All bags of cereal, meals or flour should be placed in covered barrels,
boxes or tubs stood on a platform raised from the floor. Boxes of dried
foods such as fruit, cod fish and so forth should be stacked, each kind
in a pile and placed on the platform. All tinned goods should be taken
out of their cases and laid on shelves. Butter, crisco, eggs, peanut
butter, apple butter, and so forth, should be kept in the ice house.
Cheese should be wrapped in cheese cloth wrung out in vinegar and kept
in a box on a shelf in the store room, not in the ice box.
The handling of fresh milk is something which should be done with great
care. After opening a large can, the milk should be stirred with a long
ladle which reaches to the bottom of the can. The quantity of milk
needed should be taken out and put in a pitcher. For dipping out the
milk use a dipper which has been sterilized by placing it in boiling
water and cooled by allowing cold water to run over it. This dipper
should not be used for any other purpose than taking milk from the large
can and when not in use can hang in the ice room. Milk cans should
always be kept covered and no milk which has once been taken out of a
can should ever be poured back into it. What is left from the table
should be put in a pitcher and stood in the ice house to be used for
cooking. Milk which is handled in this way and which comes from a first
class dairy will keep sweet for three days. It is not essential to keep
fresh vegetables in an ice house. If the tops are cut off, vegetables
can be kept in baskets in the store room. Under no circumstances should
anything hot or even warm be put into the ice box, as the steam which
arises from the combination of cold and heat will decompose food very
quickly, or cause it to sour. Anything that is hot and needs to be
cooled before placing in the ice box should be covered with cheese cloth
kept for the purpose and stood on the store room shelves.
Bread, if bought from a bakery, can be kept in a barrel or on shelves
and covered with cheese cloth. The sandwich loaves are recommended as
they cut to better advantage in the bread cutter, and are more
economical in the long run. These loaves weigh about three pounds apiece
and cut into from 40 to 45 slices.
Ice cream salt should not be kept in the store room, but in a
half-barrel or tub outside of the kitchen door. Salt causes dampness,
which is not desirable. The bag of table salt should stand in a tub or
box of some kind. Fruit, especially tomatoes and peaches, should be
watched closely as little flies are apt to collect on them.
It is most essential that the store room be swept, the shelves brushed,
and everything not of use removed from it every morning. This is true
with the care of an ice box or room. Not a day should pass that it is
not thoroughly inspected and all that is not usable removed from it, and
the room left in a perfectly clean, wholesome condition. The ice
compartment should be washed out two or three times a week before the
fresh ice is put into the box.
Do not buy more perishable food than can be properly taken care of and
used within a day or two. Watch it closely, pick it over each day and
throw out any part which shows signs of decay.
Do not neglect to replenish the larder before supplies are out, as
transportation is slow. Do not forget that large quantities take much
more time to cook than small quantities. Many times meals are not served
on time for this reason.
Make a point of weighing, measuring and apportioning. It is economy to
do so.
Nail a card in the kitchen on which is given the quantities of those
things which are used constantly and the number of people each quantity
will supply: sugar, butter, bread, cereal, cocoa, dried fruit.
Buy only what is needed and can be properly stored. The second grade of
many foods is as good as the first in taste, and as nourishing. It costs
less, and many times simply because it is not perfect in size or
uniformity.
To buy in bulk is less expensive than to purchase boxed or tinned goods.
This rule for campers pertains particularly to cereals, crackers, meals,
flours, sugar, cocoa, raisins, etc.
When buying fresh fruits, vegetables or meat, take advantage of the
market, even if it means a quick change of menus. A surplus means low
prices.
Having bought what is the best or the best that can be afforded, do not
spoil it in the preparation, cooking or serving. A deplorable condition
exists in many homes and doubtless camps as well, because the art of
provisioning from first to last is not better understood.
The Girl Scout camps must prove that thrift and good food go hand in
hand; also that in every department related in any way to our food,
which is of such importance to health and happiness, the most approved
methods are used.