LOG-CABIN COOKERY
Did you ever get to a camp fire or log-cabin stove at eleven o’clock and
know that there must be a hearty meal by twelve? I have lots of times.
The only way to do, if one must meet these emergencies on short notice,
is to have what I call “stock” on hand. In using this word I do not mean
soup stock, either. What I mean is that there must be some vegetables or
cereals or other articles of food at least partially prepared for
eating.
I remember one summer when I was very busy with my writing. I was chief
cook and bottle washer, besides being my own secretary, and I had three
members in my family to look out for--a friend with a hearty appetite, a
big dog with a no less hearty appetite and a rather greedy little Maine
cat. The question was how to carry on the work which was properly my
own and at the same time attend to cooking and other household work. I
hit upon a plan which served excellently with me. I do not recommend it
to any one else, especially to girls who will be going into the woods
for a vacation and will have no duties except those connected with their
camp life. But this plan of mine demonstrated to me once and for all
that, even if one is very busy, it is possible to have a bountifully
supplied table.
The first day I tried the experiment I went into the kitchen at eleven
o’clock. Never had I been more tired of the everlasting question of what
to have to eat. It seemed to me that there was never any other question
except that one, and I determined, with considerable savage feeling, to
escape from it. At eleven o’clock I chopped my own kindling, started my
own fire, and began twirling the saucepans, frying pans and baking tins
which I wanted to use. I was set upon cooking up enough food to last for
three or four days, and I did. At two o’clock not only was all the food
cooked and set away for future consumption, but also we had eaten our
dinner. In that time what had I prepared? There was a big double boiler
full of _corn meal_. After this had been thoroughly boiled in five times
its bulk of water and a large tablespoonful of salt, I poured it out
into baking tins and set it away to cool. Various things can be done
with this stock; among others, once cool, it slices beautifully, and is
delicious fried in butter or in bacon fat, and satisfying to the
hungriest camper. Also a large panful of _rice_ had been cooked. This
had been set aside to be used in _croquettes_, in _rice puddings_ and to
be served plain with milk at supper time. So much for the rice and the
corn meal. I had broken up in two-inch pieces a large panful of
_macaroni_. This was boiled in salt water, part of it cooled and set
away for further use, some of it mixed with a canful of tomato and
stewed for our dinner and the rest baked with tomato and bread crumbs,
to be heated up for another day. On top of the stove, too, I had a
mammoth _vegetable stew_. In this stew were potatoes, carrots, parsnips,
cabbage, beets, turnips, plenty of butter and plenty of salt. The stew
remained on the stove, carefully covered, during the time that the fire
was lighted and was put on again the next day to complete the cooking,
for it takes long boiling to make a really good stew. Inside the oven
were two big platefuls of _apples_ baking. These had been properly cored
and the centers filled with butter and sugar and cinnamon; also two or
three dozen potatoes were baking in the oven, some of which would serve
for quick frying on another day. In addition to the food mentioned, I
set a large two-quart bowl full of lemon jelly with vegetable gelatin.
It took me exactly fifteen minutes to make this jelly and during that
time I was giving my attention to other things besides. I made also a
panful of baking powder biscuits which, considering the way they were
hustled about, behaved themselves in a most long-suffering and
commendable fashion, turning out to be good biscuits after all.
Now, the import of all this is that, with planning, a little practice
and some hopping about, a good deal of cooking and preparation of food
can be done in a short time. Unnecessary “fussing” about the cooking is
not desirable in camp life. The simpler that life can be made and kept
the better. The more we can get away from unwholesome condiments, highly
seasoned foods, too much meat eating and coffee drinking, too many
sweets and pastries, the better. The girl who goes into the woods with
the idea of having all the luxuries--many of them wholly unnecessary
and some of them undesirable--of her home life, is no true “sport.” The
grand object for which we cook in camp is a good appetite and that needs
no sauce and sweets.
What are some of the recipes a girl should have with her for log-cabin
cooking? In the first place, we must take with us a good recipe for
_bread-making_. There are so many I will give none. The best one to have
is the one used at home, but let me say here that no flour so answers
all dietetic needs in the woods as entire wheat. Delicious baking powder
biscuits can be made from it as well as bread. Also know how to _boil a
potato_. You think this is a matter of no importance? It would surprise
you then, wouldn’t it, to know that there are some people devoting all
of their time teaching the ignorant and the poor the art of boiling a
potato. You can boil all the good out of it and make it almost worthless
as food, as well as untempting, or you can cook it properly, making it
everything it ought to be. Know, too, how to _clean a fish_. Oh, dear,
you never could do that! It makes you shiver to think of such a thing.
