It used to be that a fire, a rock, and maybe a screwdriver, were all the implements an outdoorsy person needed to prepare dinner or a tasty snack. Some minimalists didn’t even bring a screwdriver, using old nails or even more rocks to open containers. Today’s outdoors folk, however, are a different breed with different needs. Some require ovens, pans, zesters, and appropriate stemware. Some prefer their meat refrigerated and their melons balled, and more than a few of them would never dream of sitting outdoors, in the dirt and among the bugs to consume their culinary creations.
These days at Fish in a Barrel Pond, we provide manual can openers and corkscrews and even electric mixers (good luck finding the beaters), but some showoffs well-outfitted anglers arrive with their own spiral slicers, immersion blenders, infusers and ramekins. A few have even learned to bring their own stemware, but that is not to say things were especially primitive back in the old days, as shown by this ad that appeared in the March, 1964, issue of Outdoor Life magazine:
Extra dry or regular, the perfect martini was sure to be the perfect complement for everyone’s favorite snack, advertised in bulk, in the pages of Field & Stream, June, 1963: