Come on in to our fire hall and gather around as I discuss fire hall cooking.
I am sure that some of you have heard that firefighters are awesome cooks. I am not 100% sure who may have started the rumor, but for the most part and for some, not so true. Now, don't go getting me wrong, most firefighters are awesome cooks! Some men, I am sure, have even taking a few cooking lessons in their day and can (if they were to decide to do so) work in a 4 or 5 star restaurant.
Here at our fire hall, for the most part, we're average. At least we are average, when we start. The longer we are firefighters, the better we tend to get, from all the practice with meal preparations. After all, eating is the one thing we do everyday while on shift, which means cooking. Usually one to two meals each day and if you are lucky... MAYBE three around here.
Unfortunately, we can't all be in the kitchen, cooking every day. Here at our fire hall, the cooking usually ends up falling to the least senior crew member on duty at the hall (but it does change up). If this guy can't make a decent meal, he's in big trouble. Now, it's true and it happens, the more senior men do often help, either physically, or with recipes, advice and instructions.Then, there are those moments when meals are prepared by the entire crew.
Around here, each crew member seems to have at least one or two meals that he does really well. Mostly, it's because the more senior crew members taught the newer guy how to make, and they taught the newer guys and so on. Traditional meals. And of course, there are the universal meals that everybody makes, even at home.
Meals around this fire hall can be broken down into groups, such as;.
(1) Meals that could (almost) be found in a 4 or 5 star restaurant. Things like crab legs, chicken cordon-blu, steak and lobster, veal parmigiana, etc.
(2) Meals that are hearty, but fairly quick to make. Things like homemade spaghetti, goulash, baked chicken.
(3) Easy and cheap meals. Things like hamburgers, beans and cornbread/rice.
My advice to a new crew member coming on shift, or a new girlfriend/wife/significant other for that matter, is to learn one thing in each of these categories. Be able to make something quick like hamburgers, or spaghetti, and learn how to make something kinda fancy like crab legs or chicken cordon blu. You can learn others as you go, but have something you can cook well without help.
Coming soon, food porn from our fire hall.
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Engineer aka: Chauffeur
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