"The basis will be beans," he said.
"But why beans?" asked Jack.
"For several reasons. First, because beans will keep all winter. Second, because beans are very nearly perfect food for robust people. They have fat in them, and that makes heat, and they have starch and gluten in them too, so that they are in fact both meat and bread. Pound for pound, dried beans are about the most perfect food possible. To make them palatable we must take some dry salted pork along. We can carry that better than pickled pork in kegs and we shall not have to carry a lot of useless brine if we take the dry salted meat."
The Doctor added some dried beef, a few hams, some bacon and a supply of sugar.
"Sugar," he explained, "is almost pure nutriment. It is food so concentrated that it ought never to be taken in large quantities in its pure state."
"That's why they were so stingy with me in the matter of candy when I was a little chap," soliloquized Tom.
The total supply of meat taken along was small, but it was quite well understood that the party must rely upon its guns mainly for that part of its food supply.
For bread there was a small quantity of "hard tack" and a large supply of corn meal.
The salt was securely encased in a water-tight and even moisture-proof oil-cloth bag. One big cheese was taken by special request of Ed's mother, who had made it a year before, and the Doctor approved its inclusion in the list.
"It weighs fifty pounds," he said to Jack who from the first had charge of the expedition, "but it is pure food and we couldn't put in fifty pounds of any thing else that would go so far to ward off starvation in case we get into difficulties. Next to a supply of coffee, nothing could be more useful."