A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to help out with an awesome project put on by the brilliant workings of HitchFire and Fin + Forage. If you don’t either of these names, HitchFire is a company that builds rugged hitch mounted grills and accessories perfect for adventure travel, tailgating, and overlanding. Their system is designed to take the bbq out of the back of your car to eliminate a mess and provide more room to pack more gear. Fin + Forage is an initiative put together to provide information on spearfishing, foraging, and culinary content, and seeks to build a community around a shared passion for wild food.
The two groups got together to create a culinary masterpiece made from ingredients that were caught and cultivated by the cooks themselves. These fresh ingredients were put together using the HitchFire grill system on a gorgeous campsite overlooking the Big Sur Coastline.
Being experts when it comes all things spearfishing and foraging, Eric Keener of Fin + Forage got together with Ariel Tweto, an alaskan bush pilot and adventurer, to teach her the beginnings of free diving/spearfishing and foraging for food in the ocean. The group started in Monterey, California where they went out in search of Rockfish to use for the evening’s meal. The conditions were less than ideal and therefore they didn’t quite catch the number of fish that they desired, but that didn’t stop them from continuing with their plan. They continued down the California coast where we continued to film and photograph them as they collected more mussels and owl limpets to make add to the dishes. The coast line was sheltered just enough where after they had foraged a good take, they had time to enjoy a beverage overlooking the waves crashing in on the rocks.
Once they had collected everything for the evening meal, they continued even further into Big Sur to set up camp for the night and cook their delicious meal they had planned. Once they made it off of highway 1, the road was steep and rough, but no problem at all for the HitchFire grill that was mounted to the back of the Land Cruiser. Once at camp, the grill was easily set up, simply by swinging it away from the trunk and connecting the propane.
Every piece of the grill was being used with Smithey Ironware on the burners and Messermeister knives being used to cut up all the ingredients going into the meal. Eric came up with a phenomenal menu for the evening that wasn’t only one of the best meals I had had camping, but one of the best meals I had ever had. seared and sashimi rockfish with fresh kelp as an appetizer, Deschutes IPA’s for hydration, and a fruitte di mare risotto with the mussels and owl limpets they had gathered earlier in the day.
I don’t think the photos even do it justice, but if you have any knowledge of (or any interest for that matter!) spearfishing and collecting these fresh ingredients, be sure to check out the recipes over on Fin + Forage’s website. And if you don’t have any interest in fishing for your own food, but just want to cook your next meal on your next campsite, check out the grills and accessories built by HitchFire they make an awesome product for both adventurers and tailgaters alike.
Huge thank you for Jacinto for bringing me along to help document the day. It was a project I’ll never forget and hope to work more on in the future. Jacinto did an awesome job putting the video together of the day while I helped with some b-roll and photos of the group foraging and cooking.
