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Hilaire Hiler's Hideout Dish
"A dish with which I've always had great success as a change, where no change is apparently possible, is one I got from a family that lived in the Maine woods. I can't remember their name or much else about them except that the oldest daughter was double jointed. I've no name for the dish either. But it is made of stale bread (frying pan bread or camp biscuit will do), a can of tomatoes and one large, or two small cans of devilled ham. Three or more eggs, or their equivalent in powdered eggs (if holed up in your hideout) are mashed up with a fork with this bread which has been sufficiently softened by the tomato juice, and the devilled ham is mixed in. It is then nicely flattened out in a pan or the bean pot and baked. "A can of salmon may be added, in which case it tastes quite like baked oysters (no kidding!). And one or two onions chopped fine do no harm, if you can get hold of 'em. It really tastes much better than it sounds and the secret is in getting in just the right amount of bread, which should in no case represent over double the bulk of the canned goods, when soaked."
A camp casserole built entirely from the shelf, with quantities left deliberately loose. One ratio does the work of a recipe, and Hiler names it himself at the end.
- The hinge: bread to canned goodsSoaked bread should never exceed twice the bulk of the tomatoes, ham and any salmon combined. Past that the dish goes from savory pudding to damp stuffing.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderate home oven, around 350F, will serve; the pan is done when the center is set and the top has browned, roughly 35 to 45 minutes.
- Deviled ham cansCan sizes have shifted; today's standard tin runs about 4.25 oz. The recipe asks for one large or two small cans, so judge by bulk against the soaked bread rather than by can count.
- Canned tomatoesPeriod cans were whole tomatoes packed in thin juice. Use whole or diced tomatoes with their liquid, and break them up with the fork as you mash; if the mixture looks soupy, hold back some of the juice rather than adding more bread.
- Powdered eggsDried whole egg reconstitutes at roughly one tablespoon of powder to two tablespoons of water per egg, left to stand a few minutes. Fresh eggs are the better choice at home; the powder is here strictly as a hideout substitute.
- SaltDeviled ham is heavily salted and spiced, and canned salmon adds more. Taste the mixture before it goes in the pan and expect to add nothing but pepper.
- The bean potA bean pot or camp Dutch oven works, but any shallow baking dish or ovenproof skillet gives more browned surface, which is the best part of the dish. Flatten the mixture as directed so it cooks through evenly.
- YieldAs written, with a can of tomatoes, the ham the recipe calls for and the bread they will carry, this feeds four to six as a main course.
Hilaire Hiler (1898-1966) was a painter and color theorist best remembered for the murals inside the Aquatic Park bathhouse in San Francisco, and the kind of contributor outdoor-cooking anthologies of the mid-century liked to collect: a knowledgeable amateur with a story attached to the food. The dish itself is pure canned-goods cookery, the branch of American cooking that grew up around commercially tinned meat. Deviled ham -- ground ham with mustard and spices, sold in small tins under a paper wrapper -- had been a grocery staple since the late nineteenth century and was prized in camp for keeping indefinitely without ice. Recipes like this one, which bind stale bread with tomato and a spiced canned meat, belong to a long tradition of savory bread puddings and scrapple-like stretchers, and the mention of powdered eggs places the writing in or near the years when dried egg was a familiar wartime and expedition ration.