Campfire Cooking: Roasts on a Stick

When I was a 10-year-old kid in western Michigan, I discovered Sydney Pollack’s melancholic “Jeremiah Johnson.” The film chronicles the misadventures of a disillusioned mountain man (Robert Redford) who wanders the Rockies in the mid-1800s.One particular scene stuck with me. It’s near the end, as Johnson is roasting a rabbit on a stick over an open fire. He looks up and is surprised by the arrival of an old mentor who saved him from starvation at the film’s beginning. Johnson effortlessly plucks a cooked leg from the rabbit and tosses it up. The mentor offers his compliments: “You cook good rabbit, Pilgrim.”That scene, both poignant and symbolic, changed my life - from a culinary perspective. From then on, I was committed to mastering the art of cooking meat on a stick.I’ve always been an avid hunter, so I’ve enjoyed an endless supply of ingredients. Yet my early attempts were all failures, yielding meals of rabbit, squirrel, grouse and even snapping turtle that were blackened on the outside, raw in the middle and rubbery throughout.I didn’t make real progress until adulthood, when I was able to travel with indigenous hunters in Asia and South America.After enjoying fire-roasted meals ranging from marsupials in Vietnam to aquatic rodents in Guyana, I discovered the three requirements for success: skin, distance and time. The animal’s skin must be kept intact to prevent moisture loss; the meat needs to be kept far away from the ravages of direct flame; and you need to give it plenty of time for the heat and smoke to work their magic. (The scene from the movie suggests the latter two requirements, but the rabbit’s skin is conspicuously missing.)Finally, about a quarter-century after watching “Jeremiah Johnson,” I enjoyed a resounding success while roasting a wild mallard on willow skewers above a fire in central Alaska. The meal was sublime and has proved to be easily replicable.I like to imagine what Johnson would have said if he had ridden up in that glorious moment: “You cook good duck, Pilgrim.”How to Fire-Roast a FowlWhole fire-roasted fowl is equal parts food and installation art. Large wild ducks such as mallard and pintail are ideal. They have enough fat to keep them moist but not so much that it drips into the flames and causes flare-ups. (Domestic ducks are borderline too fatty.) For a readily available alternative, use either a half-chicken or whole spatchcocked bird. The next steps:1.Gather materials. You need four forked sticks for vertical supports (strong enough to be driven into the ground), two long sticks for horizontal supports and two or three long sticks to use as skewers for the meat. Alder or willow are ideal, though you can use virtually any kind of green, freshly cut wood from deciduous trees. (A rack and skewers made from dried wood will burn.) Skewers should be about 3/4 inch in diameter and sharpened on the ends.2. Build the fire using well-seasoned deciduous wood that is suitable for cooking.
Apple, cherry, alder, mesquite and oak are good choices. You’re cooking with embers more than direct flame, so let the fire burn down for a half-hour or so before you start cooking. It’s smart to build an auxiliary fire off to the side from which you can draw additional coals as needed.3. As the fire burns down, spatchcock the bird by splitting it up the spine and opening it like a book. This decreases cooking time considerably and reduces the number of surfaces that need to be exposed to heat. With larger birds, such as chickens, you can split the bird in half by cutting through the breast bone as well.4. Sprinkle the bird with coarse salt and rub it in. Then place your skewers, careful to run them crosswise through the thickest parts of the bird to support it.5. Build the rack by driving the four forked sticks into the ground. The exact height of the rack is not as important as the amount of heat the meat receives. It should rest in a position where you can hold your hand for three or four seconds before you have to pull it away, usually about 18 inches high.6. Balance the two horizontal supports, parallel to each other, on top of the forked vertical supports.7. Place the bird above the embers, with the skewers balanced on the horizontal supports. Monitor it closely. Flip often to avoid charring, and adjust heat by positioning embers beneath the meat or pushing them away. Cook times will vary with the size of the bird, quality of the fuel, weather, etc.8. Duck should be cooked to an internal temperature of 135 degrees, which will take 40 minutes perhaps. Cook chicken to 160 degrees, which may take an hour for a half-bird and even longer for a whole bird.© 2015 New York Times News Service