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If food is not plentiful or is likely to be limited

by season, it is important to ensure that stores keep safely

Micro organisms, such as mould, that spoils food, thrive in warm moist atmospheres. Deterioration can be delayed by keeping food in cold places such as caves or by water, but that is only a short-term measure.

More positive action MUST be taken to ensure long-term preservation. The main methods to use are drying, smoking, pickling and salting. Follow that order

Sugar preservers will not keep for very long unless you can vacuum-seal them, but will keep longer than as soft fruit & alcohol is an excellent preservative if you set up facilities to do it.

STORING CAUTION TO REMEMBER:

When you have taken time & trouble to preserve valuable foodstuffs, particularly in areas where food is scarce, take equal troubles in storing your food.

Do not store in direct sunlight, near excessive warmth or moisture, nor where scavenging animals may ruin it.

Wrap, where possible, in airtight & waterproof materials or store in containers such as birch-bark boxes with a good seal.

Label if you are storing several kinds of food and separate to AVOID cross-flavouring. Check occasionally to see that all is well.

DRYING FOOD:

Both wind and sun can dry food but, in most climates, it is easier to force dry food over a fire. Losing moisture shrinks size and weight, and concentrating on the nutritional value.

Many moulds can grow when there is as little as 16% moisture content, but few can grow on foods with 5% or less and these will be less vulnerable to maggots.

Pork, geese, seabirds and other meat with a high fat content are the most difficult to preserve. It is best to cut off most of the fat and rub salt into the flesh. Salt is good drying agent. Hang the salted meat in cool airy place.

TO KEEP MEAT FROM SPOILING ADD ON:

This applies to big game such as bear, moose, deer etc. Once the animal has been killed, skinned off, gutted out with all its blood well removed, no trace of blood in the interior part, use a dry cloth or dry hay to help you.

Now choose a tall tree, remove the lower branches for about 10 to 15 feet minimum from ground. Attach a rope at it peak, bent it down, attach the rope to the animal carcass that you want to preserve, then let the tree free to take back its natural position.

The meat will keep for a good period yet the predators will not be able to reach it, MAKE SURE it is far enough any cliff or close by tree as well.

How can this meat thus preserve? In the forest, a swarm of flies will jump on this piece of meat and through their action and that of the sun and wind.

It will form on this meat a crust up to 2" thick which will be a real protective blanket air-tight in a couple of hours only.

This meat is completely shut in and will keep up to 2 to 3 weeks in summer and winter many months.

When you want a piece of meat, take off with a good knife this casing blanket, and take the meat you need. After a while the flies will have reclosed the open part.

The next time you will choose another spot to take from until you have used it off. Of course there is a little lost but all in all it is better than loose the entire carcass.

FOOD PRESERVING CAGE:

You need a stream or some running water ways. You built a cage using big branches and smaller ones to weave some kind of basket which you immerse at least at 1/2 in water, use stones to weigh it down if need be and tie it up so it will not go away.

You also need to weave some kind of lid. In this cage you install a food box with opening at the top for air flow. Then you put in what you want.

MOSS FOOD PRESERVING:

This moss was repeated in Plant preserve at times some ways work for all others not, here we will keep only those pertaining to meat, those for plants/roots / fruits etc. go with their own as for fish.

Try to put the preserving which work for most into 1 block at or near top

The moss keeps humidity for a long time thus can be used to keep meat, fruits or vegetables. (NOT Fish! NO!)

Cover the food with this moss tightly pressed and put them in a damp box away from predators. Put a bed of that tightly press moss at the bottom of the box too.

WOOD CHARCOAL MEAT PRESERVING:

From your camp fire, gather the wood charcoal, the big coals that you let cool off, then once cold use it to preserve your food. All you have to do is to surround the food of a thick layer of wood charcoal dust and keep it in a dry place.

When you need the food, wash it in running water and your meat is as fresh as if you had just killed it. DON'T USE mine charcoal but wood charcoal

CLAY PRESERVING MEAT:

Same procedure as wood charcoal. Form balls of meat with a good over layer of clay that you dry in the fire, when you need it just break the clay or better, throw these balls in the hot embers.

When the clay balls start to break off, remove them from the fire, the meat is cooked, all you need is to add salt & pepper.

DON'T FORGET to remove the intestines before putting any wild meat in preserve, this is VERY IMPORTANT.

PRESERVING MEAT BY DRYING:

One of the easiest primitive way to preserve meat is done by cutting it into long thin strips & hanging them apart in the sun. (See #Biltong#?)

Whereupon they will loose most of their water content & become dry & hard, black and surprisingly sustaining & delicious.

Cut off the fatty portions, slice the meat into strips no thicker than 1/2 inch no wider than 1 inch. You can thread these strips to a wire or cane but no pieces of meat touch another.

THERE MUST BE FREE AIR CIRCULATION AROUND EACH PIECE.

The strips can be soaked first if one wants in brine or sea water. One method is to boil down ocean water until it becomes EXTREMELY salty & while it is still simmering to dip the strips in this.

If no place handy to hang the meat, it can be laid on sun-heated rocks & turned every hour or so.

DRYING NOTES:

Big meat chunks can be suspended high up in the trees, above the flies level zone, meaning the zone that has air flow circulation where the flies don't go, since they fly low.

With this method the meat will dry by forming an air tight crust which will protect the interior meat.

But be sure that the meat thus suspended don't touch the other chunk of meat, otherwise it will spoil on contact points. The sun and wind will dry it. When doing this drying MAKE SURE you start on a hot dry day.

Meat and fish can be dried when sliced in "filet" is spread over birch flat pieces or even upon flat stones to dry with sun and wind.

It is done only when weather is clear and sunny, the meat is sliced 5" long, 2" wide and 1/4 inch thick or thinner. But do not cut in the sense of the fibres or it will be tough.

3 WARNINGS!

FOOD WOOD DRYING SMOKING METHODS:

NEVER USE EVERGREEN WOOD, they will be total lost because, Evergreen gives oily smoke which makes it unfit to eat even poisonous.

NEVER USE GREEN LEAVES EITHER NEVER USE EVERGREEN AS STICK, SLABS OR FOR SMOKING:

Green-wood use is evidently BEST for the wet green hardwood that grows besides streams is in general a particularly functional choice being even less prone to burn.

Birch does burn readily when green but if care is taken it gives a very highly rewarding and delicate sweet aroma.

A slab or a flat rock as well can also be heated & used as a hot plate. NEVER use flat rock from in or near water, they could explode.

SMOKING METHOD # 1 VERY FAST!:

In the ground dig a hole 1m deep on 1/2m wide, at the bottom of which you make a small fire which you cover over with green wood branches, but Not Evergreen.

About 75cm above the fire, used an improvised grill. After 1 night of smoking the meat will keep for 5 to 7 days.

After 2 nights the meat will keep for more than 1 month. When properly smoked the meat takes the form of a stick twisted and dark colour.

SMOKE DRYING #2:

Smoking both dehydrates meat & coats it with a protection layer, like vanishing its surface.

The inside is dry so no condensation takes place and the outside is sealed against bacteria. Smoking can be best done in a smoke house or a smoke tepee.

SMOKE TEPEE:

Drive 3 sticks into the ground to form a triangle and tie the tops together. Build a platform between them and get a fire going beneath.

SMOKE HOUSE:

As an alternative to the tepee make a square frame of uprights (a) and crosspiece supporting a smoking platform with the fire beneath & used in exactly the same was as the tepee.

In both cases meats should be cut into lean-fat-free strips and fish gutted and filleted.

The strips can be any length but should only be about 2.5cm (1in) wide & 6mm (1/4in) thick.

SMOKING METHOD #?:

Get a fire going to produce a pile of hot embers. Have a pile of Green leaves ready. Leaves from hardwood trees are excellent, especially oak.

But AVOID holly and other toxic leaves and conifers (Evergreen) which tend to be resinous & may burst into flame.

Do not use grass. Some leaves will give meat an individual flavour; pimento leaves are particularly distinctive.

MAKE SURE that there are no flames left in the fire and pile the leaves over the embers.

Cover the whole structure with a cloth to keep in the smoke. If you do not have a suitable material have boughs and turfs ready to pile rapidly on the frame and seal it. Leave the structure sealed for 18 hours ensuring that little or no smoke escapes.

If the embers in a smoke tepee burst into flame, there is a risk that the whole structure may catch alight.

This can be avoided by building a fire in a chamber in a bank p149 with the tepee erected over the chimney.

