Hot time in the old town

Selma firefighter Myron Fiedler prepares a casserole made with ground beef mixed with pork & beans, and macaroni & cheese for dinner for himself and another firefighter as the four-person crew prepares to sit down to eat. (Photo by Mark Greenberg)

When they're not busy answering calls, the city's firefighters cook up a mean meal

Morgan Hammond likes to eat a lot of eggs, oatmeal, and protein sources, including meat. He eats the whites of eight hardboiled eggs every morning, to put on muscle mass. It is best to call him by his nickname, "Moe," because he bench presses more than 400 pounds, three times a week.

Moe is a firefighter and emergency medical technician on the C Shift of the Selma Fire and Rescue department, commanded by Lieutenant Mario Troncoso. Toni Schmidt and Myron Fiedler also work that shift, fighting house fires, interstate auto accidents, and the Ozzfest at Verizon Amphitheater in this city of 5.5 square miles and 680 souls.

Fiedler, a Navy reservist, likes meat and potatoes. One of his favorite recipes includes hamburger meat, pork, and beans, with ketchup. Troncoso occasionally cooks up an egg pizza, involving flattened biscuit dough, a dozen eggs, and cooked breakfast sausage flattened out to resemble pepperoni, with picante sauce poured over the top. "It's not very healthy," he says, but everybody likes it, and he planned to cook it for their shift on Thanksgiving Day.

Schmidt is more discerning. She likes lots of chicken, fish, and other seafood, as well as dandelion leaves and spring mix, stuff other fire fighters generally avoid. "I don't want them cooking for me," said Schmidt, who helped Troncoso drop his weight from 277 pounds to 223 pounds with her cooking skills. Troncoso, who hails from a large Latino family in Cibolo, is in the habit of buying a half case of jumbo brown eggs (16 dozen) from Featherland Farms.

From left: Selma Firefighter Myron Fiedler looks on as his crew mates Toni Schmidt and Mario Trancoso, enjoy a dinner of stir-fried shrimp, scallops, and asparagus, with red-skinned potatos and fresh orange slices. (Photo by Mark Greenberg)

Firehouse cooking is a sort of catch as catch can method in the various fire stations in South Central Texas. Cadets in the San Antonio Fire Department's training academy do not receive any formal culinary or nutrition training, says Chief Randy Jenkins, public affairs officer with SAFD. "When a person gets assigned to a station, they get put on a cooking rotation. It's possible for everybody to cook when the time comes. Some people are gourmet cooks, some are meat and potatoes, and some become the station chef, but you have to be a good cook."

SAFD firefighters, who work 24 hours on, 48 off shifts at the city's 49 fire stations, are usually served breakfast, but are on their own for lunch and dinner, if they are not fighting fires or answering EMS calls. Firefighters are paid a house expense stipend, and they usually kick in money to a food fund; every station has its own method of feeding the force. Personnel in this Tex-Mex country see a lot of fajitas, rice, and beans, and other local fare.

When 27-year veteran Tom Robles was at Station No. 1 downtown, the guys had a saying: "RBA," which means "rice and beans, again." But nowadays, the guys on the C Shift at Station No. 47, on the IH-10 frontage road north of Camp Bullis Road, are lucky to have Robles on their shift. He is, in the words of Lieutenant Weldon Lister, "very sophisticated. He's not your typical firehouse cook, not your typical fireman."

"I've never eaten anything bad that Tommy cooks," says Lister. "I used to weigh 100 pounds."

Robles says if a firefighter doesn't cook, he or she can clean up. "One guy at Station No. 43 never wanted to cook, so he would do the dishes. I would use as many dishes as possible to irritate him."

In south Bexar County, the Sandy Oaks Volunteer Fire Department on Hardy Road doesn't do much regular cooking, since no one works in 24-hour shifts. "It's pretty much grab what you can," says Chief Charles Metzger, who oversees 26 volunteer firefighters. "But when there is something going on, we bring out our resident cook."

When he is not chasing brush fires or answering calls to accident scenes on IH-37, Lieutenant Roy Daniels operates Daddy Roy's BBQ & Catering. "I specialize in barbeque. Brisket is the most popular around here." He also serves barbequed chicken and kiolbassa. When someone goes fishing and bring back tuna, shark, and redfish from the coast, they go on the grill.

Daniels shared his recipe for hot wings, in which he grills wings instead of frying them, and he doctors the Frank's Red Hot sauce to make it a little thicker. The pastor of his church used the recipe when he set up a food booth at the recent Poteet Strawberry Festival.

The style of cooking in the region's varied firehouses is as diverse as the many neighborhoods they serve. Some get gourmet, some get barbecue, and some get RBA - rice and beans, again. •

By Michael Cary