Chapter IX: In Camp (continued)

There was a wait of a week before the camp stove could arrive, and during that time, Jack took lessons in all sorts of cooking, and learned to make a number of good things; and this was fortunate, for one day two friends of his father surprised them; they were on their way to a camp farther in the woods, and wanted to stay a night and a day with the Blairs before going on. This meant that there were four people to cook for instead of two, and it needed all the experience Jack had to do his share of the work.

The visitors did not come until supper was done, and everything was eaten up; not even a bit of fish was left over. So the Blairs had to go to their stores and find something they could get ready quickly, and something very hearty as well.

"These fellows are as hungry as hunters," Mr. Blair said, while the men were washing up in the lake and getting ready for supper. "Here's some tinned meat; let's have that, with potatoes in it."

"But potatoes take so long to cook--"

"Not the way I'm going to cook them; only ten minutes. You can peel four and slice them very thin, and put them in cold water, and then peel and slice an onion while I open the meat and boil the kettle for coffee. Then I'll show you how to make a:"

TEN-MINUTE STEW

4 potatoes, sliced very thin.
1 onion, sliced thin.
1 can of tinned meat (not corned beef).
Salt and pepper.
1 rounded tablespoonful of flour.
1 large cup of cold water.

Put the potatoes on to cook in a saucepan of boiling salted water.
Then put the onion in a hot frying-pan with a tablespoonful of
pork or bacon fat, and fry brown. Put the flour in the cold water
and stir till it is smooth, and mix this with the onion and stir
it up; when the potatoes are done, drain them and add next, and
then put in the sliced meat and heat; do not boil.

By the time this was done, the coffee was ready too, and the nice hot stew was served with large cups of the coffee and plenty of bread and butter. With a second cup of coffee and crackers and cheese, their guests had made an excellent supper.

The next morning, Jack got up extra early, because he knew everybody would be anxious to go fishing. So he soon had the kettle boiling and the breakfast started, and cooked it all by himself while the men dressed. The principal dish was:

FRIED SALT PORK

Slice thin and put in a frying-pan with enough warm water to
cover; stir it around till the water begins to simmer, and turn
this all off and drain the pork. Then fry till crisp. Put this in
a hot dish near the fire while you make the gravy.

1 tablespoonful of flour.
2 cups of boiling water.
A little pepper.

Put the flour in the grease in the frying-pan, and rub till smooth
and brown; add the water slowly, stirring all the time, and then
the pepper; when smooth and a little thick, pour over the fried
pork.

With this he had pancakes, plenty of them, which were delicious with the pork gravy, and on these, with plenty of coffee, the men said they could get along very comfortably till dinner-time.

For dinner they had some of the fish they caught, broiled, with boiled potatoes; and, for dessert, corn-cakes and maple-syrup. For supper Jack took the fish left from dinner and made:

FISH-BALLS

1 pint of cooked fish, picked up small.
1 quart of hot mashed potato.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
A little pepper.

Beat all together till very light, and make into balls the size of
an egg. Have ready a pail of very hot fat, and drop in two balls
at a time and cook till light brown; take them out; keep hot; and
put in two more, and so on.

After this, he had something which had taken a long time to make, but he did not mind it.

FRIED CORN-MEAL MUSH

1 rounded tablespoonful of salt.
1 quart of yellow corn-meal.
4 quarts of water.

Bring the water to a hard boil in a kettle over the fire; mix the
meal with enough cold water to make a thick batter (this is to
avoid lumps). Drop spoonfuls of the meal into the water gradually,
so it does not stop boiling; when all is in, stir steadily for ten
minutes. Then put a cover on the pot and hang it high over the
fire so it will cook slowly for one hour; stir occasionally so it
will not burn; then pack tightly in a pan and let it get perfectly
cold and firm. (The best plan is to let it stand all night if you
can.) When you wish to use it, slice it, and fry in very hot
grease in the frying-pan till brown.

The next day the men left, after saying they had had a fine visit and had never had such good things to eat in camp. Then Jack and his father had a quiet time till the guide appeared once more, his boat full of stores and his pockets crammed with newspapers and letters; and in the end of his boat he had a small sheet-iron stove. That they quickly set up under the edge of the lean-to where, if it rained, it would not get wet and rusty.

"And now, Jack," said his father, rubbing his hands, "you shall taste my baked beans. I may say without boasting that they will be the very best you ever ate in your life. Women may be able to cook ordinary food, but it takes a man to cook beans--and I'm the man!"

Jack laughed, and said he wanted to learn how so he could beat his father making them, and he watched carefully everything that was done.

BAKED BEANS

Pick over a pint of beans and throw away all that are shriveled
and poor. Wash the rest and put them in cold water to cover them,
and let them stand all night. The next day, put the beans in fresh
water and gently cook them half an hour, skimming them
occasionally.

In another kettle, put a piece of salt pork as large as a man's
fist; cover it with water and let it cook till the beans are done.
Then drain the water off both, and cut the pork in two pieces;
slice each piece part way down, leaving the lower portion solid.
Put one piece in the bottom of an earthen dish, and pile the beans
around and over it, and put the other piece on top. Mix

1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
1/4 teaspoonful of pepper.
1 tablespoonful of molasses or sugar.
1/2 teaspoonful of dry mustard.