This also makes it possible to tend the fire and to ensure a more extensive supply of smoke, which will be cooler than from a fire directly underneath. The food will dry slowly & become coated with smoke without being cooked

SMOKED MEAT OR FISH:

1) Lay the thin fat-less slice about 1/4" thick on a lattice-work of green wood, NEVER Evergreen, installed 3 to 4 feet above a slow fire.

2) Best smoking woods are: Birch, #Aulne, Verne# or Alder, Willow, Poplar.

3) Dry-hut shape as A wigwam is best to give much smoke.

4) AVOID to make too much heat or smoke, the heat MUST NOT cook the meat, or melt the juices. A well dug in river bank or slope permits to install the fire at good distance & to have a cooler smoke.

5) Smoke till meats dry. Meat or fish can then be eaten by cooking when ready or Raw smoked state. AVOID to eat Raw fresh water fish, because of germs.

BILTONG:

This is a sun-dried meat. Biltong is the Afrikaans name, it is also known as jerky from the N. American Indian Charqui.

It does not keep as efficiently as smoked meat and should be used only when smoking is not practicable.

Cut strips, as for smoking, & hang them up in the sun. MAKE SURE that they are out of the reach of animals and about 2-3m (6-10ft) from the ground.

It may take 2 weeks for meat to dry & all this time it MUST be kept dry, so protection from rain MUST be provided.

The strips MUST be turned, to MAKE SURE that all surfaces are thoroughly dried, and, initially at least flies MUST be kept off so that they do not lay eggs on the meat.

JERKY MEAT: (Not Jerry meat)

It is meat cut in strips and dried over a fire or in the sun. Cut the lean fresh red meat in long wide strips about 1/2 inch thick, hang these on a wood framework about 4 to 6 feet of the ground.

Under the rack build a small slow smoky fire of any NON-RESINOUS wood. Let the meat dry in the sun and wind. Cover it at night or in rain. It should dry in several days, a day or an hour depending how much meat is to be dried.

REMEMBER ONCE AGAIN:

Not to try and build a smoky fire by piling on green leaves or wet rubbish other it will be total loss.

Many an inexperienced meat drier has ruined his meat by making a fire of green leaves which became saturated with oil leaves.

SMOKE ALONE IS SUFFICIENT:

The fire should not be enough to cook the meat at all. Its chief use being to keep flies away from it. When jerked the meat will be hard and more or less black outside and:

It will keep almost indefinitely IF it is kept away from dampness & flies.

It is best eaten as it is. Just bite off a chunk & chew. Eaten thus is quite tasty. It can also be cooked in stews.

It is very concentrated and nourishing and goes a long way as emergency ration, but alone it still needs fat if for a long journey.

The fat which will turn rancid should be trimmed off before the drying operation starts.

A conservative method is to melt the fat, either for later use as a food supplement or for immediate use in the manufacture of Pemmican.

Dried meat as opposed to Pemmican MUST be packed in an open weave bag.

DON'T wrap or pack it in cellophane or plastic, otherwise the meat will sweat and mildew.

GOOD SAFE KEEPING:

Sun-dried or smoked meat will keep indefinitely and retains its original nutritive food value.

You can cook it in stew, as broth or eat it Raw. If Well Smoked it is Very Good Raw. When using in a stew, it's advisable to soak it for an hour or 2.

PEMMICAN #?:

To make it, you start with jerky and shred it by pounding, then take a lot of Raw animal fat, cut it into small pieces about the size of walnuts and try these out in a pan over a slow fire not letting the grease boil up.

When the grease is all out of lumps, discard these and pour the hot fat over the shredded jerky mixing the two together until you have about the consistency of sausage. Then pack the Pemmican in waterproof bags, the Indians used skin bags.

The ideal proportion of lean and fat in pemmican is by weight approximately 1/2 well dry lean meat to 1/2 melted fat.

It takes about 5 pounds of fresh lean meat to make 1 pound of dry meat suitable for Pemmican.

It contains all ESSENTIAL minerals and vitamins except vitamin C.

You just supplement this Pemmican with fresh food to supply your need for Vitamin C. If in good health, you can go about 2 months without Vitamin C.

PEMMICAN #?:

This is a nutritious concentrated food made from BILTONG excellent for provisions to carry with You if you decide it is time to trek to safety.

You need an equal quantity, by weight, of BILTONG and of rendered fat. Shred and pound the meat.

Melt the animal fat over a slow fire, without allowing it to boil. Pour the fat over the shredded BILTONG and mix them well together.

When cold pack the mixture in waterproof bag. It will keep for a long time, especially in colder climates.

PEMMICAN:

MAKE SURE that the meat is cut into thin slices and Without grease, then hangs into the sun and air, it will dry nicely.

MAKE SURE that the flies are kept off it as much as possible. Once it is dried it keeps a long time and breaks off like biscuit.

PICKLING MEAT:

The meat is cut into small joints or pieces of about 1/2 pound each and put into a strong solution of salt water (brine) .

Pickled meat will keep it indefinitely in the brine. When ready to eat it don't forget it to part boil it before eating it, throw away the first water then finish the boiling with another fresh water.

PICKLING NOTE: (Marinade)

Whatever is the game, you MUST NOT let it marinade more than 48 hours. Most often a few hours are sufficient. NEVER use vinegar.

The best marinade is not the one you buy under some fancy name, they are not worth zip, best to do your own: 1 1/2 glass of wine & 1/2 glass of oil.

Please use a good wine, for you can't give what you don't have, and a bad or cheap wine gives bad marinade. Add to it the usual spices or your own mixture.

PICKLING & SALTING:

Citric acid obtained from wild limes and lemons can be used to pickle fish and meat. Dilute 2 parts of fruit juice with one of water, mix well and soak flesh in this for at least 12 hours.

Now transfer it to a covered, and preferably an airtight container and with sufficient solution to cover all the meat.

Vegetables with a high water content are difficult to preserve. (Note that when buried in clean sand, in a dry place, they tend to keep well for a long time).

Pickling is best for them if no sand available. Alternatively, if salt is more easily available than citrus fruits, they can be boiled and then kept in brine (salt water). Boiling kills off bacteria & the brine keeps fresh bacteria away from the food.

The usual way of MAKING SURE that a brine solution is sufficiently strong is to add salt until a potato will float in it.

Instead of a potato try a small fruit or root vegetable which fail to float in salt-free water (not apples they float too easily).

ANOTHER METHOD:

Another method of using salt is to pack tightly layers of salt and vegetables such as beans and peas, thoroughly washing off the salt when you need to use them.

DESERT MEAT DRYING:

Many starving desert travellers have waited for game at a water hole, killed it and often swallowed the meat Raw. One party lived for 6 days on Raw gazelle meat.

You might think that the meat of any dead animal might go bad at once. But the desert great dryness stops the process of decomposition.

The Bedouins exploit this fact by cutting game up into strips then wiping the meat dry, then burying it 6" to 8" in the sand.

There it shrinks in a kind of cured meat which keeps up to 3 years, to make it EDIBLE you simply soak it in water.

BACKWOODS FOOD KEEPER:

Some hunters have a remarkable success to keep their food by simply digging a hole about 3 feet deep in the earth into which they put their food but when you do this beware of the scavengers who smelling the food will try to steal it of you.

ARCTIC FOOD KEEPING RECIPE:

Make a thick lard soup using beans & rice, once cooked lay it on a board outside where it will freeze instantly.

Now using a hammer break it into pieces and put it in a bag and let it sit outside till ready to go. Once you have gone on a trip & have made your igloo just warm up one of those chunks, meal served!

FROZEN MEAT:

In winter meat is kept easily frozen and out of reach of animals. Yet REMEMBER that meat will spoil if frozen after thawed especially if you do it more than once.

To AVOID this, before freezing the meat, cut the meat for one serving or 2 at the time thus you will AVOID spoiling or lost.

Eskimos when they want to thaw their meat, they put the frozen chunks in their water hole, since this water is running and the hole kept free from icing the meat thaws fast enough for them to start their cooking.

CAMP LARDER:

It is simply a platform roofed over with thatch and with the sides thatched so that it is dark and cool inside. Darkness will help to keep flies away, coolness to keep food from spoiling.

An excellent improvement to a camp larder is a water tin suspended above the thatch with a few pieces of cotton rags to siphon water on to a thatched roof. This is almost a camp refrigerator.

The temperature inside such a larder if built in a shady position and with good breeze will be safely 20 to 40 degrees below the shade temperature outside.

OTHER METHOD OF STORING FOOD:

It includes placing it in a hollow log wedged in the crotch of a tree or suspending it from a bough or making a platform and suspending this from a branch in a shady position.

