The Stag Cook Book: Written for Men by Men

If you have been thoughtful enough to supply your outfit with some ill-smelling, but palatable dry vegetables, they will add flavor to your burgoo, put all the material in a kettle, and fill the kettle half full of water. If you have beans and potatoes do not put them in with the meat because they will go to the bottom and scorch. While the stuff you have already put in the kettle is boiling, or simmering, peel your onions and quarter them, scrape your carrots and slice them, peel your potatoes, cut them up into pieces — about inch cubes. After your caldron has commenced to boil dump in the fresh vegetables, they will cool off the water and kill the boil. Do not let it come to a boil again, but put it over a slow fire and allow it to simmer. There should [58] always be enough water to cover the vegetables. A can of tomatoes will add greatly to the flavor. Use no sweet vegetables like beets or sweet potatoes. Put the salt and pepper in just before you take it off the fire. When the burgoo is done, strain it into tin cups. The liquid out of an olive bottle adds greatly to the flavor if you pour it in while the stew is cooking. If you have such luxuries in camp as olives and lemons, a slice of lemon with an olive in each cup over which the liquid is poured makes a dish too good for any old king that ever lived. The excellence of a burgoo depends upon two things, the materials you have of which to make it and the care you take in cooking it. No two burgoos are alike, and every one I ever tasted was mighty good. Civilized material such as can be purchased at the butcher shop and the vegetable store makes a good soup, but the "goo" isn't there. G)nsequently you cannot call it a burgoo. [59] xxm De Wolf Hopper RASPBERRY SHORTCAKE RASPBERRY SHORTCAKE, with the assistance of a rich and kindly disposed cow, meaning lacteal fluid on same — ^that is my chief debauch ! Recipe {for two people) Sift a level teaspoonful of baking powder and a scant half teaspoonful of salt through a cupful of flour. See that the mixture is thorough. Take lard or butter (butter is best) and work it well into the flour until it crumbles under the fingers. Use plenty of finger work. Now add a very small quantity of milk and work into a dough that is easily rolled and flattened on a floured board. Roll out and cut in round cakes to fit cake tins. Have cakes about a half inch thick. Bake in a moderate oven until light golden in color. In serving have lots of berries — half of them — crushed. Split the shortcakes and butter them, if desired. Above all use thick, rich cream in generous doses. The dish is really best when the cakes are just from the oven — instead of cold. The same goes for strawberry shortcake and makes the only real genuine old-fashioned shortcake, [60] Chick Evans TOMATO SOUP I have a fondness for tomato soup and steak without grizzles. Since almost any one can broil a steak 111 pass that up and tell you how to play cream of tomato right around the kitchen course in par. You can tate ripe tomatoes, cut them up, stew them and put them through a strainer. You can add a bit of soup stock and seasoning and all that, but the easy way is to take some of Mr. Campbell's tomato soup and add milk instead of water— only use more soup, per person, than the can label calls for. Don't boil it — ^but when the soup is good and hot give it a bit of informal seasoning and then stir in a lot of stiff whipped cream. Keep back enough of the whipped cream to put a big spoonful of it in the center of each plate. Use the can opener at the first tee and with luck you'll be on the dinner table in an easy three. Play out of the soup plate with a good sized spoon for a par four — and there you are !