For the same reason, since we had our carrying done for us, we took along two flat iron bars about twenty-four inches in length.These, laid across two stones between which the fire had been built, we used to support our cooking-utensils stove-wise.Ishould never carry a stove.This arrangement is quite as effective, and possesses the added advantage that wood does not have to be cut for it of any definite length.Again, in the woods these iron bars would be a senseless burden.But early you will learn that while it is foolish to carry a single ounce more than will pay in comfort or convenience for its own transportation, it is equally foolish to refuse the comforts or conveniences that modified circumstance will permit you.To carry only a forest equipment with pack-animals would be as silly as to carry only a pack-animal outfit on a Pullman car.Only look out that you do not reverse it.
Even if you do not intend to wash dishes, bring along some "Gold Dust." It is much simpler in getting at odd corners of obstinate kettles than any soap.All you have to do is to boil some of it in that kettle, and the utensil is tamed at once.
That's about all you, as expert cook, are going to need in the way of equipment.Now as to your fire.
There are a number of ways of building a cooking fire, but they share one first requisite: it should be small.A blaze will burn everything, including your hands and your temper.Two logs laid side by side and slanted towards each other so that small things can go on the narrow end and big things on the wide end; flat rocks arranged in the same manner;a narrow trench in which the fire is built; and the flat irons just described--these are the best-known methods.Use dry wood.Arrange to do your boiling first--in the flame; and your frying and broiling last--after the flames have died to coals.
So much in general.You must remember that open-air cooking is in many things quite different from indoor cooking.You have different utensils, are exposed to varying temperatures, are limited in resources, and pursued by a necessity of haste.Pre-conceived notions must go by the board.You are after results; and if you get them, do not mind the feminines of your household lifting the hands of horror over the unorthodox means.Mighty few women I have ever seen were good camp-fire cooks; not because camp-fire cookery is especially difficult, but because they are temperamentally incapable of ridding themselves of the notion that certain things should be done in a certain way, and because if an ingredient lacks, they cannot bring themselves to substitute an approximation.They would rather abandon the dish than do violence to the sacred art.
Most camp-cookery advice is quite useless for the same reason.I have seen many a recipe begin with the words: "Take the yolks of four eggs, half a cup of butter, and a cup of fresh milk--" As if any one really camping in the wilderness ever had eggs, butter, and milk!
Now here is something I cooked for this particular celebration.Every woman to whom I have ever described it has informed me vehemently that it is not cake, and must be "horrid." Perhaps it is not cake, but it looks yellow and light, and tastes like cake.
First I took two cups of flour, and a half cup of corn-meal to make it look yellow.In this I mixed a lot of baking-powder,--about twice what one should use for bread,--and topped off with a cup of sugar.The whole I mixed with water into a light dough.Into the dough went raisins that had previously been boiled to swell them up.Thus was the cake mixed.Now I poured half the dough into the Dutch oven, sprinkled it with a good layer of sugar, cinnamon, and unboiled raisins; poured in the rest of the dough; repeated the layer of sugar, cinnamon, and raisins; and baked in the Dutch oven.It was gorgeous, and we ate it at one fell swoop.
While we are about it, we may as well work backwards on this particular orgy by describing the rest of our dessert.In addition to the cake and some stewed apricots, I, as cook of the day, constructed also a pudding.
The basis was flour--two cups of it.Into this Idumped a handful of raisins, a tablespoonful of baking-powder, two of sugar, and about a pound of fat salt pork cut into little cubes.This I mixed up into a mess by means of a cup or so of water and a quantity of larrupy-dope.[3] Then I dipped a flour-sack in hot water, wrung it out, sprinkled it with dry flour, and half filled it with my pudding mixture.The whole outfit I boiled for two hours in a kettle.It, too, was good to the palate, and was even better sliced and fried the following morning.
[3] Camp-lingo for any kind of syrup.
This brings us to the suspension of kettles.There are two ways.If you are in a hurry, cut a springy pole, sharpen one end, and stick it perpendicular in the ground.Bend it down towards your fire.Hang your kettle on the end of it.If you have jabbed it far enough into the ground in the first place, it will balance nicely by its own spring and the elasticity of the turf.The other method is to plant two forked sticks on either side your fire over which a strong cross-piece is laid.The kettles are hung on hooks cut from forked branches.The forked branches are attached to the cross-piece by means of thongs or withes.
On this occasion we had deer, grouse, and ducks in the larder.The best way to treat them is as follows.You may be sure we adopted the best way.
When your deer is fresh, you will enjoy greatly a dish of liver and bacon.Only the liver you will discover to be a great deal tenderer and more delicate than any calf's liver you ever ate.There is this difference: a deer's liver should be parboiled in order to get rid of a green bitter scum that will rise to the surface and which you must skim off.