ANTS PEST OFF:

If ants are a pest, suspending the platform is one of the best way to keep them away. If they find the cord you can prevent them from travelling along to your food by tying a kerosene-soaked rag around the cord.

HIDING FOOD FROM ANIMALS:

The best way is to suspend the meat to rope between 2 trees. About 10 to 15' above ground, and far from cliff, slope or near by trees which an animal would use to jump from.

To protect it from birds you can cover it but the envelope MUST be loose to let the air circulate, so attach the envelope to the rope itself forming a sort of parachute, tee-pee, around the meat.

TO KEEP FOOD FRESH IN SUMMER:

The small quantities that you want to keep for a day or 2 MUST remain as fresh as possible. If you have a waterproof container just sink it under water in a shady place.

If it is too light just add a few stones to weigh it down. Or dig a hole and after placing your container of food, cover it over with damp soil in a shadow place.

METHOD #2:

To dig a hole on the water shore or ridge and then to block the entrance with a big ball of earth.

You can also replace this mud ball by a very thick cloth which you imbibe (soak) with water each morning. During the day the evaporation will freshen the cavity behind the cloth curtain.

REMEMBER that your container of wood, metal or plastic in those cases MUST have a few holes, for air ventilation, otherwise if too damp the meat will spoil, the container is used to protect it from animals.

Don't throw meat being mouldy or MUSTy, just scrape of the mouldy part or cut it off and cook the rest of food as usual. Yet I would be very careful in Tropics to do that, and NEVER with fish.

MAGGOTS ON MEAT = SAFE!:

Meat which has got maggot is also safe to eat, just remove them and cook it as usual. Maggot is NO danger signal. In fact you can even eat them safely!

COOKING IN CLAY: 2put-1blok

Wrapping food in clay is a method that requires no utensils and offers a tasty alternative even when you have them.

After wrapping in a ball of clay, food is placed in the embers of a fire. The heat radiates through the clay which protects the food so that it does not scorch or burn.

Animals MUST be cleaned and gutted first but need not be otherwise prepared. When the clay is removed a hedgehog's spine or fish's scales will remain embedded in it.

With small birds the clay does your plucking for you-but feathers provide insulation and may prevent a big bird from being properly cooked.

ROOT & VEGETABLE: WARNING!

Cooking Root & Vegetables in this way will remove their skins losing important food value.

COOKING IN FAT:

Meat can preserved up to 5 to 6 days in summer by preliminary cooking in fat and then allowing the meat to remain in the fat in which it was cooked.

The heat of cooking sterilizes the meat and the fat seals the meat safely away from spoiling. This is a convenient method when meat needs to be kept for a short period.

PINOLE EMERGENCY SURVIVAL FOOD: (H.Tregellas.)

Spread a pint of dry sweet corn in hot oven about 350F. which will perch the corn without burning it.

When the corn is mild brown all over sprinkle 2 tbs. of brown sugar evenly over the top and heat again until the sugar begins to melt.

Cool the mixture and grind in a food grinder until fine. Place it in a plastic bag which is then placed in a cotton bag. In emergency place 2 tbs. of this mix in the mouth and wash it down with water.

Supplemented with a handful or 2 of wild fruit, this will keep one going all day. A pound bag of this mix supplemented with fruit, fish or plants will keep one going for several weeks in a pinch.

A pound bag alone will sustain one for a week. To render Pinole more appetising add to the mixture a spoonful of powdered milk and an equal amount of powdered chocolate.

ROCKHOMINY: (CORN)

(NOT ROCK HOME MINI?)

American Indians sustain themselves on the move against calvary troop expeditions for months at the time on this ground corn. (Not pop-corn.)

Early settlers used it as a bread substitute on their long journeys across plains and over snow-covered mountain keeping their pack loads to a minimum with this basic food supply.

It is hard to beat for lightweight, easy to prepare yet filling means of meeting dietary needs on the trail. A mouthful with water or eaten dry will give a comfortable full feeling between meals.

For a hot meal it can be used to make a thick hot mush which will release its energy gradually and help you along. You can add to it, whatever you find in the bush as supplement.

The corn kernels are toasted in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes till they are the colour of crisp bacon. Allowed to cool then crushed small enough to swallow but not ground to dust.

Parching the corn in the oven bakes out the replaceable water thus removing the excess weight and pre-cooks the corn to give it a nut like flavour.

The drying effect of the heat acts as a preservative so there is no need for special storing precautions.

COOKING FISH/ MEAT WITHOUT

UTENSILS:

Even without your frying pan you can cook. Actually the too often sanctified skillet particularly with grease is one of the deadlier weapons which the wilderness is affected.

Of course a few cooking utensils make the job easier but not really necessary. REMEMBER your last BBQ at home. A fat red sirloin which is forked on a green stick can be broiled over the embers of a campfire.

A fish or meat can be wrapped with onions or wild herbs into a tin foil then put into embers of campfire, for 10 minutes. Deliciousss even delirious! Don't forget to pierce a few holes in the tin foil Before trusting it to the fire, in order to let the steam escape.

Titbits of meat skewered on a green wand, thrust briefly into licking flames to seal in the juices & then cook not too near the steady heat of glowing coals are deliciousss!

You can also place a flat stone in the fire and get it nearly red hot. This hot flat stone should be removed from the fire and dusted clean.

Place the meat to be cooked on it, and the meat will grill perfectly. You can also pierce the meat or fish with wood pegs on a split log and place it upward close to fire.

BOILING / BAKING WITHOUT UTENSILS:

In emergency you may want to boil water or cook food in boiling water without utensils.

This difficulty can be overcome by scooping a shallow hole in the ground and lining it with your ground-sheet, some newspaper, a shirt or any material which will hold water.

Build a quick fire of small sticks in which to heat 20 or 30 small stones each about 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Yet REMEMBER NEVER to use stones from creek, they will explode.

Then fill the shallow hole with water and when the stones are nearly red hot, which will take at least 10 minutes, lift them one at a time from the fire with a pair of fire tongs and gently put them into the water in the hole.

The hot water will not burn the paper or cloth and 5 or 6 stones will bring a couple of quarts of water to boiling point in 2 or 3 minutes.

Boiling temperature can be maintained for an indefinite period by putting other stone singly and removing the cold stones when putting hot ones in.

BAKING OVEN # 1:

Can be done by making a sort of oven in which you light the fire and when the stones are "sizzling" hot, draw the fire out of the oven and place your meat etc. in the heated cavity.

IT WILL COOK PERFECTLY AND CAN NOT BURN BECAUSE TEMPERATURE FALLS ALL TIME!

An oil drum or large tin if available can be made into a good oven. Coat it thickly with several inches of clay.

Build your fire in the drum or tin which is used like the stone oven or set the tin over a trench fireplace & build one fire in the trench and another one on top of the tin.

BAKING OVEN # 2:

Another ready-made oven is to fire a hollow log or old stump. When the hollow is alight place your cooking (covered on top & underneath) inside.

But you will have to watch your food cooking all the time because the fire may be too fierce and burn the baking. If too fierce a fire, damp it off with splashes of water.

THE BEST BAKING IS DONE:

By wrapping the food in either a coating of clay or damp paper and then burying it in the hot dust beneath your camp fire.

Food can be left for 6 to 8 hours without spoiling if the fire is not built up. The food will not overcook and will be tender.

THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO COOK FRESH KILLED MEAT WHICH OTHERWISE WOULD BE TOO TOUGH.

OTHER ADVANTAGES TIME SAVER:

When cooking fish & game by this method it is not necessary to pluck, skin or draw the carcass.

The intestines will shrivel up and the outer skin whether fur or feathers will peel off when you unwrap the clay or paper.

BAKING OVEN # 3:

A variation of this method is to dig a hole which is lined with stones. This hole is fired with a quick fire so that the stone are thoroughly heated.

When the fire has died down & there is only hot white ashes left, the food wrapped in clay or mud is placed on the heated stones, and then the whole covered over with the dirt removed in the digging of the hole.

In this as the previous method, the food will not be spoiled or be burnt and can be left for 7 to 8 hours.

BRAZING:

Dig a hole in form of a shallow basin, carpet it with stones. Upon these stones place a bed of embers and on those place your food wrapped in mud or clay.

With this method you can cook fish, meat or tubercles, roots, yams etc., yet for the meat you MUST cut it in small pieces size of rabbit leg.

On the food you then add more hot embers then cover the hole with a few inches of soil. Let it cook for an hour or more if need be.

It is not absolutely needed to carpet or line the hole with stones but if you do the food cooks faster and more uniform.

You choose your method according to your need, but in a standing camp time is well spent in making a good fireplace secure against wind and bad weather.

