Camo-Plate Specials

Four All-American diners share favorite breakfast recipes that you can cook at camp.

- Dave Hurteau

Breakfast should be the official meal of opening day. You can get it at many local fish-and game clubs on the opener. You can get it at deer camp, as long as someone gets up to cook. And you can get it at 4 A.M. at the Blue & White Restaurant in Tunica, Mississippi, on the opening day of duck season.

“All the guides bring their clients here for breakfast before the hunt,” says Steven Barbieri, co-owner of the Blue & White. “We’re like their headquarters. During the season, I’d say at least 70 percent of our customers are wearing camo, some still in their waders. Some even with paint on their face.”

To one degree or another, that’s the story this time of year at rural diners across the U.S. The “Hunters Welcome” signs go up, and we pile in. But if you can’t get to the local diner, you still need to have a killer morning meal on opening day—and these four belly-busting recipes, shared from some of the country’s best diners, will do the trick. Dig in, then get hunting.

SOUTHERN STACK: BLUE & WHITE RESTAURANT’S 61 HOBO BREAKFAST

After the morning shoot, waterfowl hunters pile back into the Blue & White for a second breakfast, filling the 144-seat place to capacity. A favorite, says co-owner and kitchen manager Joe Weiss, is the 61 Hobo Breakfast. “It’s a big, messy stack of food that a hunter would cook at a duck camp.” In fact, a version of the dish was originally cooked at Weiss’ own Lazy Drake Duck Club.

INGREDIENTS

Hash browns

Butter

Onion

Game meat

Eggs

Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS