a small cooler. We can eat while still moving on down the road.
‘Tin Foil Stew’ can be very good. Don’t need to cook it with heat from a truck engine, an oven or a campfire works just fine. One recipe:
–Pieces of stew beef, roast beef, or steak
–Potatoes
–Carrots
–Onions
–Celery
–Butter
That’s always the case with families, but truck drivers are usually alone.
Usually but not always. I’ve known people who made it a family activity, though not when it would interfere with school. And sometimes the family consisted of just ma and pa.
Hmph. I’m hungry.
There’s a cookbook for that: Manifold Destiny. Cooking times are given in miles driven. Mentioned by the Car Talk guys back in the early 2000’s.
Because Jimmy is cooking on his engine it sounds kind’a low-budget. But cooking in a sealed pouch has a long and distinguished culinary history. In French, the idea is called “en papillote” and in Italian “cartoccio” … cooking food in a pouch made of folded parchment paper. Foil is the modern twist.
I like to do salmon…
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019057-salmon-en-papillote-salmon-in-parchment
I would have guessed that there was a youtube video out there on this topic but I didn’t expect a published cookbook. Thank you. I started this conversation because I realize that cooking food and thinking about food has become a huge part of my life and I might as well write a book about it. We will see what comes from that project. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Didn’t @jameslileks already cover that? “The Gallery Of Regrettable Food?” :-)
Do you prefer a Chevy or a Ford grill?
I remember making that at camp (scouts? church?) with a campfire. I think we used stew beef cut into cubes. I think I remember a trick was getting the pieces (particularly of beef and potato) of appropriate size ratio that they both cooked to a proper level of doneness at the same time.
I would never try to move into Bleat territory. He owns that genre. I am just starting to think about organizing my thoughts on food and life into something worth reading.
I have a Ford at the moment.
Then why are you hungry?
Because I need to go for a drive.
When I was on patrol boats, we too often ate what we called C rations, technically MCI. Eating the meat option hot was an improvement over eating them cold. We would often heat them on the engine manifold.
I have never in my life heard the term roll back for a tow truck. It must be a southern thing. I suppose it is more descriptive these days. It’s like in Maine they call a toilet a flush, or your driveway a dooryard.
Well, Jimmy of Jimmy’s probably lived much longer eating his own meals rather than truck stop food. I imagine it tastes much better because of the camping effect. When I camped as a kid we would open a can of baked beans and place it in the hot coals. Or, as an adult wrap a potato with foil and put it on the edge of the fire.
Now I’m hungry too.
I have never heard of a “front” manifold. There is an intake manifold, which delivers fresh air to the cylinders, and an exhaust manifold, which moves exhaust gases away from the cylinders. The intake manifold would not be particularly warm, where the exhaust manifold is very, very hot.
I used to take sandwiches on trips so I didn’t have to stop to eat. When I travel now, I stop for gas, then run into the convenience store and grab a Slim Jim after hitting the head . . .
On hunting trips, when my hawk Dakota was in his prime, I would carry foil and butter with me. When he caught his rabbit (usually “when” not “if”, as we were an effective hunting team), I would share the rabbit with him. I cooked it with butter in foil, in campfire coals. Sometimes I would bring along one of those small, individual serving bottles of red wine and add that to the foil packet with the rabbit and butter. Very tasty!
Butter required. Celery optional.
If it’s young, new growth celery from the “core” of the stalk (I’m not sure of the right terminology) celery is not something to pass up. If it’s old, stringy celery from large stalks it doesn’t add much.
When I was in my early teens, we went camping with older cousins, and we made this on a campfire. They called them “hobo dinners.”
Celery hearts.