As a backwoodsman you must, of course, be able to cook your own
food--you can't lug your mother about with you to do it!
But you cannot cook food straight off without ever having learnt how;
and so I advise every Scout to set to work and learn this during the
winter months, before the camping season comes on.
You can do a good deal by helping in the kitchen, and seeing how the
food is got ready. Also get a baker to show you how to mix dough and
to bake bread.
But it is no use merely to be _shown_ how it should be done; the
thing is to do it yourself. You will make a few mistakes at first.
Your dough will come out like custard, and your porridge will be
burnt, and milk smoked, but after one or two trials you will soon find
yourself able to cook quite well.
The first thing that is necessary for cooking, even if it is only to
boil a billy of tea, is to have a fire, and tenderfoot makes a pretty
hash of lighting a fire until he knows how.
[Illustration: FIRE READY FOR LIGHTING.]
Begin in _a_ small way by putting first some dry "kindling" or
small splinters and shavings, dry grass, or a _little_ paper,
anything that will easily take fire, and over that stack a lot of
small dry sticks, standing on end and leaning together, or leaning
against a log on the _windward_ side of it.
Remember, dry _sticks_ are very different from _sticks_ when
it comes to lighting a fire.
Dry sticks are seldom found on the ground, they are generally best got
from a tree. Find a tree with a dead branch or two, break these off,
and you will have dry sticks. For "kindling," a number of sticks
partly split or splintered with your knife are useful.
Do you know what "punk" is?
Well, "punk," or "tinder," is what _a_ good many backwoodsmen
carry about with them for lighting their fires.
It can be a small bit of cotton waste soaked in petrol or spirits, or
very dry, baked fungus, or bark fibre, or anything that will catch
fire from the slightest spark.
Then, if you have no matches, you can strike a spark with a flint and
steel (the back of your knife on a stone will do it), and so set light
to your punk.
Or you can do it with a magnifying glass if there is a good sun
shining, by making the sunlight pass through the glass on to a small
amount of punk, and in a few seconds it will set it smouldering; and
you must then gently blow it up into a glow, and finally into a flame,
with which you can light the "kindling."
Indians and savages, who have neither matches nor burning-glasses, get
fire by rubbing wood together.
The easiest way is by putting a slat of dry wood on the ground and
boring a hole through it with a stick of dry wood, twirling the stick
by means of a bow string.
The friction of the two woods causes the kind of sawdust which comes
from the hole to get red-hot, and if a little punk is then placed on
it and blown into, it brings a flame.
So soon as you have got your small kindling fire alight, add bigger
dry sticks, upright and leaning together, until you can get a really
strong fire going, when logs can be added.
But for a cooking fire, use plenty of sticks at first, as they make
the hot ashes and embers which are most necessary for cooking.
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