“That's a good tip for us,” I said, “and another good thing to take is cuddy biscuits, a kind of captain's biscuit. Soak them a few minutes in water or milk and fry them. They're nice with tomatoes or anything, or by themselves.”
“Mebbe,” said Felix, and his tone said, “Mebbe not.” “I'm only discussing general principles, and you've got to work your own way out in the light of them. I've known an outfit come away without a frying-pan. How do you make bread then?”
We had to give it up, and Felix went on: “Open your flour sack, turn down the edge like it is in a baker's shop, make a little hole in the flour and pour in water to make a pond. Mix in what flour you want to use and get your dough into the shape of a snake, wind it round a stick and cook it like that. You've got your bread then like a French roll, and very good it is.”
We all liked the idea of making bread every day and eating it hot. Here was something to be had in camp that you could not get at home. And we liked the idea of learning our cooking by means of first principles. Whether we liked it or not, Felix liked talking about it, and he began to grow anecdotal.
“Once,” he said, “I met a whole lot of men, ten of them I should think, camped on a cold frosty night with nothing to eat. They were trying to do a journey of thirty miles on rough prairie and their horses were tired and they could not get on. They had brought their lunch and eaten it long ago, and they told me they were starving. They had nothing to eat, nothing to do any cooking with and no wood to make a fire with. I never saw such hungry people. They were new settlers just out from England and it was up to me to do something for them.
“‘What have you got in that great waggon?’ I asked. They told me they had some sacks of flour and two frozen quarters of beef, but there was nothing to cook it in and no wood to make a fire.
“There was any amount of cow-dung on the prairie, and it was dry as chips. I set them collecting that and soon enough had a fire. I filled a bucket with water and put it on to boil. I chopped off some meat and put it in. Then I made some dumplings and put them in. You just put them into boiling water, you know, and then they cook at once on the outside and don't come to pieces. If they boil too much they get pappy, and if not done through they're not good. Most dumplings you eat in England are not done, but mine were just right and those ten hungry men had just as good a supper as anyone could wish for.”
“Tell us about the coffee you used to make,” said Sylvia. “What horrible stuff it must have been.”
“The very best coffee ever I drank,” said Felix.
“We used to make it in a pot that was nearly a yard high. We never turned out the grounds, but let them settle and put in a little more every time we made coffee, till the pot was so full that it wouldn't hold any more water.”