Pour this all over the beans and cover the pan; put in the oven,
and bake at least two hours; uncover and brown during the last
twenty minutes. If the beans get very dry, pour on half a cup of
boiling water when they are half done.

"Aha!" said Father Blair, as he put the pan in the oven when they were ready to bake. "Those will be simply fine. Now we could have made them by putting them in a kettle over the fire and baking them so, or we could have buried the kettle in a hole in the ashes; but they are really better done in an oven if one happens to have one. And, anyway, I needed a stove to bake biscuit in, so that's why I got one. I think we will make some for supper, too, and put them in when the beans come out. The name of the one big biscuit I'm going to make to-night is:"

CAMPER'S BREAD

1-1/2 pints of flour.
1-1/2 rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
2 rounded teaspoonfuls of any kind of fat (lard is best).
1/2 pint of cold water.

Put the baking-powder and salt in the flour; mix well and then rub
in the lard till there are no lumps left and it does not stick to
the pan; add the water, a little at a time, and stir with the
spoon till smooth. Grease a pan and put the dough in in rather a
thin layer; smooth the top and bake, till, when you put in a
sliver of wood, it comes out clean. Eat while warm; do not cut,
but break into pieces.

"Now I could have cooked this just as I could have cooked the beans, without the oven. I could have put it in the frying-pan in a bed of hot ashes and covered it and put ashes on top and let it cook till done; but it's better to cook it this way if you can, because it's lighter and browner. When you want regular biscuits, all you do is to make the dough into little balls, and be sure you put flour on your hands before you try it, Jack, or you'll get into an awful mess. And then you put them in the pan and just bake them till they are done."

"I like the big loaf," said Jack. "It's more like real camp cooking; biscuits are for a house."

"And now we are going to have something extra good to-day--green corn on the cob. I tell you that's a luxury for campers! How will you have it, boiled or roasted?"

"Both," said Jack, who liked corn immensely.

"Very well, but one way at a time, young man! We will have it boiled this noon, and we will roast it over the coals to-night."

BOILED CORN

Have a deep kettle full of water boiling hard; take off the husks
and silk, and boil the ears hard for twenty minutes; serve with
butter and salt.

"Some campers boil the corn in the husk and think it is better that way, but I find I always burn my fingers taking off the leaves and silk, so I believe in peeling it as we do at home," said Jack's father, as he put the ears in the kettle slowly, so as not to stop the boiling of the water. "Now for supper, this is the way to fix it:"

ROAST CORN

Take off the husks and silk. Put a stick in the end of the ear,
and toast it brown over a bed of coals; have ready butter and salt
to put on each.

The baked beans proved all their cook promised they should be, and almost the best thing about them was that they were just as good cold as hot, and so saved cooking things sometimes when they were in a hurry.

One day, they caught a perfectly huge fish, too large to broil well, and then their little stove proved a treasure, for the oven would just hold a baking pan; they cooked it in this way:

BAKED FISH

Clean and scale the fish, but do not take off the head or tail.
Slice an onion fine, and fry brown in two tablespoonfuls of fat;
add to this a cup of fine, dry bread crumbs and a little salt and
pepper, and stir till brown. Wipe dry the inside of the fish, and
put this stuffing in; wind a string around the outside to hold it
firmly in place. Put in a pan with four slices of salt pork or
bacon, and lay three or four more on the top of the fish; shake a
little flour, salt, and pepper over all. Bake in a hot oven till
the skin begins to break open a little; every fifteen minutes open
the oven door and baste the fish; that is, pour a spoonful of
juice from the pan over the fish; if there is not enough, pour a
small cup of boiling water into the pan.

With this they had

BOILED ONIONS

Peel onions of about the same size, and drop them in a kettle of
boiling, salted water; when they have cooked half an hour, throw
this water away and put them in fresh boiling water. This will
prevent their being too strong. Cook for one hour altogether. Put
melted butter, pepper, and salt over them.

Before they could possibly think it was time to go home, their vacation was over.

For dinner, the last night, Father Blair made something very good indeed:

CAMP PUDDING

1/2 pound of dried prunes.
8 slices of bread, cut thin and buttered.
1/2 cup of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.

Wash the prunes and cover them with cold water, and let them stand
all night. In the morning, put them on the fire in this water, and
cook slowly till they are very soft; then take out the stones.
Line a dish with the bread, cut in pieces, with a layer on the
bottom; put on a spoonful of prunes and juice, then a layer of
bread, and so on till the dish is full, with bread on top;
sprinkle with sugar and bits of butter and bake brown.

"My, but we've had a good time!" said Jack, thoughtfully rubbing the end of his sunburned nose as he watched the shores of the lake fade away the next day. "I never supposed it was such fun to camp. And I've become quite a cook; now haven't I, Father Blair?"

"I should say you had. Too bad your mother and the girls can't know about it. But they will never know!" and his father smiled mischievously.

"Well, perhaps some day I'll cook something for them," said Jack, sheepishly. "I don't mind knowing how to cook as much as I thought I should, now that I know men cook. I guess I'll surprise them some day, Father!"