Hey Sylvia, you're already for Summer Camp

Yeah.

You know, I actually got some interesting intel for my

grandchildren that surprised me.

They're seven and nine and I asked them, I said, what about camp food?

'cause they go to all kinds of camps and they said they loved it.

Is that wild?

Because there are all sorts of memories of camp food.

I went to a couple of great camps as a kid, including like day camps

and then eventually the sleepaway camps and the food was always good.

Really,

I guess I have, I have kind of a stereotype of thinking,

getting home to home cooking.

But the only thing I knew and I didn't go that many camps, but s'mores, yes.

You know, s'mores are popular through the ages, right?

And so that's kind of what's obvious.

But anyway, I was just kind of surprised

A 7-year-old was describing cookies with cream stuff inside of 'em and

how unusual she thought that was.

I guess she didn't get that at home, but

Everything's in a number 10.

Can they're giant

Yeah.

girl scout can Food wasn't so good 'cause we had to cook it ourselves.

Well, we did some of the cooking ourselves, but The teenage counselors

that were doing most of the cooking and we were the kids and, but

sleepaway camp in Vermont was pretty, like, they had baby cape coupons,

at the very last, grand finale at the end where everybody goes away.

Hey, Nancy.

You were raised in New England, right?

Connecticut?

Well, New York,

Well, it's New England is where camps started.

didn't know that.

that's actually Gunny Camp.

Who is Frederick Gunn in Connecticut.

he was the first recorded, camp, and it was all about physical

activity, as many of them were a character building in nature.

kind of fitting with the Victorian beliefs in nature's moral and physical

benefits were a driving force.

the

original

out in the.

Outdoors my dad went to camp not too far from where

my husband and I were living in Connecticut and trying to find it.

It was still around, so that's kind of interesting that a camp from, oh, I'd say

probably back, well, he was born in 1920, so the thirties or so was still around

in Bantam Lake, Bantam Lake, Connecticut.

why don't we talk about food first I'm gonna do a

for, absolutely.

Okay.

Because that's what we're really here about.

and the tradition of food at summer camp and, you know, originally summer

camps were about overnight camps.

Day camps have sort of evolved over the years, probably in part because parents

now have to find camps for their kids.

Like my son and daughter-in-law, they have their kids entirely camped.

For the entire summer.

And they're expensive too.

Like what do you do with your kids when you gotta

work?

Well, yeah.

Poor grandma,

right.

Okay.

so I love them.

I love them.

But the, you know, the best thing about grandkids is you do give them back Anyway,

let's on to food..

I bet you don't make camp food like they do at camp.

So, but camp foods of the, let's say the sixties and the seventies

and even the eighties, apparently it's changed a lot today, hasn't it?

Well, they say it used to be more important than it is today.

Now guess what got invented?

Camp stoves and coolers.

So now you have a lot more fresh foods, like fresh vegetables and stuff like that.

Now, I don't know, obviously you and I are beyond camp age, right?

Unless you wanna count adult retreats as

Well, the Spa

Why not, right?

Why not?

but we're talking about mostly like the traditions of camps, and You

had to have shelf stable, right?

Because you didn't have ways to, keep stuff.

And so I found this really fascinating video about the Camp Foods of

the seventies and eighties, and it described them as long gone.

I kind of disagree with some of it, but yeah.

I know you've been to a lot of camps.

Can I run some of these by you?

Yeah,

corn beef hash with an egg on top.

Ugh.

There you go.

Thing things are hardy that, prepare you for those great outdoors, right?

spam.

Now this, I think has gone outta style and, you know, 'cause

it was shelf stable though.

And I love this one.

Viena sausages.

My dad called them vini sausages,

That not Vienna.

He says, I want my vi vais.

and they actually kind of tasted good,

Those were like for, adult drinks.

instant oatmeal, I think that's probably still pretty

that's, I think that's still around.

We used to have, I'm not sure if it was instant or not, maybe it

was, but the big family style oatmeal bowls would be on the table.

especially in a cold morning when you're up in Vermont.

It was great.

Yeah.

if you go and stay overnight in these hotels now that provide breakfast,

they always have a big pot of oatmeal.

I go right to it

and there's nothing better than a great, the bowl of oatmeal.

and a little maple syrup drizzled on top

I mean it can be so good

And it's good for you.

it is.

Sticks to the ribs as my mama would say.

Uh, freeze dried chili

I've never heard

of that one.

and lots of other kinds of things were freeze dried.

Now see if you remember this one canned fruit cocktail.

Oh, I do remember that.

I remember that as a dessert.

And it always had a little dollop of whipped cream

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Well, you don't see a lot of that around anymore.

I mean, it's still on the shelves, but you know, they didn't have fresh fruit,

It's hard to find, actually.

It's not as easy to find in many grocery stores.

You're gonna love this one.

Tang.

astronauts and

Tang.

Yes,

have Tang.

We had what we called bug juice.

What's That

Bug juices is kind of like Kool-Aid, and I guess because it was sugary

sweet that it would attract bugs in the open air, so that's probably

why they called it bug juice.

But there was every color of the rainbow that you would get on bug

juice, depending upon, you just didn't have it for breakfast.

It was usually lunch or dinner that you would have it for.

Yeah.

Well, you could barely find Tang now.

I hadn't even thought about it in

I never even looked at that.

But it's a jar of stuff.

You put water in it and it's the food of astronauts is how they, talked about it.

Cheese spread and cans.

Is cheese spread at camp?

in cans, because you could put it easily on crackers and stuff.

It was easy.

You're looking for easy stuff.

and you'll, when we talk later, we'll talk about cooking camps, anything but easy.

'cause it's teaching kids to cook really kind of

Well, and learn to fend for themselves.

I think that's a good idea.

Right?

we learned to cook on an open fire as kids in camp too.

We'll see if you remember this one, Jiffy Pop Popcorn.

That's those metal, you know those aluminum pans with the thing and

then they pop and they get, if you

remember those.

Jiffy Pop.

Jiffy Pop as much fun to make as it is to eat,

I know, and of course the ever popular, I think even today is

roasting meat over an open fire.

Everything from weenies.

Yeah.

Weenies to, bigger items.

Right.

Yep.

Yep.

So, there you go.

That's the fresh food and produce have kind of taken over now because kids, you

know, you can look in the cooler, you see grapes, you see all those things.

Of course, you know, still, I think a lot of these other things are

still part of the fair part of what

they

tuna fish in the cans and Girl scout camp.

I remember 'cause that was the first camp that I went to be on the day camp,

the first overnight camp, they had.

I'll call them ditches.

They were ice coolers that were in the ground.

They were dug into the ground with bales of hay and big blocks of ice,

and so that's how they kept things.

there was a lid on it that you had to go down and get everything out.

it was a bit of an experience for a kid to say, that's the refrigerator,

I think that is a neat experience.

it kind of teaches them more of the fundamentals how you kept things cold

in the early part of the 20th century, probably in the latter part of the 19th.

Well, one more thing that's probably not around in camp anymore is Bob was

explaining to me some of the things that they had as kids at camp, and he

went up to the camp in upstate New York.

Both he and his brother and his sisters went, you know, there's a girls camp

and the boys camp and they said at night they would give the kids stewed prunes

and they're in the little plastic bowls that sort of, those melamine kind of

plastic bowls right of the fifties or sixties or seventies or whatever it was.

And and there were two stewed prunes in juice.

And he said they were always hairy.

And I said, hairy.

He said, yeah, they look kind of hairy.

And so.

The kids from the Bronx they were boys referred to these as buffalo balls.

Now they probably gave them to the kids to make sure they didn't get

constipated, but that's besides the point.

Oh,

they had buffalo balls and they would all laugh.

know.

I'll never eat prunes ever.

Well, now you're never right.

on them.

Buffalo

Buffalo balls.

know, it's interesting you talk about your camp experiences and the foods

and all that kinda stuff, and then it just suddenly pops in my head.

kids that go to Catholic schools always have stories of the foods

and all of that kind of stuff, and it somewhere like camping, it made

such an impression on young people.

That they carry the stories with them forever.

Uh, you and I kind of miss that.

you know, you mentioned Girl Scout Camp.

Well, we owe the Girl Scouts a lot.

They are the ones that really pioneered girls camps.

Julia Gordon Lowe sold a string of pearls in order to get the uniforms

for the first Girl Scouts to be able to join a troop and then go

Yeah.

and this is an interesting fact.

It was usually for elite boys in the very beginnings of New England

where it started, uh, to Rescue them from over civilization, but it gets

better and feminized households.

Don't you love that?

Well, I guess they were real boys.