EGG:

An egg can be baked by placing it in the hot ashes of your fire. But first you MUST pierce the shell and inside the skin to allow the steam to escape, otherwise the egg will blow up.

BROILING ON A STICK:

A fish, bird, or small animal (no elephants) can be cleaned & then impaled in whatever may be most convenient on a green hard wood stick.

The top of the stick itself can be split & reinforced if necessary at either or both ends of the cleft by its own twisted and tied bark camped over the food.

Many of us prefer to sear the meat by shoving it momentarily into the blaze & then hold it over a bed of embers, scraping a few to one side of the fire if flames are too hot.

For the prime success of such campfire cooking to be most successful is to cook unhurriedly with the uniform hotness of hardwood coals. Rush = waste!)

If we have other matters to attend before eating, you can lay the spit between 2 crotched uprights, prop it over a stone or merely push one end into the ground, thereafter pausing only to examine & occasionally to turn the meat until ready.

STEAMING IN HOLE:

The hole is scooped out of the sand. A fire MUST be already blazing and in it heating a few (DRY) stones.

Shove the stones into the hole, press a thick layer of some wet greens growth such as seaweed or damp grass over them, lay on the food, add an upper sheathing of similar damp vegetation & then fill the rest of the hole with sand or loam.

Open enough of an inlet with a stick to allow some additional water to be poured on the rocks & then stamp the topping down compactly.

The food can then be left safely to steam until you are ready for it, the length of the cooking process depending of many things (size of rocks, hole, pieces of meat or fish) at least several hours.

It won't burn! Because the heat decreases in this slow cooker dear Jane!

BAKING IN CLAY:

Small individuals ovens can be made by covering a fish, a bird or a small animal with stiff moist clay about an inch thick.

This clay can be worked into a sheet on the ground & then shaped around the food like dough or the article may be dipped and re-dipped as often as necessary in a thinner mixture.

Most of us will want to remove entrails first but no scaling, plucking or skinning should be done, for this will be done in a single operation when we break open & strip off the hard adobe made by laying the whole thing in hot ashes above which a fire is burning.

Time required for cooking depends on one's taste. A half hour beneath ashes & embers readies a one pound trout to my taste.

At any rate when done it will be ready to serve with all the juices sealed in, an often pleasant relief after the dryness unnecessarily associated with outdoor cookery.

OVEN IN CLAY BANK:

If you are to be in a place for a long enough time to merit the effort, you may decide to make an oven in a clay slope or bank.

You start by hammering a sharpened pole about as thick as the forearm, straight down into the bank about 3 feet back from the edge.

Then a foot or so down the side of the bank far enough to allow a sturdy ceiling let us scoop out the size oven you want. A usual way is to shape it like a beehive with a narrow entrance.

We will dig back as far as the pole of course which we'll then pull out to form a chimney. We can give the interior a hard coating by smoothing and re-smoothing it with wet hands.

A small blaze can then be lighted within to harden this lining. It is very possible that you will be able to find an old burrow to serve as the basis for such an invention.

METHOD #2??:

Construct a rough form of arched green sticks & daub the wet clay in thick layer over this.

These successive layers may be allowed to dry in the sun or each succeeding process can be quickened by small fires lit within.

Baking in such oven is simplicity itself. The oven is preheated by a fire kindled inside. Fire and ashes are then scraped out.

The food is then laid within on stones or leaves or whatever may be handy. Both exits opening are tightly closed. One then goes about other business, the meal will cook without further care.

COOKING IN ASHES:

(Dust 2 Dust & Ashes 2 Ashes?!?)

Many of us have roasted vegetables in the ashes of a campfire by merely dropping or shoving them out of sight or baring a heated bit of ground where the vegetable could be deposited and warm ashes & finally embers pushed over them.

Timing then is a cooking experimentation. Bread stuff is also baked in this fashion with surprising cleanliness.

First rolling them a little more heavily then usually in flour. Note that the white of hardwood ashes can replace in equal quantities for baking soda.

BBQ:

If having enough fat meat to warrant the sacrifice of some nutriment in exchange for the psychological stimulus of BBQ one may want to allow a hardwood blaze to crumble to embers in a pit, over which green poles can then be spread & slabs of meat laid on.

These chunks MUST be turned after a minute or 2 to sear in the juice which will be further guarded if during the subsequent handling the meat is not cut nor pierced.

FLAVOUR WILL BE BETTER IF any flames that lick up from time to time are IMMEDIATELY STOP.

NATURAL CONTAINERS:

Using a stone with a hollow in it, if the stone is small enough built a fire around it, if big why not preheat it by lighting the fire inside the hollow.

If you have a container in which you can not put in a fire, then light a fire in which you have put some stones.

Then when it's hot, put a few clean pebbles into your container to serve as base, then drop those hot stones into your container which was filled up first with your liquid.

MAKING A SOUP HOLE:

You just killed a moose and want some hot soup? Scoop a hole using a dead limb or sharp stick, line this hole with a chunk of fresh hide, then after adding the water & other ingredients just drop a few clean hot stones do your cooking while you finish doing the dressing out of the animal.

HOW TO BEAT BLOW-FLIES:

Meat can be protected from the big-egg-laying Blow-Flies by keeping it in a dark cold place such as dry cave or by hanging it clear of foliage upward of 4 yards (4 meters) above the ground.

And to some extend by suspending fresh chunks in the smoke of a small hard-wood fire until a protective casing is done.

THIRST:

If the truth of the matter is that a healthy human being can get along entirely without food for a month or 2 under favourable conditions, yet this is very different if he is without water for much more than a week.

Water that is very muddy, dirty or stagnant; can be clarified and sterilized & made quite safe to drink by filtering and boiling with hot stones.

WATER FILTER!:

A good filter can be made from a pair of drill trousers with one leg turned inside out and put inside the other leg.

The cuff is tied and the upper part held open by 3 stakes driven well into the ground. Fill with dirty water & then drop in the hot stones.

The water will be filter through and MUST be caught either in a billy or bark dish and poured back until the dirt has been filtered out and the water is boiling.

BARK DISH OR COOLAMIN:

One method of improvising a cooking utensil is to make a bark dish or Aboriginal Coolamin.

A flat piece of bark of a species that will not split easily. The bark of many trees has this quality ex: Birch, Fig tree etc.

Test first by stripping a small piece of bark from one of the branches is softened in the hands and then the 2 ends are folded and pinned with a thin sharpened peg or tied to hold them in position.

A Coolamin can be used for all sorts of cooking with hot stones. It is necessary to use the bark of green trees for a Coolamin.

If the sap is coloured especially if it is white or whitish and you can not be sure it is "latex or rubber" be EXTREMELY careful not to get it in your eyes. Many saps can burn your skin or blind you temporarily.

COOKING:

When food is heated it loses nutritional value-the more the heat the greater the loss-so nothing should be cooked longer than is necessary to make it EDIBLE unless it is suspect and being cooked to kill germs, parasite or to neutralize poisons.

Boiling vegetables destroys their vitamins "C" content & roasting meat removes its all important fat, but we are used to eating our food cooked & a hot meal is unsurpassed for raising morale.

It would take great discipline to eat many things raw that you had not previously considered food, but a frog, grubs, or rats do not seem to be bad once cooked.

Cooking not only makes many foods more appetising to taste, see and smell, it softens the muscle fibres in meat, makes protein more easy to digest and most important it destroys bacteria and parasites that may be present.

If the ground is lush, animals foods are more likely to carry parasites. Pigs especially, carry worms and flukes. Thorough boiling will destroy them, though at the loss of food value.

Some foods MUST NEVER be eaten Raw; nettles and several other plants, for instance-but should ALWAYS be cooked to neutralize harmful substances which they contain.

Your particular situation will determine whether to cook or not. If you cannot face eating something Raw or if food is plentiful but limited in type, cook it to make it more EDIBLE.

Relieve boredom by varying "cook-King" instructions. Cooking methods will depend upon the foodstuff & the facilities you have or can create. Type of fire, utensils support and cooking method MUST all be matched.

COOKING REQUIRES A SLOW HEAT:

Use the flame of a fire to boil water then let the fierce flames die down & use embers & hot ash for cooking.

REMEMBER:

NEVER leave your fire unattended when cooking! You cannot afford to ruin food.

Once having lit a fire, ALWAYS have something boiling on it, unless wood or water is in short supply for hot water is ALWAYS an asset.

Hot drinks are ALWAYS cheering & you will find a multitude of uses from sterilizing wounds; to making poultry plucking easier.

