Evada and Terry Cooper (left) show a plate of Trash Bag Taco Salad (recipe on page 54) from their soon-to-be-released book “Centennial RV Recipe Cookbook: Celebrating 100 Years of RVing.” The RV behind them is a 2006 Cardinal Forest River. The Coopers operate an online school that offers instruction DVDs and webinars on an array of RV-related subjects. (Photo by Jerry Larson)

Photo by Jerry Larson

Evada assembles Trash Bag Taco Salad in the kitchen/dining area of a borrowed RV in Robinson.
Photo by Jerry Larson

They were called motor coaches, house cars, travel trailers and even mobile bungalows. Recreational vehicles are now celebrating a century of putting America on the road with some of the comforts of home.

The first mass-produced campers were manufactured in 1910. As part of the highway-hopping hoopla associated with the RV centennial, local author Evada Cooper has compiled “Centennial RV Recipe Cookbook: Celebrating 100 Years of RVing.”

The book will soon be released by Texas State Technical College-Waco’s publishing division. It showcases more than 100 recipes that are road-ready and time-tested favorites collected from around the country. Evada specifically set out to find recipes that are easy to prepare in an RV or at a campsite. Another feature is historical photos and trivial tidbits about the allure of the open-road lifestyle.

She and her husband Terry Cooper are the owners/operators of MobileRVacademy.com, an online school that offers instructional DVDs and webinars on topics of interest to RV enthusiasts.

Terry, a master certified RV technician/instructor who taught courses on RVs for many years at TSTC-Waco, now teaches solar energy courses at the college. He contributes to the cookbook as well — not as a chef but as a mechanic. He offers maintenance advice and handy tips in the publication.

“So it won’t matter who you are — man or woman — you’ll be reaching for that book all the time,” said Evada, who goes by the nickname Lady E.

The couple recently finished production on four DVDs for MobileRVacademy.com. Next year, they hope to establish local classes for women to learn RV maintenance.

Women, the Coopers noted, are the fastest-growing segment of the RV market. “We noticed that about 70 percent of our students are women wanting to know how to maintain an RV,” Evada said. “So a local class would give us more opportunities to connect with consumers.”

The Coopers met on a blind date a few years ago, set up through Match.com. That first date, Terry recalled, lasted 12 hours. When the first restaurant they were at closed for th night, they went to the IHOP to continue talking about their shared love of RVs. Evada loved camping as a teen, and her grandparents owned a travel trailer.

The Coopers married in December 2008. “We had too much in common,” Terry explained.

The RV maintenance information is a unique feature for a cookbook, Evada said. She hopes it will broaden the book’s appeal beyond food enthusiasts. Some 30 million Americans drive about 14 million vehicles, so the potential audience for the cookbook is huge.

This 1915 vintage housecar made roadside camping a breeze.
RVCentennial.org photo

Terry grew up near Somerville, Texas, about 35 miles from Evada’s hometown of Rockdale. “So we’re taking a dip from the same gene pool,” she joked.

“He is providing me with tips, procedures, checklists and maintenance schedules that are so vital for the upkeep of our RVs,” she said. “Having this RV maintenance information right at your fingertips, along with your favorite recipes, is a wonderful idea I know others will embrace.”

A 1978 graduate of Rockdale High School, Evada owned her own cafe in Rockdale for about 15 years before she moved to Port Lavaca for another job. Following a divorce, she had difficulty finding an affordable place to live with her teenage daughter. So she bought an RV and was smitten with the simplicity of the lifestyle.

Even sharing her 37.5-foot long Sierra Forest River with two dogs and a cat was a lot less stressful, she said, than living in a cramped apartment. She moved to the Waco area almost three years ago to be the general manager of a restaurant that has since closed.

The author also works with Workamper News, a publication for full-time RVers who look for seasonal jobs to pay the bills. Sometimes, those seasonal jobs have ways of turning into full-time jobs, Evada said. Examples include docents at animal sanctuaries, burger-flippers at state fairs and desk clerks at national parks.

She started soliciting recipes from the RV community this spring for inclusion in the cookbook. Whether they are old-time family favorites or non-traditional camping fare, she said she wanted any fun recipe that RVers would like to share.

