CAMP KITCHENS
REAL camp kitchens are naught but well arranged fire-places with rustic
cranes and pot-hooks as already described, but in deforested countries,
or on the plains and prairies, pit-fires are much in vogue. The pit
itself shelters the fire on the windswept plain, which is doubly
necessary because of the unprotected nature of such camping places, and
because of the kind of fuel used. Buffalo-chips were formerly used on
the Western plains, but they are now superseded by cattle chips. The
buffalo-chip fire was the cooking fire of the Buckskin-clad long-haired
plainsmen and the equally picturesque cowboy; but the buffalo herds
have long since hit the trail over the Great Divide where all tracks
point one way, the sound of the thunder of their feet has died away
forever, as has also the whoop of the painted Indians. The romantic and
picturesque plainsmen and the wild and rollicking cowboys have followed
the herds of buffalo and the long lines of prairie schooners are a
thing of the past, but the pit-fires of the hunters are still in use.
THE MOST SIMPLE PIT-FIRE
Is a shallow trench dug in the ground, on each side of which two logs
are placed; in the pit between the logs a fire is built (Fig. 105), but
probably the most celebrated pit-fire is the fireless cooker of the
camp, known and loved by all under the name of
THE BEAN HOLE
Fig. 106 shows a half section of a bean hole lined with stones. The
bean hole may, however, be lined with clay or simply the damp earth
left in its natural state. This pit-fire place is used differently from
the preceding one, for in the bean hole the fire is built and burns
until the sides are heated good and hot, then the fire is removed and
the bean pot put in place, after which the whole thing is covered up
with ashes and earth and allowed to cook at its leisure.
THE COWBOY PIT-FIRE
The cowboy pit-fire is simply a trench dug in the earth (Fig. 107),
with a basin-shaped hole at the beginning. When obtainable, sticks are
laid across the trench and sods laid upon the top of the sticks. Fig.
107 shows a section of view of the pit-fire and trench chimney, and
Fig. 108 shows the top view of the same.
In removing the sod one should be careful not to break them, then even
though there be no sticks one may be able to cover the draught chimney
with the sods themselves by allowing them to bridge the trench. At the
end of the trench the sods are built up, making a short smokestack.
[Illustration: 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113]
THE CHINOOK FIRE-PIT
The chinook fire-pit is one which is used in the northwestern part of
the United States, and seems to be a combination of the ordinary camp
fire-dogs with cross logs and the cowboy fire-pit. Fig. 109 shows a
perspective view of this lay. Fig. 110 shows the top view of plan of
the lay. Fig. 111 shows a steeper perspective view than that of Fig.
109, and Fig. 112 shows a sectional view. By examining the sectional
view and also the deeper perspective view, as well as the plan, you
will note that the two logs are placed across the fire-dogs with space
between. The back-log is placed upon the top of another back-log A
and B (Fig. 112). The fire-dogs have their ends shoved against the
bottom back-logs B, the two back-logs are kept in place by the stakes
C, C. Between the two top logs D and A (Figs. 112 and 110), the smaller
fuel or split wood is placed.
As the fire burns the hot coals drop into the pit, and when sufficient
quantity of embers are there they may be raked forward and the frying
pan placed on top of them (Fig. 112). The chinook fire is good for
baking, frying, broiling, toasting, and is an excellent all-around
kitchen camp stove.
THE HOBO
Is carelessly built, a fire-place usually surrounding a shallow pit,
the sides built up with sods or stones. The hobo answers for a hasty
fire over which to boil the kettle (Fig. 113).
At the old-fashioned barbecue where our ancestors roasted whole oxen,
the ox was placed on a huge spit, which was turned with a crank handle,
very similar to the old-fashioned well handle as used with a rope or
chain and bucket.
THE BARBECUE-PIT
Is used at those feasts (Fig. 114), where they broil or roast a whole
sheep, deer or pig. At a late meet of the Camp-fire Club of America
they thus barbecued a pig.
The fire-pit is about four feet wide and four feet deep and is long
enough (Fig. 114) to allow a fire to be built at each end of the pit,
there being no fire under the meat itself for the very good reason that
the melted fat would drop into the fire, cause it to blaze up, smoke
and spoil the meat.