Do NOT just balance a can on the fire. If it tips over you could put your fire out, quite apart from losing its contents. Support vessels on firm rocks or suspend them over the fire.

COOKING ALL MEATS IN ASHES:

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT MEANS OF COOKING ALL MEATS.

Freshly killed wild duck, pigeons and all fresh meat are tough. If cooked IN the ashes for 10 to 12 hours the meat however tough will be tender. (Tend-Her good Cook-King!)

The meat can not burn because ashes temperature falls all time. This is an excellent way to cook large fish in camp.

NORWEGIAN POT: (Not the smoking kind!)

THERE IS NO BETTER WAY TO COOK MEAT & FRUITS OF ALL KIND AS WELL!

Those methods might or could or should go at the top of cooking because being so good for all types or rpt

Using this hay box you can cook, chicken, lard, beef, fish, vegetables, fruits.

Hay is a bad heat conductor so, when you put a container filled with boiling stew or soup etc. into a box filled with hay & that you make it as air tight as possible using more hay.

The heat comes off so slowly that the food keeps on cooking in the best of conditions, that is very slowwwly.

So that you don't have to keep checking all the time your food, so after a few hours in the bush you come to camp & all is ready to eat.

IT NEVER BURNS FOOD. It can only be used for food that need no roasting or grill.

THE ADVANTAGES:

Finish the cooking without fire and supervision and you need only 1/2 hour to 1 hour of cooking for any kind of meat even the toughest one, the rest is done by the box.

NOTHING IS LOST:

IT SAVES FUEL, KEEPS ALL FLAVOUR TO THE FOOD, NO EVAPORATION.

The heat keeps 12 to 18 hours, you can cook the night before & without any surveillance.

Take a wood or steel box not too small, put at the bottom 7 or 8 layers of newspaper, take a cardboard etc. and put one half in the centre of the box, thus 2 compartments. Take some hay and make a tight mattress at the bottom of the box in the 2 compartments.

It is important that the hay be as tight as possible and both compartments be well filled of hay.

Keep centre free for your pot in order to have place to put it in the hay box, if possible wrap the pot with newspaper before placing it in the hay box, then once the pot is in the hay box, fill the room left tightly with more hay.

The cooking pot MUST have well-adjusted lid and no air space between the cushion and the pot lid.

The hay doesn't have to be changed often, with time it shrinks a bit so you just have to add a little more

Once the meal is boiling, put the your pot quickly into the hay box, after having made a hole in the middle with your hand.

Cover the pot with a top cushion made from cloth which you have filled with hay. Then compress the whole thing with heavy stones or bricks. The hay box can not take fire, don't worry!

Since often time you can't be checking your food all the time then it is a good way to rid yourself of this task. Keep the hay box in your tent.

A good stew partly cooked & put early in the hay box will keep on cooking and be ready for you after several hours of snaring, fishing or searching.

There is no better way to cook meat & fruits of all kind as well; using this hay box you can cook, chicken, lard, beef, fish, vegetables, fruits & NOTHING IS LOST.

It will cook meat but you will have to give the meat a good start as well as for the stew that would need 45 min on the fire before being placed for 3 hours in the hay box, for purrrfect cooking.

One way to calculate the timing, check how much time it would take for normal cooking, then you divide the operation in two.

The second part is when you put it into the hay box, you add a little more time for the cooking is slow in the hay box. As for lard, leave it all night to be ready for the morning.

If you get back late or forget the cooking for a few hours. It won't burn and will be hot and ready.

Here are some meals that can be cooked that way; boiled chicken, lard, beef, fish, lamb, stew, rice, vegetables & fruits.

Don't worry from any overcooking it won't happen, the longer = better. This auto-cooker saves fuel, food value time & effort / money.

If no hay, you can use, wool, cotton, clay or any isolation material. You can make a smaller box for 1 pot, we showed you 2.

HERE IS SOME COOKING TIME FOR SOME FOOD:

MEAT: 1/2 time cooking & 4 to 6 hours in hay box.

DRY VEGETABLE:

Soak them the night before, boil them for 30 minutes & 3 to 4 hours in hay-box.

FRESH FRUITS: Put them to boil then straight in box 1 to 2 hours.

DRY FRUITS: Soak them the night before, make them boil & once boiling straight in box for 3 to 5 hours.

OATS: Boil 5 min then in box all night.

SOUP: Boil 15 min then 6 hours in the box.

BOILING:

Cooking in boiling water requires a container. Tin cans and metal boxes are ideal. Make a handle, hang them from a pot support or use pot tongs to take them on & off the fire.

Punctures holes in pots can be repaired by hammering in small plugs of wood- when wet they will expand and stop leaks. If no metal containers are available, a thick length of bamboo holds liquids well.

Containers can also be made from birch bark but BE CAREFUL that they do not boil dry.

To cook in a bamboo stem, angle it across the heat of the fire, supporting it on a forked stick driven into the ground.

Although boiling does destroy some food elements it conserves the natural juices and retains all the fat -provided that you drink all the liquid as well as eat the remaining solids.

Each time you throw away cooking water you lose valuable nutrients, though you will have to discard it, if boiling out toxic substances.

Boiling will make tough and stringy roots and old game softer and more EDIBLE. It will kill worms and flukes and can even make spoiled meat fit to eat.

If you frighten a feeding animal from its kill, you can eat the remaining meat provided that you cut the meat up and boil it for at least 30 minutes.

If desperate for food any dead animals that are not actually decomposing can be risked if you use only the large muscle areas. Cut them into 2.5cm (1in) cubes and boil briskly for at least 30 minutes

Eat only a little, then wait for half an hour to see if there are any ill effects-most toxins affect the digestive system in that time or less.

If there are no ill effects tuck in. Part boiling vegetables that you intend to cook by other means will speed up cooking times.

COOKING TIPS 1:

THE BEST WAY TO PREPARE MEAT FOR EATING IS; TO MAKE IT BOIL, EASY METHOD AND IT ALSO USES LESS FUEL THAN OTHERS.

If you also drink the broth you obtain all the nutritive value as well. Thus with a small quantity of meat you can feed many people and no loss.

To be sure the meat is all well cooked you MUST cut all the pieces in same size.

Cooking in a frying pan you loose a good part of nutritive value and you also use much more fuel. This is important when up North where the fuel is scarce.

Cooking on spit, broiled or roasted, give tasty flavour but GREAT LOSS in nutritive value & the meat sizes diminish enormously.

You can AVOID this lost partly by placing the meat very close to fire at the start to form a crust which will retain the juice then by suspending the meat at one end of the fire and placing a plate underneath to gather the juice coming off.

COOKING TIPS 2:

Before roasting or broiling any meat bigger than your house cat; boil it first. Also you MUST broil the meat as fast as possible because on a slow fire, it would get leather tough.

Big animals MUST be cut in smaller pieces first. When the meat is too tough, stew it with vegetables.

When you cook meat in oven or broiled use the fat of the animal if possible, put it on the meat, the heat will melt it all over. Yet REMEMBER; DON'T WASTE FAT!

COOKING TIP #3:

REMEMBER that the best way to prepare the meat is to stew it and it takes less fuel & there is very little loss meat or value wise and with a small quantity of meat you can feed many persons.

COOKING TIP #4:

REMEMBER that Beaver, Bear, Porcupine etc. have better taste when their fat is off, and the meat is boiled before being roasted or put in stew.

MAKE SURE not to waste the fat. The muskrat gland MUST be removed before cooking to give better taste.

COOKING TIPS #5:

ALWAYS boil carrion eaters in case they carry any disease. Boiling will make stringy old birds tender but you can roast younger ones on a spit or in an oven.

ROASTING:

Roasted meat cooks in its own fat. The easiest method is to skewer the meat on a spit and turn it over the hot embers of a fire or beside a blazing fire where it is hot enough to cook. Continually turning the meat keeps the fat moving over the surface.

2 DISADVANTAGES:

Roasting makes a very tasty dish but has two disadvantages. Valuable fat is lost unless a dip tray is placed beneath the spit. Regularly baste the meat with fat from the tray.

Roasting by a fierce fire can cook and seal the outside, the inner flesh remaining undercooked, leaving harmful bacteria STILL Alive.

A slow roast is MUCH preferable and if cooking continues after the outer meat has been cut off the inner flesh can go on cooking. The fire should be slightly to one side of food to allow for a drip tray to catch valuable fat.

COOKING TIPS #6 MEAT:

Meat is best cut into small cubes and boiled. Pork is particularly suspect in hot climates. Will pig is usually infested with worms and liver fluke. Venison is also prone to worms.

Put excessively tough meat in a solution of juice from citric fruit for 24 hours. This marinating helps to make it more tender. Bring to boil and simmer until tender.

