Scenes from a campfire along the James River.

This column was originally published on April 26, 1994. 

JAMES RIVER — It's a sweet calm morning here in Mason County, where I'm sitting on the river bank, watching Rusty Mitchum make beer biscuits in a cast iron dutch oven.

My assignment is to stop putting fresh wood on the campfire because Rusty's got the coals just about right and doesn't need any flames.

OK, pour about half a cup of cooking oil in the dutch oven and add a certain amount of self-rising flour. Rusty isn't sure how much flour. It's quite a bit but not too much. Add a can of warm beer and work it into biscuit dough with your hands. Flatten dough on a board, cut the end of the beer can away and use it to stamp out biscuits. You'll have maybe a dozen for a 12-inch dutch oven. Drop 'em in the pot. Turn 'em once so they'll be oiled both top and bottom. 

Set the pot in the fire and heap coals on the oven lid. Let cook 25 or 30 minutes.

Makes good country-style biscuits with a vague hoppy flavor, and crusty brown bottoms. I like a biscuit with a foundation under it that way, a crust that keeps the thing from falling apart when you pick it up.

Most years about this time I send in a report from the James River and somebody always accuses me of making it up because they don't believe there's a river in Texas by that name. But five rivers named James flow in North America. In Alberta, Canada. In Virginia. In Missouri. In North Dakota. And this one, where I'm sitting now eating a beer biscuit.

I wish I could make up a river like the James. I'd make up dozens and distribute them across the world to places that need nice little rocky-bottomed streams with gentle rapids and low waterfalls and quiet deep pools. Our James River is a tributary of the Llano. It's only 37 miles long. Empties into the Llano south of Mason.

Little bunch of us throw a reunion on this stream every April and that's why I'm here. We fish and tell stories and sing songs and eat too much, but beyond that we're harmless.

Everybody in this gang has a special job, to keep the camp going. We've even got designated fishermen. People like Joe Osborn out of Austin. And Josh Kramer and Travis and Bill Shearer of Fredericksburg. They go forth and stay until they catch fish. They'll walk miles over this tough stony terrain. Stay out for hours and hours. 

We have several camp cooks, in addition to Rusty who comes from Tyler. I'm one of the cooks, allowed to fix pinto beans. And my beans are always bragged on because nobody else wants to fool with them. 

Fish cooker this year is Glen Bass, another Tyler man. He believes in deep-fat frying. I asked for the principal secret of his cooking and he said, "Always keep your fingers out of the hot grease." 

We have John Graves from Glen Rose who is our main storyteller. He has been in many places and seen wonders and knows secrets heretofore undisclosed. For example, he was able to show Bass when to start cooking the fish. Secret is, throw a kitchen match in the pot and if the grease is hot enough, the match will flame.

Also we have Phil Montgomery who comes all the way from Dallas with his guitar and the words to a hundred songs, sung at the fire after supper.

We have Glenn Whitehead from Smithville who has contributed what he calls roll-your-own tacos. Thin beef cooked over charcoal. Also chunks of pork, chicken breast, and shrimp, marinated in a secret sauce, and charcoaled, and thin-sliced. Put these meat slices on a hot tortilla and add a startling salsa made of fine-minced jalapenos and serrano peppers and cilantro and lime juice and roll that baby up and bite in and it'll make you sing sweet songs.

But next time you're in the wilderness, try this for a dessert:

Dump four medium-size cans of sliced peaches into a 12-inch dutch oven. Pour off the juice. Sprinkle over the peaches a small package of yellow cake mix. Pour in a flavored soda pop, and dab around in there and make a paste over the peaches. (This is Rusty Mitchum's recipe and he used a Shasta lemon-lime drink. People bring strange things to fish camps.) Sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Cover oven. Cook in campfire like beer biscuits above. 

I don't mind saying I was doubtful about this cobbler but it was all right, here on the James where so many curious preparations taste great. I believe this will be the first time I ever spent three nights on a river bank and gained weight.

Leon Hale was born May 30, 1921, in Stephenville. Following 32 years writing a daily column for the Houston Post, he moved to the Chronicle in 1985 where he wrote a column of personal commentary for years up until his retirement in 2014.

He authored numerous books, including regional bestsellers. He won awards for fiction, memoir and column-writing.

Hale died on March 27, 2021, at the age of 99.

You can read more from Leon at www.leonhale.com.

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