Very well then, camp is no place for you. Your squeamishness which might
seem attractive some place else will only be silly there, making you a
dead weight about somebody else’s neck. Does your brother Boy Scout know
how to clean a fish? Did you ever know a real boy who did not know how
to clean a fish? Why not a real girl, then, perhaps a Camp Fire Girl?
Oh, but the cook--no, you will be the cook in camp or the assistant
cook. Then get your brother to show you how to cut off its head and to
scale it, if it is a scaly fish, how to slit it open, taking out the
entrails, how to wash it thoroughly and dry it, how to dip it in flour
or meal and to drop it into the sizzling frying pan, how to turn it and
then finally the moment when, crisp and brown, it should be taken out
and served. Know, too, how to pluck and clean a partridge.[5] One day
this last summer I went up the cut behind my camp, intent upon finding a
partridge for our supper. I hadn’t gone far before I found one and with
the second shot of my rifle brought the poor fellow down. I took him
home to the cook whom I had with me then, the daughter of a neighboring
farmer. I gave her the bird and told her to get him ready for supper.
She said she couldn’t; she didn’t know how.
[5] If your mother and brother have not taught you how to _clean fish_
and _pluck partridge_, then it would be best to go to the butcher and
fishman and take lessons of them. If it is possible to go on your
first expedition with a good guide, that will settle the whole
difficulty, for your guide will know the best way and be glad to teach
you.
“Don’t know how?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
She said that she did not know how to pluck and clean a partridge.
“Well,” I replied, “you know how to clean a chicken, don’t you?”
“Mercy me, no!” she objected, looking pale and silly. “Mother always
cleans the chickens.”
Mother always cleans the chickens! Mother does a good deal too much of
the things that are somewhat unpleasant in this American home life of
ours. This girl had been perfectly willing that her mother should do all
the work which seemed to her too disagreeable or unpleasant to do
herself. But I am glad to say, and her mother ought to have been
grateful to me, she helped in dressing that partridge and I did not care
a tinker when, after it had been cooked, she seemed to feel too badly to
eat very much of it. I wonder how her mother had felt after all the
hundreds of chickens she had killed, plucked, cleaned and cooked for
that very girl of hers.
You must know, too, how to _boil an egg_, and do not do as I saw that
same incompetent farmer’s daughter do--I suppose because she had left
almost everything to her very competent mother--do not boil your eggs in
the tea kettle. The water in the tea kettle should be kept as clean and
fresh as possible. There is no excuse for a _dirty tea kettle_. We
should be able in the woods, too, to know how to scramble eggs, if one
has them, and to make omelets, and to boil corn meal, and the best ways
for cooking rice and of baking fruits. Good apple pies, too, if you can
make pastry without too much trouble, will not go amiss.
There are a few recipes which you must get out of the home cook book,
besides the few which I will now give you. _Baking powder biscuits_ are
not easy to make. Even very good cooks sometimes do not have success
with them. Do not be discouraged if at your first effort you should
fail. Keep on trying. You must learn, for I think it can be said that
baking powder biscuits constitute the bread of the woods. I know farming
families in northern Maine who do not know what it is to make raised
bread. They have nothing but baking powder or soda and cream of tartar
bread. Use one quart of sifted flour, one teaspoonful of salt, three
rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one large tablespoonful of
butter and enough milk, evaporated or powdered milk, or fresh if you
have it, to make a soft dough. Mix these things in the order in which
they are given, and when the dough is stiff enough to be cut with the
top of a baking powder can or a biscuit cutter, sprinkle your bread and
also your rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough. It will depend
upon your oven somewhat, but probably it will take you from ten to
fifteen minutes to bake these biscuits.
A recipe for corn meal cake, too, should be in one’s camp kit. The
simpler that recipe the better. Some forms of _corn bread_ take so long
to prepare that they are not suitable for the woods. The one I shall
give you will prove practicable. You might take one from your own home
cook book, too, if you wish. Mix the ingredients in the order in which
they are set down and bake them in a moderately hot oven. If you haven’t
anything else to use, bread tins a third full will serve. One cup of
whole corn meal, a half a teaspoonful of salt and a cup of sugar, a
whole cup of flour, three teaspoonfuls of baking powder--these should be
level--one egg, one cup of milk and a tablespoonful of melted butter.
_Pancakes_ you must also know how to make. One can’t very well get along
in the wilderness without some sort of griddle cake, the simpler the
better. Sour milk pancakes are the best, particularly as it is not
necessary to use eggs if one has sour milk, but that is not always
feasible, as frequently you will have to use evaporated milk. Mix a
pint of flour, a half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of soda, one
pint of sour milk, and two eggs thoroughly beaten. See that your frying
pan, for in camp you will cook your cakes in the frying pan, has been on
the stove some time. Grease it thoroughly with bacon fat or butter;
never use lard unless you have to. Cook the cakes thoroughly. You will
find turning your first hot cakes something of an adventure.
There should also be among our log-cabin recipes some directions for
telling you how to make at least two kinds of _nourishing soup_ without
stock. Soup with stock in camp life is not practicable. Pea or bean
soups are the most satisfying and satisfactory. The peas or beans must
be soaked in cold water over night. Pea or bean soups take a long time
to make, so that it is not always practicable to have them in camp. I
will give you a recipe for _split pea soup_. Take with you, if you are
likely to need it, also, a recipe for black bean soup. After soaking
over night, pour the water off the split peas and add to the cup of peas
three pints of cold water. Do not let the liquid catch on the sides of
the pan in which the peas are simmering. When the peas are soft, rub
them through a strainer and put them on to boil again, adding one
tablespoonful of butter, one of flour, one-half teaspoonful of sugar and
a teaspoonful of salt. You don’t need pepper--better leave pepper at
home and if you get so that you don’t miss it in camp, then you need
never use it again. It is wretched stuff, anyway, doing more to harm the
human stomach than almost any other food poison in use.
_Baked beans_, too, make a prime dish for camp life, partly, I suppose,
because, like corn meal and pea and bean soups, potatoes and the
heartier kinds of food, they are so satisfying to the camper’s appetite.
It isn’t necessary to cook your beans with pork, substitute some kind
of nut butter, peanut butter or almond butter, or plenty of fresh dairy
butter. The quart of pea beans should be soaked in cold water over
night. In the morning these beans must be put into fresh water and
allowed to cook until they are soft but not broken. Empty them into a
colander and then put them in the bean pot, or if you haven’t a bean
pot, a deep baking dish will do. Put in a quarter of a cup of molasses
and a half cup of butter and pour a little hot water over the beans.
Keep them all day long in an oven that is not too hot. Don’t put any
mustard in your beans; mustard is as great an enemy to the human stomach
as pepper, and that is saying a good deal.
Against a rainy day when you may wish to amuse yourselves with
additional dishes, or a hungry day when you are cold and ravenous, I
will add a few more recipes. _Corn pone_ is good. This is just corn
bread baked on a heated stone propped up before the fire till the
surface is seared. Then cover with hot ashes and let it bake in them for
twenty minutes. After that dust your cake and eat it. I have told you
how to make _corn meal mush_. With butter and sugar (in case you have no
milk) it is excellent. What do you say to some _buckwheat cakes_ on a
cold, rainy night? If you say “yes,” all you have to do is to mix the
self-raising buckwheat flour with a proper amount of water and drop some
good-sized spoonfuls into a hot, greased frying-pan. The turning of hot
cakes is the next best fun to eating them. Mash your boiled potatoes,
season with butter and salt and milk if you have it. After that, call it
_mashed potato_. It is good to eat and keeps well for paté cakes or a
scallop. When hungry, _fried potatoes_ can be eaten with impunity by the
most zealous dietarian. Fried potatoes are naughty but nice. _Mushrooms_
are nice, too, but dangerous. If you have a trained botanist or someone
who has _always_ gathered mushrooms for eating, then perhaps it will be
safe to cook this bounty the woods spread before you. If you must have
_bacon_ you cannot get bacon that is _too_ good. _Ferris bacon and hams_
are the finest and most reliable cured pork in this country. And since
we are speaking of pork and therefore of frying, let me give you one
caution: _Never use the frying-pan when you can avoid doing so._ No
amount of care can make fried foods altogether wholesome. Even an
out-of-door life cannot altogether counteract the bad effects of fried
food. You can make good _broth_ from small diced bits of game or
whatever meat you have, when the meat is tender, add vegetables and
allow the whole to boil for some time. _Chowder_, too, is a standard
dish for camp life. Take out the bones from the fish and cut up fish
into small pieces. “Cover the bottom of the kettle with layers in the
following order: slices of pork, sliced raw potatoes, chopped onions,
fish, hard biscuit soaked (or bread). Repeat this (leaving out pork)
until the pot is nearly full. Season each layer. Cover barely with water
and cook an hour or so over a very slow fire. When thick stir gently.