OFFAL:

Check liver especially carefully. If firm, odourless and free from spots and hard lumps it CAN BE EATEN. Boil first, then fry if you wish. Hearts are best part-boiled then baked.

Brain if not used for preserving hides makes an excellent stew. Skin the head & boil, simmering for 90 minutes. Strip all the flesh from the skull, including eyes, tongue & ears.

HANGING: (Hang'm high Boy!)

Offal should be eaten as soon as possible but the rest of the meat is better hanged.

In moderate temperature leave the carcass hanging for 2-3 days. In hot climate it is better to preserve it by cooking it straight away.

When the animal is killed, acids released into the muscles help to break down their fibre, making the meat more tender.

The longer it is left the more tender it will be and easier to cut with more flavour too and harmful parasitic bacteria in the meat will die.

You MUST keep flies off the flesh; if they lay eggs on meat it will spoil quickly.

OFFAL LIVER TIP 2:

Liver is best eaten as soon as possible. Remove the bile bladder in the centre. It is quite strong and can usually be pulled off without difficulty but BE CAREFUL, the bile will taint the flesh with which it comes in contact. If any animal has any disease they will show up in the liver.

AVOID any liver that is mottled or covered with white spots. If only some is affected, cut it off and eat the reminder.

LIVER IS COMPLETE FOOD, containing the ESSENTIAL vitamins and minerals. If eaten raw no food value is lost. It requires little cooking.

STOMACH: (TRIPE)

Stomach takes little digesting, so is a good food for the sick or injured. Remove the stomach contents which makes it an IDEAL "INVALID" FOOD.

Wash the tripe and simmer slowly with herbs. The contents may sound not edible but could save an injured person's life for the animal has done most of the hard work of breaking the food down.

Lightly boiled, stomach contents are Nourishing and easily digestible. In some countries pigs are fed nothing but apple prior to slaughter.

They are cooked with the stomach still in. The subtle flavour of apple impregnates the meat. The stomach is removed after cooking and the contents used as sauce.

INTESTINES #2:

They consist of lengths of tubes and are best used as sausage skins. Turn them inside out and wash them. Then boil them thoroughly.

Mix fat and meat in equal proportions and then stir in blood. Stuff the mixture into the skin and boil them well.

Before putting them into boiling water add a little cold water to take it just off the boil, this will counter any risk of the skins bursting. (OOPS's!)

This makes a highly nutritious food which if smoked will keep for a long time. Dried intestines can be used for light lashings.

KIDNEYS:

They are a valuable source of nourishment & ideal flavouring for stews. Boil them with herbs.

The white fat surrounding them (suet) is a rich food source. Render it down to use in the preparation of pemmican

MELTS:

They are the spleen, a large organ in the bigger animals. It has limited food value and is not worth bothering about in the small games such as rabbits. It is best roasted.

LITES:

Lites are the lungs of the animal, perfectly GOOD TO EAT but not of great food value. Any respiratory complaints will show up in the lungs.

Do not eat any mottled with black and white spots. Healthy lungs are pink and blemish free and best boiled. They could be set aside for fish or trap bait.

HEART:

A tightly packed muscle with little or no fat. Roast it or use its distinctive flavour to liven up the stew.

SWEETBREADS:

Are the pancreas or thymus gland, distinctive in larger game. Many people consider it a great delicacy and it is delicious boiled or roasted.

TAIL:

Skin and boil to make an excellent soup for it is full of meat and gelatine.

FEET:

Feet are chopped off during slaughter but should not be wasted. Boil them up to make a good stew.

Clean dirt from hooves or paws and remove all traces of fur. Hooves are a source of nutritious aspic jelly.

HEAD:

On larger animal there is a good deal of meat on the head. The cheeks make a very tasty dish. The tongue is highly nutritious.

Boil it to make it tender and skin before eating. The brain will brawn and will also provide useful solution for curing hides. All that is left or the whole head with small animals should be boiled.

RODENTS: = FOOD YES!

Rats & mouse (even Mickey) living in woods and desert have a delicious flesh, particularly good if made into a stew. (Ask a cat!)

To prepare them, skin them, empty them and boil them at least 10 minutes, cook them with the liver & add Dandelions. Cut off the head and tail of course.

RABBIT & HARE: (Bugs Bunny excluded!)

Good taste but a little fat. Easy to snare and to kill. To skin it make an incision behind the head, slide your fingers and bring the skin backward.

Open the abdomen from up coming down by doing a vigorous incision. That way in one shot the viscera will come off. Scrape and wash the flesh, keep the heart and liver if intact.

REMEMBER ALL MAMMIFEROUS ANIMALS ARE COMESTIBLES!

COOKING TIP #?:

NO-NO-FLAME SEEN AT NIGHT:

OVEN COOKING #?:

A hole under the fire, a closed container or clay covering can be used as improvised oven.

To cook under the fire, spread first at the bottom of the hole a bunch of hot coals upon which you put the container the water and the food, cover this one of another layer of hot coals then of a layer of a bit of earth.

To better retain the heat, lay some stones around the side of the hole, this cooking has the advantages to protect your food from flies and bugs ants at night, this fire has no apparent flames.

ROASTING SEEDS & NUTS:

Put them in a metallic container, let them grill slowly, if not steel container, flat stones are perfect replacement.

EGGS:

All comestibles whatever is the development stage, they are one of the surest food source. Once hard boiled they keep several days.

NATURAL SEASONING:

You obtain salt by boiling sea water. Ashes from Palm tree branches, White Walnut-tree contain salt which dissolves in water. All you have to do is to let the water evaporate to obtain a dark colour salt.

COOKING BREAD:

If possible use SOME sea water because of the salt it contains. Once you have knead the flour and water into a dough, place it in hole made in the sand, over the dough place some sand, then cover the whole thing with much hot coals.

A little experience will permit you to equalize the temperature of the dough and of the embers so that the sand won't stick.

ANOTHER WAY TO COOK BREAD IS:

To roll it around a Green stick which you have first removed the bark then put it over a fire.

You can spread some flour on the stick to prevent the dough from sticking. Bite the stick first to taste the sap, if it is too bitter it will alter the bread taste.

STILL ANOTHER WAY:

Spread a thin layer of dough on a burning stone. To get a better bread, use as leaven (yeast) a bit of sour dough.

The secret to make good bread is to knead it a long time that is 20 min each operation. Also ALWAYS use water having served to cook the potatoes or beans because of its starch.

FOOD KEEPING ADD ON:

In the old days, our forefathers use to put their cooked food in sandstone jars. That food was immersed under oil or fat about 3 fingers thick.

Those 2 products would make it airtight thus no spoilage. Each time they would use the food, they would MAKE SURE that the oil or fat would still recover the food as before. Today one can use the same method but use plastic containers.

COOKING WITH ALUMINIUM (AL) PAPER MANY ADVANTAGES:

Lazy bachelors or those who hate doing dishes & survivors can very well use this method to cook. Aluminium keeps the heat stops humidity both ways & is safe for food.

Meals cook in their juices which is far better nutritive value. You can cook on wood fire, grill, naphtha or propane gas stove.

First you MUST envelope the meal to cook in the thickest Al paper you can find, cook it as directed below on hot embers or under hot ashes for a better cooking.

At the last minute, open it up to permit a browning of the meat. The possibilities of this cooking are limitless. You can cook individually many vegetables at the same time. Small bread done that way is delicious.

COOKING WITH AL. PAPER:

Fruits, vegetables, Tubercles, Yams etc. can be cooked easy with Al. You can also use Al. Paper to make plates, pots, cups etc.

COOKING TIPS USING ALUMINIUM PAPER:

FOOD TIME NEEDED:

Meat........12 min. Fish.......9 min

Potato.....15 min. Carrots....11 min

Onions......8 min Eggs,bacon..5 min

Bread.......6 min Roast beef..22 min

Boiling water 5 minutes.

Note: Soft wood takes Lesser time.

COOKING ADD ON WILD MEAT:

Wild meat MUST be civilized?!? to better the taste. After the kill, you MUST take all the blood off, then remove the musk gland if any, if not then let that meat rest for a day or two.

In order to kill the nerves, you remove the fat before of course. This is call to make the meat gamy or high (not stone hard). Once gamy, you boil it for 45 minutes to remove all greasy taste.

Let is soak in according to the weight 6 to 48 hours in a solution of water and vinegar or better in good quality red wine which you have added olive oil, onions, butter, laurel leaves salt, pepper, celery, carrots and parsley, then take it off, let it drip then, it is ready to start the cooking art French style.

