I had experienced many culinary delights in my life, but none like what my father-in-law cooked for me.
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Growing up in Louisiana, outdoor boils are as ubiquitous as salt in the air; all of them extravagant subtly supported by the boilerman, armed with a wooden boat paddle in attention to the low-key science experimentation that will feed the crew—who are off teasing their appetites for salt and spice and the taste of the gulf with Budweiser and loud music and louder conversation. As if the volume swell in their voices will keep the sun up and the fun alive. So when I moved to South Florida, then later to Bloomington, Illinois—land of snow and corn—also land of my wife and her heritage of Midwestern nice—the lack of the sound of propane burners giving roll and bubble to the cayenne and seafood within mammoth steel pots wedged a missing into my springtimes that no amount of corn and potatoes could address in any simple meal or outing.
The missing did not just sit with me. As I was hailed from the famed land of Mardi Gras, alligators, and horn music, the culture bubble in my wake—fueled disproportionately by hyperbolic representations in our news media—left a crater of insecurities in my immediate time space. The well-meaning cookout hosts in rural Illinois would say things to me like, not as good as in Louisiana, huh? I’m sorry it’s not as spicy as you’re used to. Here, we’re just simple people—corn, meat, and potatoes.
In the corner of the garage, behind a pile of planked pine, was an aluminum trashcan sitting atop a propane burner.
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I’d grown up eating American corn too, much of it grown right there in Illinois, but I might as well have been an immigrant yearning for my homeland—the sovereign wayward country of Louisiana. Yes, I missed the boils, but in truth, after my first well-earned summer after a winter once characterized by Foster Wallace as being a ‘pitiless bitch.’ I found great delight in the aquatic rolling of green corn fields and the comfort of the Midwestern table of roasts, pork tenderloin sandwiches, creamed mashed potatoes, and the occasional lemon shake-up. And that corn. Sweet and buttery right outta the husk in August.
Joe Reed, my father-in-law, was not immune to the explanatory ‘this is how we do it here.’ Hell, that was the chief motivator in most of our conversations. Yet rather than exhibiting difference with any kind of apology, he missioned to show me that while he could concede that Louisiana is full of comestible goodness, Southern Illinois was pretty dadgum special too. He cornmeal-fried Buffalo Rib – a self-described trash fish with hearty bones that had me sucking the meat off with the fervor with which I attacked buttermilk fried chicken. He smoked meats and labored over crown roasts. For breakfast, he made a simple milk gravy with a little sugar in it. And come springtime, he’d make a Trashcan Dinner.
The Trashcan Dinner is exactly what it sounds like. Dinner cooked in a trashcan. And, as qualified by Joe – “preferably a clean one- though I suppose it doesn’t have to be.” Joe took me out to his garage, a freestanding building on his property with an apartment above it, adjacent to his remodeled cabin at the edge of the glass of Vernor Lake. The room was less of a garage and more of a wonder-room of tools to play make-believe with wood planks until they were spun into beautiful hope chests and toy boxes and carved furniture. In the corner of the garage, behind a pile of planked pine, was an aluminum trashcan sitting atop a propane burner. An upside down spigot and a clear rubber tube poked out of its side toward the bottom (explained later to be a water gauge).
Joe yanked the trash can lip open with a creak and a pop. Inside were six aluminum trays with holes punched in the bottom of each. A metal handle was woven into each tray – which were really just watering trays from the local feed store. The concept was simple enough. Food goes into the trays. Water is fed into the bottom of the can. The can is placed over the burner. The trays get stacked into the can. Your sausage – and other meat- goes in the top tray so grease can drip down through the holes to kiss the food below. And then the lid is closed. Light the burner. Wait four hours. Keep an eye on your water.
He scooped his grandson up with effort and bounced him on his knee for a moment, watching him like he knew it would be his last spring.
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I grew up in a place with some of the greatest outdoor cooking in the world. Big metal pots and propane burners abound and were given to high school graduates to signify passing the boil torch to the youth who would become future boil hosts – and I’d never seen or heard of a Trashcan Dinner. But on Vernor Lake, just outside the tiny town of Olney, Illinois, nested in wait, the coolest cooking contraption I’d seen. In that moment, I could hear the future sounding like propane talking to the water in the can. I could smell future meat slow steaming and dripping its deliciousness down into the food below. In my vision, the crew was drinking Coors Light with their feet in the lake. Music bouncing back from the glass water. A few poles in the drink trying to snag a bass. Trays of steam and food pulled from the can like a great pig dug up from the sand and a great hearty vapor wafting across the yard. I couldn’t wait to build my own. To send pictures and anecdotes and directions to the outdoor cookers down south. Listen to what they do in Illinois.
Then Joe got sick. The kind of bad sick that comes with a buffet of interrogatory – ‘How long does he have?’ ‘What are his options?’ ‘Is he going to fight it?’ – ‘We’ll pray for you.’ And he fought his inoperable stage three lung sick with the stern will ground into a Midwesterner who’d seen some winter. A Vietnam vet and a man who squeezed magic out of wood. He lost weight. Gained some. Killed the sick. Until the sick came back. He tugged back and forth with health and exhaustion, won and lost for entire seasons at a time. Food didn’t taste the same after that. That’s what he said. And the Trashcan Dinner got put on wait.
Joe was a man of vision. You don’t have to read his letter exchanges with major companies regarding his inventions of disposable underwear or entrepreneurial design to get that. The Trashcan Dinner he had in his mind was a grand feast where he’d invite my father and his wife to stay with him on the lake in Illinois. He would teach the Cajuns how to cook food in a trashcan. Then he would feed us. But timing and circumstance and on-again-off-again health opened and closed windows with syncopated inconsistencies.
Trashcan Dinners are now as much a part of my spring as crawfish and strawberries.
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Sitting next to him on my porch in Bloomington last spring soon after the thaw, I listened to him breathe while he re-tied his shoe. I imagined his lungs moving in and out of air. Getting big and then small. His heart pumping like when you’ve been peddling up a hill and you’re almost to the top but this the hill keeps jumping out in front of you to the next horizon. He leaned back and watched my son—his grandson —roll the big yellow Tonka he’d just given him, “Travis, let me give you some advice.” My son was flirting with the porch steps and danger but then cut back toward us. “Don’t get cancer.” He scooped his grandson up with effort and bounced him on his knee for a moment, watching him like he knew it would be his last spring.
Joe got feeling well enough, and at May’s end, hosted a Trashcan Dinner—four years after that day in his garage. My dad made the trip up. I did most of the lifting, and it rained for about an hour of the cook time, but there was Coors in the ice chest, my son swam in that lake for the first time, and the propane roared all through it. There was loud music bouncing off the water. The food was ambrosial and worth the four-year wait. And spring made sense again.
Joe’s sick got the better of him in June – four days after his 65th birthday. Trashcan Dinners are now as much a part of my spring as crawfish and strawberries. I’d feel a missing without it. And when my son asks how it got started, I’ll tell him how his grandpa showed a couple Cajuns how to make food in a trashcan over an open fire.
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This article depicts the life and times of a great man very accurately. Joe did a lot of things well, but I think one of his favorite assets was to make people smile. Joe could do this in so many ways ! I really miss my friend, but someday I will eat out of a trash can again. Maybe even do up some buffalo ribs. Thank you for taking me back in time !!! Tim Davis