Camp cookery (Kephart)

Some fish, such as yellow perch, are better skinned than scaled. Grasp the fish firmly, belly down. Cut across the nape of the neck, run the point of the knife along the back to the tail, and on each side of the back fin. Remove the fin by catching lower end between thumb and knife blade and pulling smartly upward toward the head. Skin each side by, seizing between thumb and knife the flap of skin at nape and jerking outward and downward; then the rest, by grasping skin as near the vent as possible and tearing quickly down to the tail, bring away the anal fin. Remove the head and the entrails will come with it. Trout and pickerel should be scraped free of slime. To skin a bullhead: cut off the ends of the spines, slit the skin behind and around the head, and then from this point along the back to the tail, cutting around the back iin. Then peel the two corners of the skin well down, sever the backbone, and, holding to the corners of the skin with one hand, pull the fish's body free from the skin with the other. To skin an eel: nail it up by the tail at a convenient height, or impale it thus on the sharpened end of a little stake ; cut through the skin, around the body, just forward of the tail, work its edges loose, then pull, stripping off the skin entire. If preferred, the skin can be scalded. Venison keeps a long time without curing, if the climate is cool and dry. To cure a deer's • ham, hang it up by the shank, divide the muscles just above the hock, and insert a handful of dry salt. The meat of the deer tribe gets more tender and better flavored the longer it is hung up. In warm weather dust flour all over a haunch or saddle of venison, sew it up in a loose bag of cheesecloth, and hang it in a shady place where there is a current of air. It will keep sweet for several weeks, if there is no crevice in the bag through which insects can penetrate. Ordinarily it is best not to salt meat, for salt draws the juices. Bear meat, however, requires much salt to cure it — more than any other game animal. Hornaday recommends the following recipe for curing venison:— The proportions of the mixture I use are: Salt 3 lbs., Allspice 4 table-spoonfuls, Black Pepper ... 5 " " all thoroughly mixed. Take a ham of deer, elk, or mountain sheep, or fallkilled mountain goat, and as soon as possible after killing, dissect the thigh, muscle by muscle. Any one can learn to do this by following up with the knife the natural divisions between the muscles. With big game like elk, some of the muscles of the thigh are so thick they require to be split in two. A piece of meat should not exceed five inches in thickness. Skin off all enveloping membranes, so that the curative powder will come in direct contact with the raw, moist flesh. The flesh must be sufficiently fresh and moist that the preservative will readily adhere to it. The best size for pieces of meat to be cured by this process is not over a foot long, by six or eight inches wide and four inches thick.