If the beans are put into the bean hole late in the afternoon and allowed to remain there all night, they will be done to a turn for breakfast; the next morning they will be wholesome, juicy and sweet, browned on top and delicious.
A bean hole is not absolutely necessary for a small pot of beans. I have cooked them in the wilderness by placing the pot on the ground in the middle of the place where the fire had been burning, then heaping the hot ashes and cinders over the bean pot until it made a little hill there, which I covered with the black ashes and left until morning. I tried the same experiment on the open hearth to my studio and it was a wonderful success.
The Etiquette of the Woods
Requires that when a porcupine has been killed it be immediately thrown into the fire, there to remain until all the quills have been singed off of the aggressive hide, after which it may be skinned with no danger to the workmen and with no danger to the other campers from the wicked barbed quills, which otherwise might be waiting for them just where they wished to seat themselves.
This may sound funny, but I have experimented, unintentionally, by seating myself upon a porcupine quill. I can assure the reader that there is nothing humorous in the experience to the victim, however funny it may appear to those who look on.
After thoroughly singeing the porcupine you roll it in the grass to make certain that the burnt quills are rubbed off its skin, then with a sharp knife slit him up the middle of the belly from the tail to the throat, pull the skin carefully back and peel it off. When you come to the feet cut them off. Broiled porcupine is the Thanksgiving turkey of the Alaskan and British Columbia Indian, but unless it has been boiled in two or three waters the taste does not suit white men.
Porcupine Wilderness Method
After it has been parboiled, suspend the porcupine by its forelegs in front of a good roasting fire, or over a bed of hot coals, and if well seasoned it will be as good meat as can be found in the wilderness. The tail particularly is very meaty and is most savory; like beef tongue it is filled with fine bits of fat. Split the tail and take out the bone, then roast the meaty part.
Porcupine stuffed with onions and roasted on a spit before the fire is good, but to get the perfection of cooking it really should be cooked in a Dutch oven, or a closed kettle or an improvised airtight oven of some sort and baked in a bean hole, or baked by being buried deep under a heap of cinders and covered with ashes. Two iron pans that will fit together, that is, one that is a trifle larger than the other so that the smaller one may be pushed down into it to some extent, will answer all the purposes of the Dutch oven. Also two frying pans arranged in the same manner.