The late Homer Davenport (the old-time and famous cartoonist) some
years ago gave a barbecue at his wild animal farm in New Jersey. When
Davenport was not drawing cartoons he was raising wild animals. At the
Davenport barbecue there was a fire-pit dug in the side of the bank
(Fig. 115); such an arrangement is known as
THE BANK-PIT
In the diagram it will be seen that the carcass is fastened to a spit
of green wood, which runs thru a hole in a cross log and fits in the
socket D in the bottom log; the spit is turned by handles arranged like
A, B or C. The pit is lined with either stones or bricks, which are
heated by a roaring big fire until hot enough to bake the meat.
[Illustration: 114, 115, 116, 117]
THE GOLD DIGGER
Is another bank pit, and one that I have seen used in Montana by
Japanese railroad hands. It is made by digging a hole in the bank and
using shelves either made of stones or old pieces of iron. Fig. 116
shows the cross section of the Gold Digger with the stone door in
place. Fig. 117 shows a perspective view of the gold digger with the
stone door resting at one side.
[Illustration: 118, 119 THE FERGUSON CAMPSTOVE]
We next come to the ovens, the first of which is known as
THE FERGUSON CAMP STOVE.
It is made by building a rounded hut of stones or sod (Fig. 118), and
covering the same with branches over which sod, or clay, or dirt is
heaped (Fig. 119). The oven is heated by building the fire inside of
it, and when it is very hot and the fire has burned down, the food is
placed inside and the opening stopped up so as to retain the heat and
thus cook the food.
THE ADOBE
Is one that the soldiers in Civil War days taught the author to build.
The boys in blue generally used an old barrel with the two heads
knocked out (Fig. 121). This they either set in the bank or covered
with clay (Fig. 120), and in it they built their fires which consumed
the barrel but left the baked clay for the sides of the oven. The head
of the barrel (Fig. 121A) was saved and used to stop up the front of
the oven when baking was being done; a stone or sod was used to cover
up the chimney hole. Figs. 122, 123, 124 and 125 show how to make an
Adobe by braiding green sticks together and then covering the same with
clay, after which it is used in the same manner as the preceding barrel
oven.
THE MATASISO
Is a camp stove or fire-place, and a form of the so-called Altar
Fire-place, the object of which is to save one's back while cooking.
The matasiso is built up of stones or sods (Fig. 126) and used like any
other campfire.
THE BANK LICK
Is a camp stove which the boys of the troop of Boone Scouts, who
frequented Bank Lick in old Kentucky, were wont to build and on it to
cook the big channel catfish, or little pond bass or other food. The
Bank Lick is made of flat stones and is one or two stories high (Figs.
127 and 128). The Boone Scouts flourished in Kenton County, Kentucky,
fifty odd years ago.
[Illustration: 120, 121, 121A, 122, 123, 124, 125]
THE ALTAR FIRE-PLACE
Is built of logs (Fig. 132), of stones, of sod, or of logs filled with
sods or stone (Fig. 131), and topped with clay (Figs. 130 and 132). The
clay top being wider at one end than the other, on the plan of the
well-known campfire (Fig. 129), is made with stones and sometimes used
when clay is unobtainable.
[Illustration: 126, 127, 128]
[Illustration: 129, 130, 131, 132]
THE ALTAR CAMP FIRE-PLACE
The advantage of the altar fire and the matasiso is that the cook does
not have to get the backache over the fire while he cooks. All of these
ovens and fire-places are suitable for more or less permanent camps,
but it is not worth while to build these ovens and altar fire-places
for quick and short camps.
COOKING WITHOUT POTS, PANS OR STOVES
It is proper and right in treating camp cooking that we should begin
with the most primitive methods. For when one has no cooking utensils
except those fashioned from the material at hand, he must, in order to
prepare appetizing food, display a real knowledge of woodcraft.
[Illustration: 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143,
144, 145, 146
PRIMITIVE COOKING UTENSILS]
Therefore, start by spearing the meat on a green twig of sweet birch,
or some similar wood, and toast it before the fire or pinch the meat
between the split ends of a twig (Fig. 133) or better still
FORK IT
In order to do this select a wand with a fork to it, trim off the
prongs of the forks, leaving them rather long (Fig. 134), then sharpen
the ends of the prongs and weave them in and out near the edges of the
meat (Fig. 135), which is done by drawing the prongs slightly together
before impaling the meat on the second prong. The natural spring and
elasticity of the branches will stretch the meat nice and flat (Fig.
135), ready to toast in front of the flames, _not over the flame_.
A very thick steak of moose meat or beef may be cooked in this manner.
