Raven dropped an excellent documentary about the practice of logging, up on the border, as it was done during the 1930s.
While I enjoyed every aspect of this movie, especially the movement of logs and the workings of the mill, I was struck by the food. These guys ate four meals a day, and they ate! Beans, ham, eggs, and canned beef for protein; and three meals a day that contain biscuits, donuts ("I've seen the men eat half a barrel of donuts at one sitting"), and cookies for carbohydrates to make a hard day's labor possible. Meals at 4 AM, 9 AM, and 2 PM, then supper at the end of the workday. Even the cooks worked hard, if they were turning out meals for hungry men every five hours all day long.
Great find, Raven.
Credit for finding that goes to Borepatch blog-
ReplyDeleteThere is a Pioneer museum in Pendleton, OR- lots of displays of the early farming days when the ox drawn harvesters would reap the wheat- the chuck wagon was amazing. I cannot remember the exact numbers of food served, but it was sort of like this- 40 loaves of bread, twenty pies, 20 cakes, four turkeys, 10 hams, 10 beef roasts, 200 doughnuts, 40 gallons of coffee, etc- the numbers were boggling. They served about 20 men at a meal, the plates were nailed to the long table. Cook had a big iron wood fired stove at one end, separating the cook and helper from the eating area.
My father told me once the cook in these sorts of operations was typically the highest paid guy, outside of supervision- maybe someone can weigh in on that, I know with grueling hard work good food could be a big incentive to stay on with a particular crew.
This article from True West supports that claim about wages.
ReplyDeletehttps://truewestmagazine.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-chuckwagon-cook-on-the-long-trail/
40 loaves of bread, twenty pies, 20 cakes, four turkeys, 10 hams, 10 beef roasts, 200 doughnuts, 40 gallons of coffee
ReplyDeleteThe logistics of that, which I assume was a daily consumption, is amazing, too, from rounding up the supplies to the transportation required to deliver them. As well as the fuel to support the transport, whether truck or horse-wagon.
Speaking of which, in those days, horses often were used to drag newly felled trees to suitable locations. The logistic train for them must have been awesome, too.
Eric Hines
Raven
ReplyDeleteMy father told me once the cook in these sorts of operations was typically the highest paid guy, outside of supervision- maybe someone can weigh in on that, I know with grueling hard work good food could be a big incentive to stay on with a particular crew.
Looks like Raven answered his question. At least the why.
In addition to the "grueling hard work," loggers are isolated. From my time on offshore drilling rigs, I recall that good cooks were expected. Poor or indifferent cooks got complaints. There were some excellent shrimp dinners on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. For most of us on the rig, the work wasn't as physically demanding as logging, but the isolation was similar.
That kind of respect for the hard-working ordinary guy is worthy, and it shows the camaraderie that can come from sharing dangerous and difficult labor.
Such camaraderie can also develop on drilling rigs. After a month in the jungle, I was glad to leave for "civilization," but I was also glad to return a month later to the rig and see everyone again.
The potential for danger increases camaraderie. If you don't do your job right, you are potentially putting yourself and others in danger. That is good motivation for doing a good job. Similarly, as your safety is potentially dependent on other crew members doing their job right, they are important and valued. Not many slackers around.
For potential danger, I'll just add that a fellow employee I knew- we had both worked in Guatemala- was on his week off from the Ocean Ranger when it sank off the Canadian coast.
That is a great New England accent. There aren't many left these days, but there are some. The two breakfasts, or so I read years ago, were carbs and sugars for immediate energy, eggs for the late morning, meats for the afternoon, and by late afternoon the beans had been digested enough to be useful and get you through that last stretch. 3,000 calories per meal.
ReplyDeleteThe stories were also that those bunkhouses were pretty ripe in the morning because of the beans.