Canoe and Camp Cookery: A Practical Cook Book for Canoeists, Corinthian ...

These pliers can be made by any blacksmith, and should be from twelve to eighteen inches in length, and quite broad in the gripping part, which may with advantage be curved to a slight angle. I always use a frying pan without handle for compactness, and can lift it from any side of the fire with the pliers, which are always cool. I even grip the coffee pot with them and pour the coffee for the whole party without touching it with my hands, saving many a scorch thereby. It is a handy tool in making repairs to boats, and in various other ways proves its value as a necessary part of the camp outfit. The coffee pot should not have a spout, but a lip, riveted on, near its topmost edge. The handle should also be riveted, and should set as near as possible to the top of the pot. A wire bale may be attached for handiness in lifting. The cooking range above described will suffice for nearly all branches of camp cookery. On it one can fry, broil and boil. When a boil is to be kept up for hours, however, as in cooking beans, greens, and some soups and stews, it will be necessary to set up a forked stake at each end of the fire, hang the kettle on a • Camp Cooking Outfit, 47 cross-piece between, and keep up the fire beneath by constant feeding and attention. Do not let the blaze mount so high as to burn or char the cross-piece. The fire for baking should be made apart from the range. A hole in the ground a little more than deep enough to contain the bake-kettle or Dutch oven should be dug, and of sufficient diameter to allow four or five inches' space on each side of the oven when it is in the hole. Build up a good fire in the hole, and when you have a large quantity of hot coals and ashes, dig out all but a thick layer on the bottom, set in your oven, and pack it all around and on top with the coals and ashes. Cover the whole with a piece of turf or some earth. When baking without an oven, as fish in clay, a bird in its feathers, or a 'possum in its own hide, dig out nearly all the coals, put some green grass or leaves in the bottom, then the fish, bird or beast, then more grass or leaves, then coals and ashes, then earth, and lastly build a small fire on top and keep it burning steadily. In all the baking recipes recommended in this book a certain time is given for each operation. This time mentioned is only approximate, and it will be found to vary a few minutes, according to the amount of coal used, the kind of firewood, etc. The time necessary to bake a given thing can only be learned exactly by practical experience ; but this experience will teach the cook all he needs to know after the first two or three attempts. In closing my remarks on fires I would suggest that the best wood to be obtained for cooking fires is that 4? Canoe and Camp Cookery. from hard wood trees that have fallen in the woods or been cut down, and have lain long enough to become well seasoned. If this is used the fire will stand any ordinary rain, and the camper will not be compelled to resort to his alcohol stove under shelter for any thing short of the equinoctial storm. If wood is damp, a few drops of kerosene, gun oil or alcohol sprinkled on it will be a valuable aid in starting a fire. I have no love for kerosene stoves. The alcohol "flame force" is more compact, gives a stronger heat (have two, set side by side), and is perfectly clean. If, however, you must take along a kerosene stove, the wind-protected kind manufactured by Adams & Westlake (s East Fourteenth Street, New York, and 78 Washington Street, Boston) will probably be found the most suitable. Neither the kerosene nor the alcohol stoves should be used when an outdoor Are can be built.