Clean the fish and cut up all except the heads and tails into small pieces, leaving out as many bones as possible. Cover the bottom of the pot with slices of fat salt pork; over that a layer of sliced raw potatoes; then a layer of chopped onions; then a layer of fish; on the fish a layer of crackers, first made tender by soaking in water or milk. Repeat the layers, except pork, till the pot is nearly full. Every layer must be seasoned with pepper and salt. Put in enough cold water to moisten the whole mass well, cover the pot closely, set over a gentle fire, and let it simmer an hour or so. Cook it till it is rather thick, then stir it gently, and it is ready to serve. Tomatoes may be added as a layer after the onions.
Clam Chowder
Can be made the same as Fish Chowder, using clams instead of fish, but a large party of sea-beach picnickers will probably prefer the regular
Orthodox Clam Chowder.
The first thing necessary is an out-door oven made with flat stones. Start a rousing fire in this and let it burn until every stone is hot all the way through. Then rake out the coals beneath, even to the faintest cinder, so that there will be no smoky taste to the chowder. Then put a couple of stout boughs across the open top of the oven, and cover them with fresh seaweed an inch or two thick. Spread the shelled clams on the seaweed, over them a layer of onions, then a layer of sweet or Irish potatoes, or both, then green corn, then the fish (cleaned and salted and mapped in a cloth, and either a bluefish or a cod, if extra-orthodox), then a lobster, either alive or boiled. Now cover the whole arrangement with a large cloth, and pile on seaweed till no steam escapes. When it has cooked half an hour or so let the company attack it en masse, uncovering it gradually as it is eaten, so as to retain the heat in it as long as possible. The stones should be extremely and thoroughly heated, or the chowder will be a failure, and the cinders should be cleaned out, the chowder put on, and the whole covered with great haste, so as not to give the stones a chance to cool.
CHAPTER IV.
Meats and Game.—Hash.—Pork and Beans.—Game Stew.—Brunswick Stew.—Roast Venison.—Baked Deer's Head.—Venison Sausages.—Stuffed Roasts of Game.—Woodchucks, Porcupines, 'Possums and Pigs.
Some good recipes for cooking meats and game, which are not given in Part I., are the following: