Jamboree Mulligan

Today is Millie Stratton’s 102^nd birthday. In her honor, we had Jamboree Mulligan for lunch.

This recipe came from the Boy Scouts. Larry attended the 1957 BSA Jamboree in Valley Forge. All the troops made Jamboree Mulligan. Millie’s husband, Jack, was one of his leaders, so I always think of them when I make it.

Larry’s other leader was Don Nafius. Don was an excellent cook. He tried to teach Larry how to make this dish to pass his cooking badge—three times. Don finally passed him, despite his third failure, if he promised never to cook again. Larry agreed.

It took him years, but he now cooks a bit. His specialty is breakfast. Our Japanese kids always expect him to make breakfast when they visit. They were very surprised that he cooked at all since Japanese fathers generally don’t.

I remember Millie’s daughter saying she could easily become a vegetarian except for Jamboree Mulligan.

It is definitely a 1950s dish. Here’s the original recipe. I think I got it from Millie.

1 lb. ground beef (I substituted ground turkey.)

1 onion, chopped (Larry can’t eat onions anymore, so I used some dried onion.)

1 can condensed tomato soup

1 cup uncooked egg noodles

Brown onion and ground meat while bringing water to a boil in a separate pan. When it's boiling, add noodles and boil for ten minutes. Add soup and cooked noodles to the meat/onion mixture. Heat through.

That’s it.

Still tastes about the same as I remember.

So, we lifted our forks and toasted Millie on her special birthday.

One more story from the 1957 Boy Scout Jamboree:

In 1957, a new influenza virus emerged in Asia, triggering a pandemic—Asian Flu. One of the troops brought it to the Jamboree and infected most of the boys and leaders in attendance. Larry was so sick they left him behind in a hospital for a couple of days while the rest of his troop moved on. Then, he caught up with them when he improved.

Of course, all the kids and leaders spread throughout the country, infecting their families and friends.

So, today the circumstances seemed entirely appropriate for bringing back the Jamboree memories.

I just finished the first pass at editing Millie’s memoir. Getting excited about seeing it finished. She has spent a lot of time since 2012 writing it—in lots of bits and pieces. The challenge was going through all of them, reviewing them for duplication (and there was lots of it), putting the stories into some sort of order, and then editing it. It contains lots of family history as well as the history of Alhambra, California during her lifetime.

So, happy birthday, Millie!