Rex and Ty's Food Blog

      If you look in a modern dictionary you may find that the word SPAM is a noun describing irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the internet to a large number of recipients or as a verb; the act of sending the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of recipients on the Internet. I believe all of us have had spam in our inboxes! I do not enjoy that spam. But if your dictionary was printed before the computer age you may see a different description!      I was introduced  to that older description by my father. The SPAM he referred to was a canned meat product introduced by the Hormel Company in 1937 and popularized during World War II. My dad was a navy man and claimed that most of the C-rations or emergency food packs on the ship were missing the canned meat that was supposed to be in them. He claimed it was popular to remove and eat it, even if there was no emergency at the time. It later became a staple in our house while I was...

     I remember the first meal I ever made and the instructor that was teaching me. I was eleven years old and camping with Boy Scout Troop 184 in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. My Scoutmaster showed me how to make soup beans in a Dutch Oven on a campfire. The Scoutmaster was Scoutmaster Herriott, Mr. Herriott, or John when no other adults were around. Or to me, Uncle John. He always insisted that we scouts address him formally in the presence of other adults. I realize now that this was not for him, but so that these other adults would see that we were respectful. The Allegheny Forest was dear to him. He owned a cabin abutting the forest that he used for vacations and hunting etc. But this trip we were not at his camp, we were in the park at a campsite provided by the forest service.      The park service had arranged for our Troop to visit a fire tower in the park. We were able to climb to the top and see the view that the Rangers had o...