FAT & OILY MEAT SECRET:

The SECRET of preparing fat & oily meat is to make it boil in a lot of water for 45 minutes before cooking or pickling it.

TRAPPER COOK POT:

(FOWL or MEAT)

1) ALWAYS let the meat die before starting cooking. (Gamy)

2) Cover the cooking pot of a thin slices of salted lard.

3) Let them roast or broil.

4) Add a bit of cold water, 3" thick for 2 ducks, don't use cold water it does not mix well with blood.

5) Add the 2 cleaned Donald ducks and mix all that well.

6) Add salt, onions, pepper.

7) Let it boil till water has evaporated, even let it slightly burn at the bottom to give better taste, then add some hot water.

8) Then add more water, just enough to cover the fowl or game.

9) Let it boil till completely cooked, check with a fork at times.

10) Add sliced potatoes.

11) Let it boil 10 minutes.

12) Add some bannock dough.

13) It takes about 20 min. to cook the Bannock dough. When they are cooked, almost all water is gone, leaving white sauce.

14) Eating time!

BAKING ON A STICK; BANNOCK:

Baking on a stick is so handy especially when we are preparing only small amounts to be eaten hot.

The basic recipe for this backwoods bread is: 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/4 spoon of salt.

To this you may add depending of tastes & availability a variety of spices and fruits as well as sugar & shortening or fat.

You'll be heating a peeled green stick of hardwood (NEVER Evergreen) which may be about as thick as the forearm of a hunting rifle.

The dough you will mould swiftly so as not to lose too much of the carbon dioxide gas whose function is to make the bread rise, quickly fashioning a wide ribbon to twist around the stick.

A few stubs on the stick left by not trimming it to smoothly will help keep the soft mass in place during baking.

TRAPPERS'BREAD or BANNOCK:

A mixture of flour, water, #poudre a pate# and salt. 2 tbs. (18gr) of #poudre a pate# in a frying pan of flour, mix the flour and #poudre a pate# in a bowl.

Now add 1 tea spoon of salt (5gr), add water, you need 3 times more flour than water (3/1). Mix the dough till rather soft and about 2" or 5cm thick.

Grease the frying pan otherwise the dough will get stuck. Cook on slow fire, to control your heat if on wood stove, place 3 small stones between the stove and the skillet. Roast the bannock on one side then on the next.

You MUST be patient to see the result. Restrain your curiosity to check, for it would prevent the dough of rising.

Cooking time = 1 hour. Some add a pinch of baking soda #soda a pate# to haste the cooking or maybe to prevent any stomach burn? No panic = good Bannock!

BANNOCK METHOD #3?:

Stretch the dough and roll it around a dry stick that you turn over hot embers for 45 minutes, then a gold crust was thus formed and the bannock not panic, was ready.

Since bread does not keep long, you can cut bread that has become stale in big slices, then toast them over a fire, thus you will keep it for a longer time as some kind of biscuits.

FAT & OILY MEAT COOKING:

BEAR: (Not Bare Cooking!)

The best way to remove the greasy taste to the meat is to boil it in a lot of water for an hour then let it pickle to make stew. This is the Secret in preparing all meat that is fat & oily!

Bear meat killed in august at the time of blueberries is better than the July meat by the way.

Bear is cooked like any other game except for the fat that you have to remove as above. This applies to BEAVERS that you also have to degrease and boil before roasting, or making a stew.

RABBIT:

In the 2 or 3 hours following the kill rabbit stays tender. It is the time for the hunter to make his rabbit pot, after that time you will have to wait 3 to 4 days before the rabbits becomes tender again and it would need help from a good marinade.

HOW TO CONSTRUCT A STOVE IN THE FOREST:

Easy to do it yourself, this stove cooks and gives warmth. You need to find flat stones of a good size. Then the 1st thing to do is to dig a hole 2 feet deep by 2 feet across.

You MUST reach the ground, the rocky part. At the bottom you put a good layer of damp sand which you recover of a flat stone, on the sides you lay other flat stones standing up and a bit slanted which you consolidate with more damp sand.

You let at the front a small opening in form of a small trench and you end your work by putting a big flat stone which will be the top part of your stove. Then you surround the whole thing with some more wet sand.

In order to get a better draw from your fire, let an opening at the top of the oven and place your camp so that the stove is at the front of it about 2 to 3 feet ahead, so that the front of the stove will be facing the camp door.

Keep a good stone to form the front of the stove and now you will have a good stove & oven giving good heat and perfect food cooking.

Such a stove is not dangerous, your camp is installed to receive the wind from the rear, the air flow will remove the annoying smoke but the nearness of the stove will let a good heat to come in your camp.

SHERPA TEA:

A high fat- yielding drink which is one of the 3 basic fuel sources for the inner body furnace and FAT is ESSENTIAL IN SURVIVAL.

You mix 1 oz. of powdered milk with 1 oz. of sugar and 1 oz of margarine with a sprinkle of instant coffee.

The dry ingredients can be mixed prior to your venture & the margarine carried in a squeeze tube.

Heated in a cup of water the Sherpa tea can be the quick filling warm-up one needs while waiting his meal to be ready.

TORTILLA: (OLEY!!)

To replace bread on a trail one can convert to Tortilla thus prevent the same storage problem that preserving regular bread would present.

You just premix the basic ingredients of flour or cornmeal, baking powder, shortening and salt and store them in a plastic bag all waiting you for meal time just to add water and cook it to your starving satisfaction.

Carbohydrate is also ESSENTIAL in your survival, this Tortilla will give it.

MONK MICHAEL APPLE JELLY:

Use apple or even better #pommette# when they are real small, 3 quarts; remove the chalice and the tails of those #aigre# & full of juice well matured cut in small pieces.

Do not peal off nor remove the heart, now add 6 1/2 cups of water and bring to boil & let it simmer with lid on for 10 minute now smash the whole thing and let it simmer again with the lid on for 5 or more minutes.

Now add to those 5 cups a small 2 table spoon of lemon juice then add 7 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 pkg. of CERTO preserving ingredient this will give you a total capacity of 8 fantastic apple jelly not found in any store. Very Yummy.

COOKING & Cook-King!:

Don't forget to bring the spices. REMEMBER also to look in our plants to find some natural spices to help the moral along.

GORP:

Taking small place and high energy value found in many food stores but which can be home made. The basic elements are nearly ALWAYS the same even if there are some other recipes.

You find chocolate, nuts & dry raisins. Using a #bain-marie# to melt the chocolate then add the peanuts, then dry raisins, then add the grounded nuts.

Or granola or other berries or dry fruits of your choice at the rate of 1 handful for each ingredient. Let it cool then break it into chunks & put it in wax or Al.. Paper.

RECIPES:

Some recipes should be added ex: chilli con carne etc. about 30 max. this is not a cook book but it helps soup & stew. Etc.

SARASIN PANCAKE:

#Sarasin# pancake recipe for 2 persons this mix should be done at home before you leave all you then add is 2 table spoon of oil and 2 to 3 cups of cold water and bingo Jane beats Tarzan.

1 cup of #Sarasin Flower# + 1/2 cup of corn flower, 1/2 cup wheat flower + 1/2 cup of germ wheat, 1/2 cup powder milk + 2tbsp powder eggs, 2 the spoon of #poudre pate# + 1 tea spoon of salt.

Mix them all well together add the oil and cold water (above) mix all till you get a thick smooth paste and cook in a hot pan that you have oiled before, ready when you yell.

INDIAN BREAD:

1 cup of flour 1/2 tea spoon of salt / 1 Tea spoon of #poudre a pate# 1 tea spoon of sugar or honey / 1 Tea spoon of powder milk / 2 soup spoon of vegetable oil.

Mix all the ingredients and add 3/4 cup of cold water so as to obtain a thick paste. Mould it in a bread shape about 2.5cm thick while you knee the dough as little as possible. Powder it with some more flour & bake it after these manners.

HOW TO COOK INDIAN BREAD:

1) In a #closed up pot#: Put the bread in a skillet. Next put some stones in a big cauldron onto which you put the skillet & cover the cauldron that you put over hot coals for 30 minutes or till the bread is ready. Check the cooking by sticking into the bread a small twig, if the twig comes out clean it is ready.

2) In a skillet: put the bread into a hot well greased skillet and hold it over the fire till you have a crust appearing under the top of the bread then turn it over to bake another crust.

Next remove the skillet away from the fire but close enough so that it still takes some of the heat and then let it cool off.

3) #Au four a reflector#: Wrap the bread into aluminium foil and put it into the oven.

