Essential Food Supplies
Returning to the subject of food for the camper, it will be agreed that the menu is largely a matter of personal taste. But there are certain items which are included in every outfit and which are regarded by all as necessities, no matter how widely personal tastes may differ with regard to other supplies. No one can imagine a camp without coffee, and the smell [[108]]of boiling coffee is as much a part of the camp atmosphere as the rustle of the leaves among the trees.
A popular custom in the West, where so much camping is done, is to measure the coffee—ground coffee is preferable, thus eliminating the coffee mill—a heaping tablespoon to the cup, and two cups to the person, and to tie it up in double cheesecloth bags. The advantage of this is that the coffee is clear and not so apt to boil over. Besides, any unskilled or hurried cook can measure the water and drop the bag.
In the East prepared coffee is coming to be used in preference to coffee in the bean. There are several kinds of this prepared coffee, such as the Mouquin and George Washington brands, which come in cans and are about equal in price and quality. The only difference in quality is that the former of those mentioned is a little more on the order of “French coffee,” namely, it is a little more bitter. This prepared coffee is somewhat more expensive than coffee in the bean, but all that is required to prepare it for drinking is to take a teaspoonful of the coffee, place this in the cup and fill up with boiling water, adding milk, cream or sugar to the taste.
After coffee come flapjacks. “Add water and bake” sounds good even at home, and out in the woods it has a special appeal. There are a number of prepared pancake flours on the market which make light, nourishing flapjacks.
Another important item is eggs. Plainly, they are not built for roughing it; but taken out of the [[109]]shell and dried they become an altogether dependable article for the camper. Care should be taken, however, in making a choice of an egg powder, for many substitutes are on the market that never had any relationship to a hen. Real egg powder when cooked can hardly be told from the genuine article made from a fresh egg. It can be scrambled or made into an omelet that will be in every way satisfactory.
Both enjoyment and health require a varied menu for the camper. The numerous wayside markets which may be found every mile or so along the main highways afford the camper an opportunity of picking up a variety of supplies which will serve to diversify the camp menu.
To the average person much of the enjoyment of motor camping will depend upon the quality of the meals that are supplied. If the day be started with a good breakfast of steaming coffee, a rasher of crisp bacon with hot flapjacks and crisp fried potatoes, the day is well begun and everything else is likely to pass off delightfully. But begin with dish-water coffee, lukewarm in temperature, soggy, half-done flapjacks, soft, stringy bacon and limp, greasy potatoes, and the rest of the day will be equally distasteful.