In addition to recipes, RVers were asked to submit brief bios extolling their love of RVs and roaming the nation. She targeted the members of national RV clubs and organizations, the people who would most appreciate a centennial celebration of the lifestyle.

In the spring of 2010, Evada learned that the national Recreation Vehicle Industry Association was endorsing her book as one of its official publications during its year-long celebration.

“I’m just very excited,” she said. “It’s all about family, friends and food. It’s about a return to the era of simpler fare but good, hearty food.”

 The cookbook has “no-cook” recipes as well as items intended to be prepared over a campfire, with a Dutch oven or a trailer microwave.

“The idea is to make (the dishes) fast and easy, so you have more time with family and to enjoy the great outdoors,” Evada said.

For more information on the RV Centennial Cookbook, contact LadyEcooper@MobileRVAcademy.com.

Photo by Jerry Larson

Trash Bag Taco Salad

1 pound ground hamburger

1 can kidney beans (drained)

1 can garbanzo beans (drained)

1 head lettuce (sliced thin and chopped;

or shredded)

1 onion, chopped

1 pound cheese, grated

1 or 2 large tomatoes, chopped

1 package corn chips (lite, white corn best)

1 8-ounce bottle creamy French dressing.

Brown hamburger and drain thoroughly. As it cools, take a tall kitchen trash bag (unscented) and combine all the ingredients — except the chips — and toss after each is added. The bag not only works great for tossing, but you can put it in the refrigerator and it is great for transport. When prepared for a gathering, just curl back the edges and serve from the bag, or line a festive bowl with the corn chips and dump the salad into it. (Salad tastes even better the next day, after the flavors have melded.)

RECIPE FROM LINDA DEAN, New River Ariz. — “We have been in an RV off and on since 1982; living in a 32-foot Traveleze trailer for nine years. We broke down and bought a house, but still have a cab-over camper. Now we are back in the groove with a 31-foot ‘gently used’ Alpenlite.”

Photo by Jerry Larson

Grape Dessert/ Salad

3 pounds red or green seedless grapes

1 cup white sugar

8 ounces sour cream

8 ounces cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup finely chopped nuts

Wash and stem grapes, drying well. Mix white sugar, sour cream, cream cheese and vanilla with an electric mixer until well-blended, then stir in grapes carefully. Pour into a 9-inch by 12-inch dish, and sprinkle with the topping. This dish keeps well for three to four days in the refrigerator.

RECIPE FROM ANN GRIFFEY, Shelbyville, Ind. — An RVer for more than 20 years, she owns a 2000 Roadtrek motor home and has been a member of the RVing Women of the Ohio River Valley for four years. 

RVs have been around for a century

The RV lifestyle has its roots in the early 1900s. As soon as automobiles became popular, other folks began dreaming up ways to travel with some of the comforts of home. They built trailers or hitched wagons to pull behind their cars and take to the open road.

A 1910 ad in Popular Mechanics for an early camp truck.
RVcentennial.org photo

This 1930s all-steel trailer had many of the amenities of home and was ready to hitch up to the family car and go.
RVcentennial.org photo

During the first third of the century, these alfresco adventurers became known as “Tin Can Tourists.” Some said it was because so many of their shiny, hard-shelled recreational vehicles resembled the containers. Others contend is was because these primitive campers would just pull-over to the side of the road to cook their meals straight out of tin cans.

There were few gas stations, few paved roads and no highway system when the RV industry was born, said Richard Coon, president of the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.

“Roughing it” became middle class and respectable. Sales of auto-campers, the forerunners of today’s modern motor homes took off. From the modest pop-up to the grand over-the-top land yacht, the RV allows motorists to go where they want, when they want.

A version of today’s Type B van camper, the Pierce-Arrow “Touring Landau,” was unveiled at Madison Square Garden in 1910.

Some modern statistics: According to the 2000 U.S. Census and the 1997, 2002 and 2007 Economic Censuses, Texas ranks fourth in the nation with the number of campgrounds for RVers (206) behind Arizona, Florida and California. It represents more than 4 percent of the rental market, about $73 million. (It’s a $1.7 billion business).

Texas is third nationally in the number of RV dealers, with 207 establishments and some 7.5 percent of the market (representing about $752 million of the $10 billion national pie).

Sources: RVcentennial.org, RV-info.net, RVcentral.com, GoRVing.com, RVbasics.com