I don't know.

they hadn't gone woke yet.

feminized households, I love it.

but they were taught self-reliance, independence, and resourcefulness.

But they said that the camps really varied and some of the kids

had to, they went to rough it.

and others were served their meals on China.

Oh my good on

if yeah, at camp.

if you were in England or something and your royalty, I

guess you got served on China,

you didn't rough it and you were still wearing your lace Pantaloons

right.

Take your China to camp, right?

That is funny.

yeah.

the oldest camp right now, uh, is in Westport, New York, on

the shore of Lake Champlain.

Have you been there?

well, yes,

not too far away from where I went to camp, but yeah, we were, we

were up in, mallets Bay, actually in Vermont, brown Ledge camp.

for Girl Scouts.

no, no.

Girl Scouts was out on Long Island and, the sleep away well, girl

Scout was two weeks sleep away.

And then I graduated to month and two month and that was

Brown Ledge camp in Vermont.

And I loved my horses, so, I learned to really not be afraid

of them as a kid.

That

was, that was, like third and fourth grade,

so I learned

taught skill is horseback

They

we had overnight camping, so we had to cook on our own with counselors and

all sorts of canoes and, you know, how do you schlep your stuff, your food?

they actually packed us up with everything so that we could

then cook it When we got there.

it was a great experience.

are these the Girl Scout camps

No, the Girl Scout camps were a lot more wussy.

Well, at first, girls Camps were teaching feminine kinds of endeavors.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

This was an all girls camp up in Vermont, Brown Ledge, As I look back,

it was really pretty swishy camp.

It's still in existence, right now, which I'm really glad to hear.

we learned a lot about togetherness and supporting one another, not just

from the dinner table, but all the way to the waterfront and, team sports.

It was really a great thing

yeah, go ahead.

But, the dining room was also a big activity center where we ate and we

supported one another and camaraderie.

So I think camaraderie happens a lot around camp dining

tables and that's important.

Well, did you ever participate in a very common prank?

You want me to tell you about it?

Yea, tell me about it.

Sneak in in the middle of the night, steal all the tables.

No.

Ah, and take them and put them somewhere.

Then have a ransom note.

Oh, that's funny.

Don't you love that?

Oh, you love it.

Hey, I got a, I kind of get an interesting kick out of this.

Now.

When the girls first started going to camps, they were taught and really,

I didn't see a whole lot about this, but girly kind of things, right?

And I'm assuming that means Learning how to cook for the family and stuff.

Well, moving fast forward, I see in the world I'm in, 'cause I own a restaurant,

so I'm around restaurateurs all the time.

All the men are chefs.

and there are women that are rising up.

But I'm kind of like, let's, fascinating to me how we, at one time, Nancy.

I won't speak for you.

But I was a career bound girl.

I mean, I wanted to be a business woman.

I wanted to be all those things, but I kind of think I

missed out on something too.

And now boys are cooking and girls are cooking like old home EC

classes and stuff, and boys took shop and the girls took home-ec.

Those are, those are great skills, actually.

great life skills.

But before we talk about more life skills and camp, let's take a quick

little break so we'll be right back.

So, Sylvia, life skills and camping, I think the two go together really, really

well because you have to know how to pick yourself up off the dirt literally in

some cases and take care of yourself and feed yourself and feed others and make

sure like nobody stars out in the wild, but or even in a less rough kind of camp.

But even still camping and camping food and food experience is so interesting.

To hear a little bit about what's going on, but can I share one little story from,

from a, a friend I asked around for like camp experiences with food and

I got this one comment from Dave Jackson, who's very well known in

the world of podcasting, He said For me, I always ate frozen corn at home.

My cousin was the same and when he said when they went

to camp, they ate canned corn.

Well, it wasn't bad.

He said they all referred to canned corn as camp corn 'cause it wasn't

the same thing as mom's frozen corn and then also sloppy joe's.

Joe's were big at camp too.

But he wasn't sure they used the same kind of stuff because the camp stuff really

was more the man witch kind of stuff.

But when I heard about the frozen corn, I have to say it didn't quite

translate for they ate frozen corn.

Isn't that kind of crunchy It?

Then I realized like, no mom probably cooked the corn before

It's like slow brain camp.

Yeah.

And that was ca Camp Kawana Ana, I think it was, that.

How

you all camps had Indian names, right?

You might have been thinking popcorn too.

I mean, you know, sort of like that's the kind of corn that crunchy.

another friend of ours, Leo, talks about having snuck in cookies and

put 'em in the camp, like where you put things to save them.

And they were gone the next day and the camp counselor said that something got

in and inate them and he to this day, suspects that camp counselor did it.

Well, and then I've got a camp story on, care packages.

at our big long sleepaway camp, which was either a month or two months

up in Vermont camp, Brown Ledge.

Some campers got care packages from their parents and I was in a cabin

once with a bunch of la-di-dah girls from New York City and I was

just the country bumpkin out in Long Island, which was the country at the

time, and one of the campers got.

It was a gourmet food package.

It was this huge package with baby, baby corn.

It was baby pickle corn and caviar and olives and crackers.

I had Never seen anything like that in my life and say, oh this,

this baby coin is pretty good.

And then I sent a note home from mom saying, oh, they got care packages.

Mom sends me.

Two boxes.

The long boxes, like flat boxes with the skinny little Tootsie rolls in them.

They're, I don't know, like a hundred Tootsie rolls in each one.

Well, they had never seen Tootsie Rolls.

am choosing

I had to hide those Tootsie rolls under my bed, but they found them, and so my

Tootsie Rolls

gone.

Oh man, you're making me want them.

I might have to go buy me a can.

This is bringing you back memories.

I love it.

I love it.

So over the years, just to quickly, say this, you just started out, it's

like, boys camps, girls camps.

And then the other thing that evolved were day camps.

And I think that's probably as much a result uh, parents working and

needing to find places for their kids to be every day.

So our kids are getting more and more exposed to different kinds

of one camps and two, the food that the various kinds of camps serve.

And one of the specialty camps, ' cause they've got specialties and everything.

My kids go to basketball, uh, baseball science, all that.

But cooking classes,

I think that's really interesting that there's, a cooking camp for kids,

Yeah, and think about it for a minute.

Where else can a child learn?

And they have camps for kids as young as two to four years old now, usually

it's accompanied by a parent, right?

Who wants to be around little kids at two and four, you know, doing

whatever you do, especially knives.

You wanna keep 'em away from those.

But lemme say this about knives.

Start early.

It's sort of like if you own a swimming pool, be sure and teach your kids.

Send them the lessons about how to save themselves.

But I know my chef Jeremy, when his kids were very little, he taught them to use

a knife because of course he's a chef.

So knives, were always around, but imagine how a child can hurt themselves.

Even hurt themselves on a hot stove.

Right.

Yeah.

so that's what these camps are all about.

But where can you learn math, science, social studies,

entrepreneurship, innovation, and all of those things in a camp?

' cause food is science, right?

Science, food is math, food is social, food is

It's crafting, you have to make it look

good, otherwise who wants to eat it?

And you actually have to know how to read really well.

So I even remember, like my mom, when I was a kid and learning to read, my

mom would have me read the back of the ingredients, boxes and recipes.

So I learned to.

Cook brownie as well.

I think it was chocolate chip cookies as I was also learning to read at

the same time, and we would practice

mean, it's amazing, which is why it is so good for kids to do these things.

like I said, from two to four, it's usually with a parent

there, but they explore sensory.

of things.

I remember going to one of his summer camps and he was teaching kids,

as you would imagine, and those of you who don't know Father Jim, his

mother's Miss Marie's tomato sauce.

He sells it.

She was Italian cook.

She did a great job.

He was teaching them how to make lasagna.

he had them put vegetables.

In the lasagna, the mix so that they would have vegetables at the

same time they were eating lasagna.

can have your pasta and greens at the same time.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

And hide it.

You might hide it.

Uh, so seven to four to seven, four to eight years old, they start learning

knives, stirring, measuring, exploring.

I mean, kids love that.

Isn't that what they love?

and then now we have cooking contests.

You have a Young Chef's Academy.

and it'll be interesting as we see these kids grow up, we'll,

more of them be eating and, uh, preparing really gourmet meals.

At home, and doing more of that maybe, or refined food, you know, really going

out and understanding and exploring different cultures all of that

Or just learning to be creative, like who cooks on a stick anymore,

that would be kind of fun.

Well, yeah,

besides, s'mores, right?

well, when you think about campfires.

I don't know if a camp that doesn't have a campfire at the end, if it's an overnight

camp, right.

At least a grand finale.

