Dining A La King: Improvisation is a necessary skill in wilderness cooking

ELY, Minn. — In Zup’s Grocery in northern Minnesota, a man looked at the cart I was pushing and said he wanted to come for dinner.

We had filled the cart with an array of food, something we did a number of times the past few days. Ten meals for a group of 15 people, plus all the food they would need for seven days on the water, meant we got to know a couple grocery store clerks really well.

You need a lot of food for 11 college students and their three guides as they prepare a seven-day trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a million acres of lakes, trails and campsites, with all they need in packs that they carry on their backs and in canoes.

The 11 students from Goshen College, led by professor Val Hershberger, prepared and packed for the trip as a Mayterm class. While others were seeing arts in London, leaving for Peru or staying on campus for a three-week course, this group came north to learn about the wilderness and how to navigate it.

Arlene Hershberger, Val’s mother, and I worked together to assure they had three square meals a day in camp. Gretchen Nyce, one of the other guides, oversaw the food packing for the trip.

On the first morning, we started humbly with granola I’d made in advance, as well as fruit, yogurt and toast.

As the students put together their sandwiches for lunch, potato chips piled in as a sandwich filling became a meme, though one young woman was an outlier and actually put raw broccoli and cauliflower on hers. Over the couple days with these students, driving up from Goshen and at camp before dropping them off for the trip on Thursday morning, I heard them discuss memes and break into pop songs. But I also heard them harmonize in a sung prayer prior to a meal and present reports on the animals they may encounter in the wild. (Did you know a moose is 25 to 30 pounds at birth?)

We all learned as we went and improvised. I made a dip for the fresh vegetables with sour cream, yogurt and a few herbs and spices I could scrounge from a nearly bare kitchen on that first day in camp. Arlene and Val orchestrated one of their family favorites of a chicken salad with grapes, raisins and roasted pecans. Arlene also made amazing cinnamon rolls. It’s impossible to make cinnamon rolls without love and patience for those whom you’re feeding.

We were going to make pasties, a Northwoods staple of rutabagas, carrots, potatoes and meat enfolded in a pastry crust. They’re popular in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and around these parts. But then we realized how much pie crust that would mean for 15 people and opted for a potpie inspired by the handheld pocket. I braised the chuck roast and preroasted the vegetables. We didn’t have red wine, so I improvised a sauce of coffee, balsamic vinegar and soy sauce that worked just fine. The reviews were solid. “The potpie was the right blend of savory and simply delectable,” said student Jace Longenecker.

I made a dense sour cream coffee cake that I associate with these trips and this place. The sugar and butterfat suited people well as they cleared brush, practiced paddling and gathered gear.

On the final night, I made a spinach lasagna that must have weighed eight pounds.

I volunteered to come cook for this group because of a connection to this place and wanting to be part of teaching the next generation to appreciate it as much as I do. It’s been 25 years since I went on my first Boundary Waters trip through Wilderness Wind, a Mennonite camp that guided trips built on values of creation care and simplicity. I was on its board for nine years.

Wilderness Wind ended its run nearly three years ago and Chicago Voyagers, which takes inner city kids on wilderness experiences, now owns the two properties.

I was able to offer hospitality, to care for others with food. They responded graciously and gratefully, which reminded me to try to do the same to those who prepare and serve food to me at restaurants or elsewhere.

I didn’t go on the water with the two canoeing groups, but Arlene and I will be there with sandwiches, cookies and fresh fruit when they come out on Wednesday. They’ll likely be hungry.

I’m hungry. Let’s eat.