Milk Can Cookout

Originally published in "The Michigan Soaring Pilot", the newsletter of the Vultures Soaring Club

Two years back, when the airport had their annual Dawn Patrol, the members of the Vultures Soaring Club contributed the potatoes for the feed that was put on. There were potatoes, cabbage, corn, sausage, you name it. Maybe folks didn't realize it, but it was all cooked in milk cans.

One of the pilots there had three milk cans and all of the donations were put in the cans with some water, placed over a fire and in short order, dinner was ready. One milk can holds....much.

I was so impressed with this way of cooking that I went out and bought a milk can. You don't just go up to any `ole farm house and ask if they have a spare milk can they will sell you. I was told real quick, "They don't make them anymore".

After trying several farms, I started getting selective in my searching. I began asking at dairy farms.... producing farms and out of production farms. I finally found a farmer who said he had one to spare. Price, $50.00.

I took it home and proceeded to clean it up. It still looked ratty. Then someone told me to get four or five heads of cabbage and boil them in the can to clean it out. After doing that, the insides looked sanitary. I was ready.

I followed the instructions given me for milk can cooking. First you take the lid and drill a 1/8th inch hole in it. Put about two inches of water in the bottom of the can, then start putting in your dinner.

I put in two cabages-quartered, potatoes-peeled, carrots, onions-quartered, some corn, and then on top of it all I put two links of kielbasa so the meat juices would seep down through all the vegetables while they were boiling.

I put the can on two cinder blocks and underneath it I built my fire. Then I put a dime right smack dab on top of the hole I had drilled in the lid.

It doesn't take long for the water in the can to boil, building up a head of steam (about 20 minutes). The steam starts blowing out of that hole like a steam engine and pops that dime right off the hole. You let it cook for another 20 (or 30) minutes and Voila....Dinner Is Served.

My wife, Carol, and I had so much that we couldn't eat it all, so we invited the neighbors over. The neighbor's wife let me know that her hubby was a picky eater...he didn't like cabbage...he didn't like carrots...and then he sat down and proceeded to eat everything in sight, took seconds and said it was the best boiled dinner he'd ever eaten.

One milk can will hold enough to feed 25-30 people so next summer I plan to bring my milk can out to the field and we will have the 'Vultures First Annual Milk Can Cookout'. Come join us?

P.S. I discovered they do still make milk cans. The Amish use them. Buy a can and your club can have a fun feed too.