And well, you do, you do weenies, you do, uh, all kinds of things on that open fire.

Now,

Po Poe boys, they call 'em, where you take the dough and you wrap the dough around

Now,

the bread on there,

now I didn't go to camps very much and neither did my husband, but.

We did go to Tetons when we were newly married and we camped, we actually put

up a tent and at one time our camps were military-like, and for boys particularly,

and you to put up tents and all that.

We put up a tent and we tried to cook bacon.

it was four hours later and the bacon was still raw.

Never tried it again.

I wouldn't have been, I, I should have gone to camp.

Sylvia tip number one, you have to build a fire,

I needed you there with me just like I have you with me now.

Keep me out of trouble.

So, Bob also told me one other thing that they did at camp, and it's a boys

thing because I don't know about you, but I never liked to get dirty while I was

eating as a kid, I was the clean girl.

I didn't, I don't like messy sticky fingers and things, but they had, oranges

that were cut in half and they would eat the oranges out this, so that the half of

the orange was still like a cup and they were told to crack an egg inside the cup.

Then they had a stick that had a fork on it.

So it was like a stick with a V in it, you know, like the corner edge of

the branch is how they come together and they stick the orange cup that was

there, or half the orange in there, and then they would put that over the fire.

And so they'd have, I guess, cooked eggs in an orange cup.

That's creativity.

forks needed

Don't try this at home.

A fire

outside, right?

everything tastes better on an open fire.

It really

does.

does.

And then just as kitchens are, what we're all about and the stories

that grow from food ghost stories.

I mean, you're sitting there in the chill of the night, you got that

roaring fire, and then people start telling stories around the fire.

And The smell of the

foods on an open fire if you're in that kind of camp.

But even still little memories like Girl Scout camp, we'd have to hike down to

the beginning of the front of the camp with baskets on our back to pick up.

pints of milk, so everybody took turns getting the milk.

I've heard of other people doing that with different camps and how the milk was

delivered because kids ate milk back then,

Well, I mech it, Sylvia, there's some

wisdom there, right?

That's, Hey, we're over 50 50, over 50.

We won an award for being old, didn't

I know I have to admit in public, I guess I'm over 50.

Well, I kind of look like it, I guess so I don't look like 27

now I'm kinda like, Hey, you know, I'm gonna wear it proudly.

Why not?

The whole camp idea will grow and evolve more technology is coming and

I think that's kind of interesting talking about virtual camps,

Not the same.

Not the same, but self-reliance, ability to survive.

The whole idea of prepping is somewhat related to camping ' cause that's

a huge movement and something we'll talk about on a different show.

But camp teaches a lot to kids and I think it teaches a lot to adults.

One to be.

Able to to go back to life without your kids in your house.

And to appreciate them when they come back.

And for

the kids, it teaches them how to relate to other kids from different

communities around the country and even around the world that they might never

have the opportunity to connect with

And when their parents aren't looking.

Yeah.

How they get along with people and you said a key word, preparation.

I think that may be one of the some things.

It's not like a survival thing where you're out there and you have to do

things to survive, but it is teaching you survival techniques, things that you have

to do for yourself in order to thrive,

When the lights go out and there's a storm, you can do it.

And of course, camp songs

Oh

I'll have to find a camp song and put this at the end of the show.

But there are lots of those.

the only thing that comes to mind is a hundred bottles of beer on the wall, and

I don't think that that is a camp song.

No, no, no.

(singing) Do your ears hang low?

Do they wobble to and frow anytime

and

not tie the bow?

Can you throw 'em over your shoulder like a continental soldier?

Do your ears hang low?

And then the other other table would, yes, yes, my ears hang low

I

it got louder and louder and louder.

Went from really soft and then went down to.

Anything.

Nancy.

Oh, got lots of camp

summer camp.

all.

I wanna go back to camp.

You'll come to Camp Florida.

Okay.

Yeah.

let's see.

Your olive trees.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, on that note, I think it's time to put this one to bed and

maybe we'll build a fire have a

little extra, some more.

And as this adult camp, have a glass of wine around the fire.

There you go.

If you like the show and you have some camp memories and songs you

wanna share, please let us know.

It can send us a message in.

podcast.family tree food and stories.com, or just find us on Facebook.

We'll put a link in the show notes.

So take care, be well.

and every meal has a story.

And every story is a feast Bye-bye.