Any other ingredients that are at hand may be added.” (Seneca’s “Canoe
and Camp Cookery” and Breck’s “Way of the Woods.”) A _white sauce_ for
fish and other purposes will be found useful. Melt tablespoonful of
butter in saucepan; stir in dessert-spoonful of flour; add ½ teaspoonful
salt; mix with a cup of milk. Except for the ginger, _gingerbread_ is
not a bad cake for the woods. One cup of molasses, one cup of sugar, one
teaspoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda, one cup of hot water,
flour enough to form a medium batter, ½ cup melted butter, and a little
cinnamon will make it. You might experiment with _Chinese tea cakes_
made with ¼ cup butter, one cup brown sugar, ⅛ teaspoonful soda, one
tablespoonful of cold water, and one cup of flour. Shape this mixture
into small balls, and put on buttered sheets and bake in a hot oven.
_Molasses cookies_ are good and substantial, not a bad thing to put in
the duffle bag on a day’s tramp. Use one cup of molasses, one
teaspoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda, two teaspoonfuls of warm
water or milk, ½ cup of butter, enough flour to mix soft. Dissolve the
soda in milk. Roll dough one-third of an inch thick and cut in small
rounds. Two well known candy recipes will add to the pleasures of a
rainy day and a sweet tooth. _Penuche_: Two cups brown sugar, ¾ cup
milk, butter size of a small nut, pinch of salt, one teaspoonful of
vanilla, ½ cup walnut meats. Boil the first four ingredients until soft
ball is formed when dropped in water. Then add vanilla and nuts, and
beat until cool and creamy. _Fudge_: 2 cups sugar, ¾ cup milk, 3
tablespoonfuls cocoa, a pinch of salt, butter size of small nut, ½ cup
walnut meats if desired. Cook same as penuche.
Perhaps, in conclusion, I should advise you to learn something about the
_boiling of vegetables_ and tell you not to cut the top off a _beet_
unless you want to see it bleed, and lose the better part of it. Put
your beet in, top and all. When cooked, it will be time enough to cut it
and pare it. Be sure if you cook _cabbage_ that it is cooked long
enough, and has become thoroughly tender. The same is true with
_parsnips_ and _carrots_. If you are in a hurry slice up your carrots or
parsnips or cabbage or potatoes and they will cook more rapidly.
Be sure that your camp dietary has plenty of _stewed fruits_ in it. That
will be so much to the good in the camp health. A bottle of _olive oil_
also will prove a great resource; in fact, a can of olive oil would be
even more practical and the oil is always capital food. Although the
most elaborate recipes are given for making a _mayonnaise dressing_ it
is really very simple to make, and once made can be kept on hand as
“stock.” I have been making mayonnaise since I was a little girl, and,
as I cook something like the proverbial darky, I do not know that I am
able to give you any hard and fast directions for making the dressing.
With me it is an affair of impulse; I use either the white of an egg or
the whole egg, it does not make any difference--the shell you will not
find palatable--beating it up thoroughly, gradually adding the oil,
putting in a little lemon juice from time to time and plenty of salt.
Cayenne pepper is ordinarily used in mayonnaise, but if the dressing is
properly seasoned with salt and lemon it needs neither cayenne nor
mustard. What it does need is thorough and long beating, a cool place,
and a few minutes in which to harden after it is made.
You will learn one thing in the woods which perhaps will be a surprise.
In that life it is men who are the good cooks. Indeed, it is surprising
how much cleverness men show in domestic ways when they are left to
their own devices and how helpless they become as soon as a woman is
around. If you go astray any woodsman, any guide, almost any “sport” can
help you out in the mysteries of cooking.