“An onion a day—” began Ace.
“Keeps everybody away,” finished the young Survey man laughingly. “And that reminds me of apples,—dried apple pie, apple pudding, apple dumplings, (baked or boiled), apple fritter, (made with pancake flour), and apple pan-dowdy with cinnamon.”
“Pan-dowdy!” queried both boys.
“Yes, when the cook has to roll it out with a bottle, or an oar handle, or a smooth stone instead of a rolling pin, and perhaps bake it in the frying pan, and he hesitates to label the result, he terms it pan-dowdy, and then nobody has any kick coming if it isn’t exactly flesh, fish or fowl, if you get me.”
“We get you!” grinned Ted, who had thus far been a silent partner to the plans. But as usually happened at such times, he had been doing a lot of thinking. He now added his contribution: “How about rainbow trout broiled with pork scraps, and served with horseradish? Let’s take a bottle of horseradish.”
“Dried horseradish and a grater,” amended Pedro.
“All right. Then there’s trout baked with tomato and onion sauce, trout baked in clay, trout boiled for a change, with lemon, (we could start the trip with a few), trout skewered, griddled, baked in ashes, baked on a stone, fried—of course, and roasted and stuffed with sage. Let’s take sage. Then how about cold boiled trout salad with mustard dressing, and fish chowder a la canned milk, with dry-dated—what do you call it? De-hydrated potatoes and evaporated onions? Eh? And garlic isn’t such a bad idea. It’s the handiest little bit of flavoring I know of,—if we all go in for it alike.”
“We’ll all go in for it good and strong,” winked Ace.
“Strong is the word,” chuckled Norris.
“Anyway,” Ted defended his suggestion. “I’ve camped through the back-country a heap in my time, and I’ve generally found it isn’t the sameness of the fish-three-times-a-day that lays you out, but the lack of flavorings. Now I even take caraway seed to give a different flavor to a batch of biscuit, and raisins, or some anise seed, or a little strong cheese, that you can grate into it or on it and then toast it till it melts. Then there’s cinnamon and cheese toast for dessert, and plain cinnamon and sugar melted on white bread makes it just bully! And why do we have to eat white bread all the time anyway?”