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Wilderness Hash
1/2 POUND BACON 2 POUNDS HAMBURGER I LARGE ONION I PINT WATER 2 NO. I CANS KIDNEY BEANS OR I NO. 2 CAN SALT AND PEPPER Dice the bacon and fry until crisp. Remove from grease and fry the onion until golden. Add the hamburger and brown thoroughly.
Add the beans and bacon. Salt and pepper to taste.
Add the water and boil for ten minutes.
Serve on crackers or toast. This may be prepared without bacon, in which case add another 1/2 pound of hamburger and use beef suet for frying. 1/2 POUND BACON I NO. 3 CAN CORN
A camp skillet dish built entirely from what travels well: cured pork, ground beef and canned beans. The only real judgment call is how much of the pint of water you actually want.
- Can sizesA No. 1 can holds about 11 oz (roughly 1 1/3 cups); a No. 2 can holds about 20 oz (2 1/2 cups). Either option here comes to roughly 20–22 oz of beans, so about a can and a half of the modern 15-oz size.
- The waterA pint is 2 cups, and with undrained beans it will give you something closer to chili than hash. If you want a hash you can pile on toast, start with a cup and add more only as it cooks down.
- Fat managementTwo pounds of modern hamburger plus bacon renders a great deal of grease. Pour off most of it after browning, or the finished dish will separate into a slick on top.
- Browning the beef"Brown thoroughly" means letting the meat sit undisturbed long enough to color, in batches if the pan is crowded. Two pounds dumped in at once will steam grey instead.
- Beef suetThe no-bacon version calls for suet, the hard fat from around beef kidneys. It is still sold by butchers, though any neutral oil or a spoon of bacon drippings does the job over a fire.
- Ten minutes is enoughEverything in the pot is already cooked or browned, so the boil is only to marry the flavors and reduce the liquid. Longer and the canned beans break down into paste.
- SeasoningSalt late — the bacon and canned beans both carry salt, and the liquid concentrates as it boils. A little chili powder or a spoon of mustard will lift the plain version if it tastes flat.
- YieldAs written this feeds six to eight generously, which suits a patrol or a full tent of campers rather than a family supper.
This comes from the era when camp cookery was built around the tin can: canned beans and canned corn were shelf-stable, cheap, needed no ice, and turned a sack of ground beef into a meal that could be cooked in one pan over a wood fire. The name "hash" is used loosely here — it carries none of the chopped-leftovers meaning of a diner hash, only the general sense of a mixed skillet dish.