Remember to have fire-dogs and a good back log; there will then be hot
coals under the front log and flame against the back log to furnish
heat for the meat in front. Turn the meat every few minutes and do not
salt it until it is about done. Any sort of meat can be thus cooked;
it is a favorite way of toasting bacon among the sportsmen, and I have
seen chickens beautifully broiled with no cooking implements but the
forked stick. This was done by splitting the chicken open and running
the forks through the legs and sides of the fowl.
PULLED FIREBREAD OR TWIST
Twist is a Boy Scout's name for this sort of bread. The twist is made
of dough and rolled between the palms of the hands until it becomes a
long thick rope (Fig. 138), then it is wrapped spirally around a dry
stick (Fig. 139), or one with bark on it (Fig. 137). The coils should
be close together but without touching each other. The stick is now
rested in the forks of two uprights, or on two stones in front of the
roasting fire (Figs. 140 and 141), or over the hot coals of a pit-fire.
The long end of the stick on which the twist is coiled is used for a
handle to turn the twist so that it may be nicely browned on all sides,
or it may be set upright in front of the flames (Fig. 142).
A HOE CAKE
May be cooked in the same manner that one planks a shad: that is, by
plastering it on the flat face of a puncheon or board, split from the
trunk of a tree (Fig. 145), or flat clean stone, and propping it up
in front of the fire as one would when cooking in a reflecting oven
(Fig. 146). When the cake is cooked on one side it can be turned over
by using a hunting knife or a little paddle whittled out of a stick
for that purpose, and then cooked upon the opposite side. Or a flat
stone may be placed over the fire and used as a frying pan (Figs. 116
and 128). I have cooked a large channel catfish in this manner and
found that it was unnecessary to skin the fish because, there being no
grease, the skin adhered firmly to the hot stone, leaving the white
meat flaky and delicate, all ready to be picked out with a jack-knife
or with chopsticks, whittled out of twigs.
MEAT HOOKS
May be made of forked branches (Figs. 151, 152, 153, 154 and 155). Upon
this hook meat maybe suspended before the fire (Fig. 153) by a piece
of twine made from the twisted green bark of a milkweed or some other
fibrous plant stalk or tree bark, or a wet string will do if you have
one.
HOW TO DRESS SMALL ANIMALS
Dressing in this case really means undressing, taking their coats off
and removing their insides. In order to prepare for broiling or baking
any of the small fur-bearing animals, make yourself a skinning stick,
using for the purpose a forked branch; the forks being about an inch
in diameter, make the length of the stick to suit your convenience,
that is, long enough to reach between the knees whether you are sitting
on a camp stool or squatting on the ground, sharpen the lower end of
the stick and thrust it into the ground, then take your coon, possum,
squirrel or muskrat, and punch the pointed ends of the forked stick
thru the thin place at the point which corresponds to your own heel,
just as the stick in Fig. 155 is punched through the thin place behind
the heels of the small animals there sketched. Thus hung the animal
may be dressed with comfort to the workmen. If one is squatting, the
nose of the animal should just clear the ground. First take off the
fur coat. To do this you split the skin with a sharp knife, beginning
at the center of the throat and cut to the base of the tail, being
careful not to cut deep enough to penetrate the inside skin or sack
which contains the intestines; when the base of the tail is reached,
use your fingers to roll back the skin. If skinning for the pelt,
follow directions given later, but do not destroy any skin as the hide
is useful for many purposes around camp. After the coat is removed and
all the internal organs taken out, remove the scent glands from such
animals as have them, and make a cut in the forearms and the meaty
parts of the thigh, and cut out the little white things which look like
nerves, to be found there. This will prevent the flesh from having a
strong or musky taste when it is cooked.
HOW TO BARBECUE A DEER, OR SHEEP
First dress the carcass and then stretch it on a framework of black
birch sticks, for this sweet wood imparts no disagreeable odor or taste
to the meat.
Next build a big fire at each end of the pit (Fig. 114), not right
under the body of the animal, but so arranged that when the melted fat
drops from the carcass it will not fall on the hot coals to blaze up
and spoil your barbecue. Build big fires with plenty of small sticks so
as to make good red hot coals before you put the meat on to cook.
First bake the inside of the barbecued beast, then turn it over and
bake the outside. To be well done, an animal the size of a sheep
should be cooking at least seven or eight hours over a charcoal fire.
Baste the meat with melted bacon fat mixed with any sauce you may have
or no sauce at all, for bacon fat itself is good enough for anyone, or
use hot salt water.
