"On hard trips it is impracticable to carry eggs in the shell. Some campers break fresh eggs and pack them in friction-top cans. The yolks soon break and they keep but a short time. A good brand of desiccated eggs is the solution of this problem. It does away with all risk of breaking and spoiling and reduces bulk very much. Desiccated eggs vary a great deal in quality, according to material and process employed. Desiccated eggs made of the yolks are merely useful as ingredients in cooking.
"Milk—Sweetened condensed milk (the 'salve of the lumberjacks') is distasteful to most people. Plain evaporated milk is the thing to carry—and don't leave it out if you can practicably tote it. The notion that this is a 'baby food' to be scorned by real woodsmen is nothing but a foolish conceit. Few things pay better for their transportation. It will be allowed that Admiral Peary knows something about food values. Here is what he says in The North Pole: 'The essentials, and the only essentials, needed in a serious Arctic sledge journey, no matter what the season, the temperature, or the duration of the journey—whether one month or six—are four: pemmican, tea, ship's biscuit, condensed milk. The standard daily ration for work on the final sledge journey toward the Pole on all expeditions has been as follows: 1 lb. pemmican, 1 lb. ship's biscuit, 4 oz. condensed milk, 1/2 oz. compressed tea.'
"Milk, either evaporated or powdered, is a very important ingredient in camp cookery.
"Butter—This is another 'soft' thing that pays its freight.
"For ordinary trips it suffices to pack butter firmly into pry-up tin cans which have been sterilized by thorough scalding and then cooled in a perfectly clean place. Keep it in a spring or in cold running water (hung in a net, or weighted in a rock) whenever you can. When traveling, wrap the cold can in a towel or other insulating material.
"If I had to cut out either lard or butter I would keep the butter. It serves all the purposes of lard in cooking, is wholesomer, and beyond that, it is the most concentrated source of energy that one can use with impunity.
"Cheese—Cheese has nearly twice the fuel value of a porterhouse steak of equal weight, and it contains a fourth more protein. It is popularly supposed to be hard to digest, but in reality it is not so if used in moderation. The best kind for campers is potted cheese, or cream or 'snappy' cheese put up in tinfoil. If not so protected from air it soon dries out and grows stale. A tin of imported Camembert will be a pleasant surprise on some occasion.
"Bread Biscuits—It is well to carry enough yeast bread for two or three days, until the game country is reached and camp routine is established. To keep it fresh, each loaf must be sealed in wax paper or parchment paper (the latter is best, because it is tough, waterproof, greaseproof). Bread freezes easily; for cold weather luncheons carry toasted bread.
"Hardtack (pilot bread, ship biscuit) can be recommended only for such trips or cruises as do not permit baking. It is a cracker prepared of plain flour and water, not even salted, and kiln-dried to a chip, so as to keep indefinitely, its only enemies being weevils. Get the coarsest grade. To make hardtack palatable toast it until crisp, or soak in hot coffee and butter it, or at least salt it.
"Swedish hardtack, made of whole rye flour, is good for a change.