On the Trail: An Outdoor Book for Girls

by Lina Beard; Adelia B. Beard

Game birds can be baked in the embers. Have ready a bed of red-hot coals covered with a thin layer of ashes, and after drawing the bird, dip it in water to wet the feathers; then place it on the ash-covered red coals, cover the bird with more ashes, and heap on quantities of red coals. If the bird is small it should be baked in about one-half hour. When done strip off the skin, carrying feathers with it, and the bird will be clean and appetizing. Birds can also be roasted in the bean-pot hole, but in this way, they must first be picked, drawn, and rinsed clean; then cut into good-sized pieces and placed in the pot with fat pork, size of an egg, for seasoning; after pouring in enough water to cover the meat, fasten the pot lid on securely and bury the pot in the glowing hot hole under a heap of red-hot coals. Cover with earth, the same as when baking beans.

Fish

Fish cooked in the embers is very good, and you need not first remove scales or fins, but clean the fish, season it with salt and pepper, wrap it in fresh, wet, green leaves or wet blank paper, not printed paper, and bury in the coals the same as a bird. When done the skin, scales, and fins can all be pulled off together, leaving the delicious hot fish ready to serve.

To boil a fish: First scale and clean it; then cut off head and tail. If you have a piece of new cheesecloth to wrap the fish in, it can be stuffed with dressing made of dry crumbs of bread or biscuits well seasoned with butter, or bits of pork, pepper, and a very small piece of onion. The cloth covering must be wrapped around and tied with white string. When the fish is ready, put it into boiling water to which has been added 1 tablespoonful of vinegar and a little salt. The vinegar tends to keep the meat firm, and the dressing makes the fish more of a dinner dish; both, however, can be omitted. Allow about twenty minutes for boiling a three-pound fish.

The sooner a fish is cooked after being caught the better. To scale a fish, lay it on a flat stone or log, hold it by the head and with a knife scrape off the scales. Scale each side and, with a quick stroke, cut off the head and lower fins. The back fin must have incisions on each side in order to remove it. Trout are merely scraped and cleaned by drawing out the inside with head and gills. Do this by forcing your hand in and grasping tight hold of the gullet.

To clean most fish it is necessary to slit open the under side, take out the inside, wash the fish, and wipe it dry with a clean cloth.

If the camping party is fond of fish, and fish frequently forms part of a meal, have a special clean cloth to use exclusively for drying the fish.

Provisions for One Person for Two Weeks. To be Multiplied by Number of Campers, and Length of Time if Stay is over Two Weeks

Essential Foods

Outdoor life seems to require certain kinds of foods; these we call essentials; others in addition to them are in the nature of luxuries or non-essentials.