Summertime Survival

Cannonballs into pools, bats cracking and mitts receiving baseballs, fresh cut grass blowing in the wind are only a few of the many “things” we associate with Summer. Typically, they are accompanied by thoughts of relaxation and the chance to unwind with pure bliss. Similarly, the food so picturesquely associated with this time of year creates the same feelings. Foods like apple pie, hotdogs and burgers, BBQ, watermelon slices, and many more. However, when I think of Summer, and when I think of Summer food, those thoughts of relaxation and a meditated state of euphoria are not what comes to my mind. Instead, I think of sweat. Labor intensive work for a relatively small payout. Hours in the sun with, some days, very little reward. Painstaking research and experimental practice. In short, I think about my Summer days living off of bass and wild scallions in the infamous Texas heat.

Using the same three ingredients the Earth’s crust was strengthen by, heat, time, and pressure, I refined my pedestrian outdoors skills into sufficiently practical tools of survival. I suppose I should backtrack to a quick explanation of how I came to be sweating in the sun searching for my own “Summer Camp” snack.

My family had wildland in North Texas that I wasn’t introduced to until I was in the 4th grade. Being a city-slicker from Dallas, the mere sight of a jumping grasshopper was enough to get me screaming during my first visit. Fast-forward a few years and I’m in high school with only one true hobby (aside from the stereotypical draw of romanticized Texas high school football) – being outside. Hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting were past times I never seemed to have enough time for. Most of my friends peripherally enjoyed the outdoors as a New Yorker may claim to love the plains of the Serengeti through the lens of the dirty glass at the lion exhibit in the Central Park Zoo. But I was enthralled. I loved being a part of the outdoors. This obsession, combined with my own hubris, led to the first Summer as I began to describe above. My cocky, 14-year-old self accepted the foolish bet to survive on my family’s land for a weekend in the peak of the Texas Summer. Impatiently waiting, my friends’ jeers only fueled me to extend it a step further.

“How bout a week?” I spat as calmly as I could.

Although in my later high school years I wasn’t as keen on skipping two a-days as I was as a freshman, so started a tradition where every spare moment I had was spent attempting to survive in the wilderness.

When you find yourself next to a healthy-looking pond, any good survivalist will tell you that it represents some of the highest payout for minimal work required to get food…and thus survive. But let me tell you about my experience. The days spent trying to find natural cordage, hooks, and bait seemed pretty laborious to me. And of course, these kinks weren’t worked out on my first rodeo. After days, weeks, months, and years of running myself through the ringer I finally landed myself in a place of which I was pretty proud. Armed with agave thread, mesquite thorns, and grasshoppers (yes, those same ones I was terrified of in my youth – oddly poetic justice despite my complete reliance on them for bait, because nothing works quite as well) I’d stalk around the edge of the pond like a housecat eyeing a squirrel in the backyard.

Each cast required a heavy heave, and the subsequent reeling in of the line was akin to the sled pulls I was avoiding at football practice. Over and over. Minutes flirted with hours, until the moment arrived. A lightening strike from below the surface of the water would awake me from the methodical doze I’d often assume, and a largemouth bass would be fighting me every swim of the way. I’d run into the shallow mud, tearing the line over my shoulder as fast as I could. Pulling right as the fish cut left – giving slack when the tension felt too much to bear. What seemed like those flirtatious hours again, was really only a couple of minutes this time. Sometimes the line would snap. Sometimes the mesquite thorn couldn’t handle the violence of the pond’s apex fish. And sometimes the fish was barely half a pound. But every time the fight was over, and particularly when it ended in a successful yield, the inexplainable joy I felt covered my body like a cloak, desensitizing me to everything Mother Nature had been throwing at me and allowing me to focus solely on the catch.

Of course, these experiences were only the beginning of the true topic and joy of my “Summer Camp” snack story, because now it was time to return to the fire broken down into its components waiting for me to assemble it and start the cook. Wild scallions lined the southern edge of the pond, and if you struggled with identifying the long green leaves protruding from the grass, your nose would guide you straight to them. A handful of them and some freshly cut cattail stalks was all that was needed to cook the best tasting meal in the world.

I would gut the fish, and wrap it in the green, waterlogged stalks of the cattails with a handful of scallions. Straight into the fire it would go. Whether it was charred black (as I would recommend to any and all in a true survival situation) or cooked to perfection after years of trial and error (more ending in what-not-to-do then what-to-do), the taste of the white flaky fish with a hint of sweet wild onion still lingers in my mouth at just the thought.

The truth behind this meal is simple. I could prepare this as delicately and meticulously as I possibly could in a fully stocked kitchen that would have Gordon Ramsey smile, and then serve it to my friends. Without a shadow of a doubt, it would be nothing to write home about – a fleeting memory of taste lost in the everyday river of flavor our palates take for granted. But if I could convince them to come out with me, braid the agave line, find the right mesquite thorn hook, catch the fattest grasshopper, stand in the mud and cast for hours and hours with your makeshift contraption that you are just praying holds together for one more throw, forage for clumps of wild onions, start a fire from scratch, and cook a half pound bass wrapped in cattails, then again, without a shadow of a doubt, it would be their favorite Summer time meal too.