Happy the camper who, taking hint from the big lumber camps, ties to his wagon an iron bean pot, and has always on hand for hungry souls a mess of delicious baked beans. Every well-regulated camp should have a bean-hole dug close by the camp fire, and then when guests come out from town, if the camp is near town, a bean bake enlivens things. The bean-hole is dug three feet square and carefully lined with flat stones or boulders, then it is filled with hard wood which makes fine coals. The wood is fired and burned until there glows a bed of hot coals and the stones are at white heat. A place is scooped out in the center for the bean-pot, and it is placed in this little oven, the coals swept back into place, the hot ashes added, and the hot earth around the fire put over it all. Then, snugly tucked away in their bed so warm, the beans are left alone for four and twenty hours. When taken out, steaming and fragrant, they are perfect in form, brown and crisp, and of flavor so delicious that the mouth waters at the mere recollection. This with brown bread or cone pone, baked in the ashes, and good strong coffee, makes a meal in itself, and if the beans are served hot, the hungry campers feel they have had a feast fit for a king. Those who cling to their bean-pots keep one mess of beans baking all the time and are never without this dish. Even city folks have had royal good times at bean bakes given at some home with large yard, and, with an addition to the beans, salads, sandwiches, cakes, and other frills, generally scorned and passed by for the delicious baked beans.
Naturally digging a hole in the ground and building a fire does not constitute a dish of baked beans; among other things necessary might be mentioned the beans themselves. These are soaked over night and then placed in the iron pot; the best sort is the English kettle with three iron legs and rounding bottom. Right in the center of the beans a place should be made for the pork. The pork should be pickled pork of a particular kind—fat on top, lean below and scored across the top. One pound of pork to one pound of beans is the allowance. For flavoring use one cookingspoonful of New Orleans molasses; one teaspoonful of mustard, one teaspoonful of salt and one of pepper. Stir into the beans and fill even to the top of the pork with water. Given twenty-four hours of slow baking, with no chance for the moisture to escape, the result is an ideal dish worth trying.
To the camper who comes in when the sun is tinging the western sky with crimson, tired and hungry from carrying a gun or holding a fishing rod all day, there is no dish so appreciated as chowder. This dish is easy of preparation. Take peeled potatoes and parboil them, then add fresh water, and put into the kettle the result of the day's chase. The little birds found along the streams, like squabs and sandpipers, are fat and give the chowder a fine flavor. In go the fish, squirrels and other small game, the fish of course, being boned. Add green corn cut from the cob, salt and pepper, and perhaps a little salt pork, though the little birds furnish fat enough. Serve smoking hot and as you stretch your tired limbs under the camp table, you will thank your stars that some genius invented chowder.
The ideal way to cook fish in camp is to first clean the fish and then stuff it, if one chooses (though he need not stuff the fish unless he like) and then make a stiff mortar of clay and encase the fish. Lay it on the coals and when the clay cracks and peels off the skin of the fish comes off with it, leaving the pure sweet fresh meat, which retains the juices and delicate aroma of the fish. This way of cooking fish cannot be beaten. This is also a good way to cook corn. Just leave on the husks and lay the ears on the coals and by the time the husks have burned off the corn is cooked deliciously. In the regions where shad abounds, there is nothing to be compared with planked shad, and this is the most popular dish. The shad is fastened on an oak shingle and turned before the fire until it is cooked, when it will be found that the fish has absorbed the aroma of the wood and the result is a flavor that delights epicures.
Clam Bake.
A clam-bake is a delight wherever and whenever partaken of, but when it is prepared in the piney woods of Cape Cod by the inimitable skippers of Buzzards Bay it is something that is not to be forgotten. It is a joy, from the gathering of the first stone to the swallowing of the last possible clam.
The skippers of Onset are particularly noted for their skill in making clam-bakes.
First select the stones, (which must be about the size of large paving blocks,) and arrange them in a circle. Then bring wood and chips and brush and lay them in the center, and thoroughly pile on top other blocks which have been collected.
The pile of stones and wood being completed, the next thing is to set fire to it, and soon a merry blaze rises up, the flames licking around the stones and forming a pretty picture.
The stones once hot enough the real work of the bake begins. The right amount of heat has been obtained, a barrow load of rockweed is brought—rockweed, not seaweed. As soon as the rockweed is thrown on the red hot stones a salty, savory smelling steam begins to rise.