For The Ranch at Rock Creek executive chef Joshua Drage, there’s nothing quite so classic as a cast-iron meal cooked outdoors in the Mountain West.
Executive chef Joshua Drage at Montana’s luxe The Ranch at Rock Creek likes to keep his cooking classic, local, and cast-iron delicious. However rarefied some of his cheffing posts might be, cooking simple dishes outside over live fire remains something of a birthright and a chosen lifestyle.
“My grandmothers taught me about cooking in the West — the cycle of the seasons, abundance, and preserving through the winter months,” Drage says from his kitchen at The Ranch at Rock Creek in Granite County, Montana. “My grandmother Dixie lived in Ephraim, Utah, during the Depression in a house made of cardboard and dirt. Later in life as a young woman, she and her husband put themselves through college and she became a librarian at the University of Utah. I believe partially because of her experience early in life she wanted to show off the seasonal abundance at the dinner table with a lot of little salads, pickles, preserves, fruits, and vegetables always served with meat and potatoes. Her favorite form of cooking was over the campfire outside. She taught me to cook in Dutch ovens — her favorites were chicken quarters and a simple potato and onion dish. She would host big community suppers up in Beaver Canyon, with a dozen ovens cooking around a feeder fire. My Grandfather Don would play the guitar with friends, bringing the community together.”
His family, he says, has always cooked on cast iron. “We had a stack on our old Majestic stove in the cabin where I grew up — it’s still there. And now I use cast iron at home and at the ranch, both around the campfire and in the kitchen. Trends in cookware come and go, cast iron too. Maybe the current trend has already peaked, but cast iron will always play a prominent role in my kitchen.”
Like Drage’s ancestors, when West-bound pioneers struck out for new frontiers and new lives in the late 1800s, they took their cast-iron pots, pans, and skillets. Relatively inexpensive, easy to clean, and able to stand up to heavy daily use, it was the cookware of choice and necessity.
“Cast-iron Dutch ovens are still huge in the West,” Drage says. “When Utah hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics, Lodge [sold] an Olympic Dutch oven as a souvenir. In Alaska, they are staples in cabins and bush camps. In Montana, they get used on packtrains and river trips. They are completely utilitarian, easy to maintain and keep up, which is why they are staples in chuckwagon-style cooking. Dutch ovens are mobile, and they travel well. Live-fire Dutch oven cooking has become a way of life in the West, mostly because it brings the community together around the campfire, cooking what is grown with the people who grew it.”
Creating menus and meals for guests at The Ranch at Rock Creek outside of historic Philipsburg, Drage has all sorts of opportunities to share the joys of live-fire cast-iron cooking and the bounties of Montana — “trimmed and traditional, yes, but far from it as well. Our menu is seven different experiences a week. Our ranch dining experiences are my interpretations of how people at the headwaters of the Rock Creek in Granite County are fed on a ranch.”
One particularly memorable live-fire meal stands out in his memory. “A couple of summers ago we loaded two rafts and floated downriver to an island on the Rock Creek to host a dinner party. Our plan was to cook off the beach, live fire, over the coals, grill, and cast iron. We had caviar, chive biscuits, and Champagne. We grilled first-of-the-season garden beets right on the coals for a course. We grilled baby artichokes to make a salad with spring garlic and trout. We had a dish of porcini mushrooms and grilled poblano peppers. We made a puttanesca on the coals and served it with elk backstrap.
“The ‘kitchen’ was on a river table four feet from the river and four feet from the campfire. We lucked out with weather — sunny, clouds moving through, no rain. It was a long day out, and we used it all. Once we had served this wonderful meal, cleaned up, and put out the campfire, we loaded the boats, toasted to our day, and put back on the river in time to harvest the last bit of dusk floating down to the take-out.
“It is so much fun to take an experience out of the dining room and place it outside on the river. Plating on a downed cottonwood tree, listening to the river as we prepped, having the smoke blow through the kitchen, turning artichokes at the river table — it was the most fun. If you have six days this summer to spend with us, we will give you cuisine that represents the land beneath your boots.” And that means plenty made in cast iron that imparts the history and flavor of the West.
Get some exclusive Joshua Drage recipes.
This article appears in our February/March 2024 issue.
For more information about Joshua Drage and The Ranch at Rock Creek, visit theranchatrockcreek.com.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of the Ranch at Rock Creek
