Foods will keep well if care is taken to exclude moisture by packing in provision bags of closely woven muslin, size 6 by 10 inches with tie strings for closing the open end. They are made waterproof by painting with paraffin, which has been liquefied in gasoline. Mark each bag well. They stow away nicely in odd corners of the pack sack.

Bacon is the great standby in the meat line. Only the leanest should be chosen: trim off the rind before starting on the hike and wrap it in a piece of waterproof muslin to protect it from other items of the outfit. Do not seal it too tight as it will mold. As bacon grease will be used instead of lard the latter can be omitted entirely.

The flour ration should be made up of whole wheat or graham flour and yellow corn meal. For a stimulating beverage coffee is generally preferred in the United States and tea in Canada. The latter is much easier to transport and more sustaining to the body. If properly chosen you can eliminate the tea or coffee pot from the camp outfit. George Washington coffee and Instant Postum are powdered preparations and all that is needed is to put a teaspoonful in a cup of hot water, stir up, sweeten and drink. If you use tea get the tea tabloids which are a great convenience because of their extreme compactness. Sufficient for 100 cups of good tea occupies only about as much space as one or two ounces of loose tea leaves. For use throw one tabloid into a cup of hot water, wait a minute and a satisfying infusion is the result. Tea in general is to be preferred, for an ounce of it will go as far as many ounces of coffee.

Dried fruits such as raisins, figs, etc., should always be included in the ration list. They make fine emergency rations to be carried in the knapsack (with a cake of sweet chocolate added.) Chocolate beats whisky for putting new energy into a fellow who is all in. When raisins are cooked up alone or with rice one gets an agreeable change in the bill of fare. Rice is one of the most concentrated foods we have, it is easy to pack and cook and has great sustaining powers as an article of diet. It has food elements of such a kind that it can be taken in place of potatoes or bulky breakfast foods. To cook rice, add gradually the washed kernels to furiously boiling salted water and keep this over the fire for 20 minutes. Powdered milk is on the market and is more satisfactorily purchased than made at home. It is the milk of choice when you have to cut down weight as on a hike.

Baking powder should be pure, and it should be kept in air and water tight containers and sunk in the middle of the flour sack. I keep it in an aluminum flask with a cork lined metal screw top. When moisture reaches baking powder a chemical change takes place destroying its leavening powers and it is useless for cooking purposes. Keep this in mind in considering self rising flours which have the baking powder mixed with the flour in proper proportions for use and simply requiring the addition of water before cooking.

One has a remarkable craving for sweets when on the trail which only sugar will satisfy. Sugar is the most concentrated food we have for it supplies so much heat and energy to the body. In cold weather Nature calls for more heat in the body and one’s appetite for sweets usually increases in proportion. Much is written in camp outfitting concerning a preparation called saccharine or crystallose which is a chemical of remarkable sweetness—a small portion of it equalling in sweetening power several hundred times its bulk of sugar. Do not depend on it, for its chemical action delays digestion and it does not furnish the food value which sugar does.

Dehydrated Navy Beans

In preparing dried bean meal one uses ordinary navy beans which are cooked in the usual way and then baked in an oven. By spreading this product out in a broad flat bottomed pan and continuing the baking or drying out process in the oven the moisture is all driven out and only a crumbling crust remains. This is pulverized and packed in tight fitting tins or in waterproof sacks. It is used as a soup or gruel. Common baked beans which come in tins from the corner grocer may be put into the broad bake tins and thoroughly dried and packed away. As beans are hard to boil in high altitudes you can prepare them at home by parboiling without salt in the water, drying well and later using by cooking as usual in salted water.

Jerked Meats

In the palmy days of the “late lamented wild west” the Indian hunters preserved meats by a method called “jerking.” The flesh would be cut into strips and laid on light wooden racks in the sun or in the smoke of a camp fire until dry and hard. This would be packed away and used in the winter time much the same as we use the dried beef of the butcher shops of today. You can preserve meats—steaks, game, or fish—this way or after the improved method of Dr. Hornaday of the New York Zoological Garden. He takes meat cut into strips and works well into the flesh a mixture of salt 1 pound, allspice 1⅓ tablespoonsful and black pepper 1½ tablespoonsful. Then he hangs it up by a string in the sun if the air is dry as in the mountains or, if not, in a camp fire smoke protected from the wet. It can be eaten uncooked and tastes fine after a month or so has passed.