7-Up Gravy

With the Annual Wild Meat Supper coming up this Saturday, I'm debating what wild game dish I'm going to prepare. I'm thinking something all the lines of elk meatballs or venison chili. Of course I still haven't ruled out Bacon Ice Cream. I'm afraid, however, that it would be more of a novelty dessert that not a lot of people would eat. The exception being my five year-old nephew Jake-now that kid can put away some bacon.

Anyway, I wondering what dish my second cousin Ray is going bring to the festivities. For the sake of everyone's health and well-being, however, I'm praying that Ray stays out of the kitchen. Ray is one heck of a hunter, but his culinary skills are lacking.

When it comes to my second cousin Ray Bryson, I’m convinced God somehow got the dates on his heavenly calendar mixed up. Instead of being born fifty-nine years ago in the year 1949, I believe the Good Lord really intended Ray to pop out into this world in 1849 and probably somewhere along the Snake River in Wyoming Territory to boot.

It happens every so often in life, you come across a certain individual where you get the sense their soul was intended for an earlier time and era. Cousin Ray is definitely one of those. Inside the body of my cousin beats the heart of a genuine late-nineteenth-century mountain man. He’s an individual who would have been right at home palling around with the likes of Old Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, or Liver-Eatin’ Johnson and had he been placed on this earth during the correct century, instead of being the skilled plumber and welder by trade that he is today, I believe Ray would have been employed by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company or served as a scout and Indian translator for the United States Army.

He’s also one of the most skilled hunters and woodsman that I’ve ever encountered in my life. Bear Gryllis, Les Stoud, they have nothing on Cousin Ray. He’s a man who’s completely in his element when he’s in the outdoors and it’s as though every fiber of his being rebels against our modern world. He watches very little television if any, he probably couldn’t tell you the last movie he saw in an actual theater, he no concept of text messaging, Facebook staus’s, or Blu-Ray Hi-Definition. And frankly he doesn’t care. Ray is happiest in this world with his trusty Remington 30.06 slung over his shoulder, a light tracking snow and a blank hunting tag in his back pocket. The rest of the world can be forgotten.

Hunting is where Ray finds his passion and purpose in life, and that is especially true when he’s stalking the high country of Colorado in pursuit of elk. When he’s in elk camp, Ray is so focused on the hunt he has little to no patience for anything else. Which is something I found out on my first elk hunt with the man.

It was the third day of rifle season in Moffat County, Colorado. Like the previous days, we rolled out of our bunks in the drafty Korean era Army tent around 4am. While the rest of our party stumbled half asleep around the confines of the tent getting dressed for the coming day, Cousin Ray was already up, fully clothed and itching to get into the woods. In order to speed things along, Cousin ray took it upon himself to start the morning breakfast, which in and of itself was a extremely bad thing, since Ray is not known for his culinary skills, unlike his wife Ramona who is a fabulously cook. But Ray’s trigger finger was itching him severely that particular morning, so while the rest of us struggled to shake off the early morning cobwebs of fatigue from the previous days hunt, Ray went to work preparing us a hearty, well balanced pre-dawn meal.

After several minutes, of banging pots and pans and the occasional obscenity mumbled under his breath, Cousin Ray hollered from inside the cook tent. “Breakfasts ready! Come and get it, we got elk that needs a killin’.”

One by one the members of our camp ambled through the entrance of the cook tent hoping to a delicious hearty hunter’s breakfast awaiting them. We knew we we in trouble right off the bat, when we open the front flap of the cook tent and large lung choking block cloud of smoke rolled out fully engulfing us and constricted our lungs. Inside we found Ray, his rifle slung over one shoulder, furiously laboring over a large cast iron skillet that contained a strange gelatinous substance. “Come on. Eat up, sun’ll be up shorty and we need to get down in that hole. Biscuits are ready and I’m about finished with the gravy.” Ray motioned towards a Styrofoam plate heaped with dark, hockey puck shaped objects that resembled biscuits, yet were severely charred and discolored. It wasn’t the over cooked biscuits that had our attention, since common knowledge that men can not could biscuits and in our we’ve grown accustomed to eating ours crisp and partially incinerated. No it wasn’t the biscuits that frightened us, it was the odd smelling goo that Ray had just referred to as gravy.

It didn’t resemble any kind of gravy we had had sen before. It was strangely discolored and and a fizzy movement to it. Chip Koontz cautiously poked it with his index finger as it were some sort of alien organism. Carl Barnett, who in our camp is known to eat just about anything and has steel plated stomach was the first to grab one of the biscuits. He tossed on an a plated, priyed it open began dolloping large quantities of Ray’s gravy on to.

One by one each we each followed Carl’s lead, grabbing a biscuit and began applying dabs of of the so-called gravy. There was a brief pause as we all once again exchanged cautious glances. Raise our plastic disposable forks and cut into our meal.

The first thing we noticed was the flavor. As expected, the biscuits was burnt and crunchy But it was the myterious gravy whose taste peaked our curiously. It had an overly salty slight yet tangy taste, almost lemon-y or lime. One could detect the hints black pepper, salt, burnt the grease, a pinch of Colorado mountain soil with an over powerering flavor of tropical fruit particularly lemons and limes. After swallowing, the gravy/biscuit menagerai slid down the back of the gullet and landed with a resounding Plop in the pit of our empty stomachs, leaving behind a tart, bubbly carbonated after taste.

“God in Heaven, Ray, “ hollered Ken Calhoun looking up from his plate, his face contorted as if about to vomit on the spot. “What in the world did you put in this gravy! It taste’s like monkey snot.”

Ray who was busy shoveling his second biscuit into his mouth while simultaneously applying a fresh coating of elk urine to the top of hunting hat, looked up and replied sharply, “What, it’s gravy. Tastes fine to me.”

“No, Ken’s right,” Mikey said, struggling to to force his first bite down. “There’s something in this gravy.”

Ray moved to one side and began pointing to the ingredient containers sitting on near the cook stove. “Look, salt, pepper, flour, a little cookin’ grease from last night’ s tenderloin, it’s what makes gravy.”

“Yeah, well what’s that?” retorted Ken Calhoun.

Ray glanced down at the three empty 7-Up cans laying next the stove.

“Oh, yeah, well, I ran out of milk and the water’s froze up,” Ray said very matter-of-factly. “So I just added a little 7-Up. So what.”

Now most of the other members of camp will probably disagree with me here, but I’d like to go on record to say I found Cousin Ray’s 7-up gravy actually somewhat enjoyable. Sure it gives you gas that causes you fart like a horse eating Hormel Chilli, and about an hour and a half after consumption it runs through your colon like a runaway locomotive, but it sticks to your ribs and that’s what’s important when hunting on a cold autumn day in the Rockies. And as an added bonus it gives you lemon, lime and grease-flavored burps for the remainder of the day, which I personally found strangely refreshing.

It’s the meal that keeps on giving the whole day through.