Of course, it is much better to use charcoal for this purpose, but
charcoal is not always handy. One can, however,
MAKE ONE'S OWN CHARCOAL
A day or two ahead of the barbecue day, by building big fires of wood
about the thickness of one's wrist. After the fire has been burning
briskly for a while, it should be covered up with ashes or dirt and
allowed to smoulder all night, and turn the wood into charcoal in place
of consuming it.
HOW TO MAKE DOUGH
Roll the top of your flour bag back (Fig. 136), then build a cone of
flour in the middle of the bag and make a crater in the top of the
flour mountain.
In the crater dump a heaping teaspoon--or, to use Mr. Vreeland's
expression, put in "one and a half heaping teaspoonfuls of baking
powder," to which add a half spoonful of salt; mix these together with
the dry flour, and when this is thoroughly done begin to pour water
into the crater, a little at a time, mixing the dough as you work by
stirring it around inside your miniature volcano. Gradually the flour
will slide from the sides into the _lava_ of the center, as the water
is poured in and care taken to avoid lumps.
Make the dough as soft as may be, not batter but very soft dough, stiff
enough, however, to roll between your well-floured hands.
BAKED POTATOES
Put the potatoes with their skins on them on a bed of hot embers two or
three inches thick, then cover the potatoes with more hot coals. If
this is done properly the spuds will cook slowly, even with the fire
burning above them. Don't be a chump and throw the potatoes in the fire
where the outer rind will burn to charcoal while the inside remains raw.
MUD COOKING
In preparing a small and tender fish, where possible, the point under
the head, where the gills meet, is cut, fingers thrust in and the
entrails drawn through this opening; the fish is then washed, cleaned
and wrapped in a coating of paper or fallen leaves, before the clay
is applied. Place the fish upon a pancake of stiff clay (Fig. 147),
fold the clay over the fish (Fig. 148), press the edges together, thus
making a clay dumpling (Fig. 149); cook by burying the dumpling in the
embers of an ordinary surface fire, or in the embers in a pit-fire
(Fig. 150).
A brace of partridges may be beheaded, drawn, washed out thoroughly and
stuffed with fine scraps of chopped bacon or pork, mixed with bread
crumbs, generously seasoned with salt, pepper and sage, if you have any
of the latter. The birds with the feathers on them are then plastered
over with clean clay made soft enough to stick to the feathers, the
outside is wrapped with stiffer clay and the whole molded into a ball,
which is buried deep in the glowing cinders and allowed to remain
there for an hour, and at the end of that time the clay will often be
almost as hard as pottery and must be broken open with a stick. When
the outside clay comes off the feathers will come with it, leaving the
dainty white meat of the bird all ready to be devoured.
Woodchucks, raccoons, opossums, porcupines, rabbits had better be
barbecued (see Figs. 114, 115 and 155), but squirrels and small
creatures may be baked by first removing the insides of the creatures,
cleaning them, filling the hollow with bread crumbs, chopped bacon and
onions, then closing the opening and plastering the bodies over with
stiff clay and baking them in the embers. This seals the meat inside of
the mud wrapper and when it is cooked and the brick-like clay broken
off, the skin comes off with the broken clay, leaving the juicy meat
exposed to view.
[Illustration: 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157,
158, 159, 160]
TO PLANK A FISH
Cut off the head of the fish and clean by splitting it through the
back, in place of the usual way of splitting up the belly. To salt
red meat before you cook it is to make it dry and tough, but the fish
should be salted while it is damp with its own juices.
Heat the plank in front of the fire and then spread your fish out flat
on the hot puncheon or plank, and with your hunting knife press upon
it, make slit holes through the fish (Fig. 145) with the grain of the
wood; tack your fish on with wooden pegs cut wedge shape and driven
in the slits made by your knife blade (Figs. 143 and 144). Prop the
puncheon up in front of a fire which has a good back-log and plenty of
hot coals to send out heat (Fig. 146).[E]
HEATING WATER
Water may be boiled in a birch bark vessel made by folding up a more or
less square piece of bark, bending in the corner (Fig. 157) folds and
holding them in place by thorns or slivers (Fig. 156). Or the stomach
of a large animal or piece of green hide may be filled with water and
the latter made hot by throwing in it hot stones (Fig. 158). Dig a hole
in the ground, fit the rawhide in the hole, bringing the edges up so
as to overlap the sod, weigh down the edges with stones, fill the hide
with water and heat with hot stones. Figs. 159 and 160 show how to make
tongs with which to handle the stones.
FOOTNOTE:
[E] The best plank is made from the oaks grown on the hammocks of
Southern Florida and the peculiar flavor this plank gives to shad has
made Planked Shad famous.