Put the whole apparatus about 20cm from the fire and keep the fire going on for about 20-30 minutes while from time to time you turn the bread then remove & go for it.

#GATEAU AU GLAND DE CHENE# :

(Oak usefulness)

2 cups of #gland de chene flour# + 1/2 tbs. salt + 3/4 cup water. Mix the ingredients and bash them till you have a solid paste. Let it rest for one hour.

In a skillet heat up 3 tbs. of oil and drop the paste so as to get cakes about 8cm, lower the heat or put the skillet away from the fire but not too far and let the cake get a nice tan on both sides. CAN BE EATEN hot or cold and they will keep for many days.

FLOUR & OTHER WILD SOURCES OF FOOD:

To make flour out of wild plants is quite an experience but if you have time the experience is well worth it taste wise etc. The easiest tubercles to transform are those of the #sagitaire et du souchet# comestibles# .

Smash them up and put the pulp into cold water then close well the container and shake it good. Next filter it all to get rid off the fibres and let it #decanter.#

Empty the water, replace the water and start all over again as often as you need it till the water has lost its viscosity.

Strain the flour and use it as such as a paste with the cold water it contains already or let it dry up and mould it or smash it up again with a #pilon# for later usage.

Nuts and #noisettes# make a delicious flour and give oil as well. Grind them with a stone and let it boil slowly with their shell. Little by little the pieces of almonds and the oil will float to the surface.

Remove them as they come up and filter them. Let dry the almond pieces close to a fire then grind them real smooth.

If you love the #beurre de noisettes# all you have to do is to grind the pieces of almonds into the oil that you have kept.

It is not an easy job to do flour from seeds. Hard to do while using a #pilon et mortar# even harder if you use 2 stones.

To give an added taste to your wheat flour you can add a handful of flour coming from the grinding of #seed de quenouilles, d'oseille or de chenopode blanc.#

First remove the seeds from their kernels either by rubbing them quickly into your palms as you would do for the seed of #amarante# or by beating or threshing them with a stick or by stamping them with your feet in the case of the #pourpier ou bourse a pasteur#. Only keep what is eatable.

To get rid of #les graines de la balle# take 2 containers and transverse them several times letting the wind do the sifting job for you.

In order to help you along if making flour out of seeds, roots or nuts look closely to the water shore till you find natural rocky pots made by erosion and use some stone as mortar easy to handle.

PINHOLE:

Parch husked seeds on hot stones by the fire. The heat will cook and dry seeds without roasting them. This Pinhole will keep well. Eat cold or re-heat.

Add to stews or place a handful in a mug of hot water-tasty and nutritious. Dry they will not be properly digested, but they will fill the belly. It is better to grind them into flour.

FLOUR:

Grinding flour without a proper mill is hard work but can be done by pounding with a smooth stone on a hard surface.

Look for a large tone with a depression in the middle to place the grain in. Use a circling motion as with a mortar & pestle.

ANOTHER WAY TO GRIND FLOUR:

Is to hollow a tube of hard wood and to pound a stick up and down inside it on the grain. Mix flower with a little water and knead into a dough.

Bake into an oven or make into thin strips, wrap around a shave green stick and cook over hot embers.

METHOD #3?:

Is to make a dough into fist-size balls, flat them and then drop hot pebble-size stones into the centre and wrap the dough around them.

Lick your fingers before picking up the pebbles-if you are quick enough the moisture stops the pebble from burning you- or use sticks or tongs to lift them.

Flour does not have to be made from cereal grains. Use the flowering heads of Cat's Tails or boil and mash up peeled roots, of Wild Calla for instance, or EDIBLE barks.

Those that are not harmful Raw can be steeped in water and crushed with a stick or stone to free the starch. Remove fibres, leave starch to settle, then pour off the water and you will have your flour.

SAUSAGES:

Thoroughly clean intestines, turning them inside out to wash. Fill with a mix of half meat with half fat bound with enough blood to hold the ingredient together.

Tie the ends and boil. Once cooked they can be preserved by cold smoking in a smoke tepee over a chimney.

GRILLING:

Grilling is a quick way of cooking large amounts of food but it requires a support-such as mesh of wire-rested over the embers of the fire.

It should only be used when food is plentiful since it wastes most of the fat from the meat.

Hot rocks beside the fire can be used as grilling surfaces or food skewered on sticks and held over the fire.

If no wire mesh is available, make a grid of every green sticks or rest a long stick on a forked support so that it can hold food over the fire.

Wrap food around the stick. You can also barbecue meat and vegetables on a stick supported across glowing embers by a forked stick on each side.

BAKING NOT BANKING:

You need an oven for baking, but if time and materials are available this is a good way of cooking. Meat should be cooked on a dish and the fat which runs out used to baste it.

It is ideal for tough, stringy meat. Cooked for a long time on a steady heat the meat becomes more tender.

BAKING IS ALSO VERY SUITABLE FOR ROOT & VEGETABLES:

If meat is place in a tin containing a little water to be cooked in the oven this is a form of braising. Use an oven to cook several different things at once.

FRYING:

It is an excellent way of varying diet, if fat is available and you have a container to fry in. Any sheets of metal that you can fashion into a curve or give a slight tip to will serve.

In some areas, you may find a large leaf which contains enough oil not to dry out before the cooking is done-banana leaves are excellent surfaces to fry eggs upon.

Try leaves out Before you risk valuable food on them and if you do use one, Fry Only over embers not over flames.

METAL BOX OVEN:

A large food tin or metal box with a hinged lid makes an excellent improvised oven. Army survivors found an ammunition box ideal.

If the lid is hinged and has a catch on it that you can use as a handle, you could set it up to open sideways.

It will probably be easier, especially if it has no catch or you have to improvise hinges, to let it open downwards.

If you place a rock or other support in front, to rest it on, you will have a convenient shelf. You can ALWAYS prop it closed if there is no catch for you do not want a tightly sealed fit which could build a Very dangerous pressure inside.

If no tin or box is available you could make a clay dome, like an Indian oven. To make it hot set a fire inside and scrape this out before cooking.

Leave a smallish aperture which can be easily sealed while baking. Stand the tin on some rocks so that a fire can be lit beneath it.

Build up rocks and earth-or better, clay-around back and sides and over it, but leaving a space behind for heat and smoke to move around the back. Use a stick to make a chimney hole from above to the space at the back.

STEAMING:

IT DOES NOT OVERCOOK SO IT PRESERVES ALL NUTRITIONAL VALUES. (ESSENTIAL in Survival)

It is an excellent way of cooking fish and green vegetables.

HANGI METHOD:

This is another way of cooking without utensils. Like the clam bake of the USA and traditional Maori and South Pacific methods it involves heating stones.

It requires kindling, logs and round rocks or stones about the size of a fist. Do not use soft, porous or flake stones which might explode on heating.

Dig an oval-shaped hole with rounded sides 45-60cm deep (18-24in) and place kindling at the bottom.

Lay logs across the hole, place another layer of logs at right angles to them, inter-spacing them with stones.

Make another layer of logs and build up 5 or 6 more alternating layers, topping them off with stones.

When the kindling is set alight the logs will burn, heating the stones above them, until, eventually, all falls down into the pit.

Remove the burning embers and ash. Now, place food on top of the hot rocks, meat to the centre and vegetables towards the outer edges.

There MUST be a gap between the food and the earth. Lay saplings across the pit and place sacking, leaves and so forth on top of them, covering the lot with the earth that you excavated to keep the heat in.

The hole now acts rather like a pressure cooker. After 1 1/2 hour remove the cover. Your meal is cooked.

BOILING WATER IN A HANGI:

If you have no container in which to boil water you can make use of the Hangi. Whatever you have collected water in, provided that it does not melt so that rules out plastic but includes other kinds of waterproof fabrics, can be gathered up and tied so that the water does not spill and placed in the hangi. It will take about 1 1/2 hour to boil but the fabric will not burn through.

USEFUL UTENSILS TONGS:

Choose 2 branches both with a natural curve and lash them together so that they want to spring apart at the free ends.

Or use a tapering piece of wood between them under the lashings to hold them apart. If one has a forked end the grip will be improved. Use for holding pots, hot rocks & logs.

POT ROD:

To give more variable access to the fire than a rail over it (a) drive a sturdy forked stick into the ground near the fire but not so close as to catch alight. Rest a much longer stick across it with one end over the fire.

Drive the bottom end of the longer stick into the ground and prevent it from springing up with heavy rocks.

Cut a groove near the tip to prevent pots from slipping off or to be safer to tie on a strong hook. 2 or 3 sticks could lean over the fire at different heights with meat or vegetables attached.

SWINGING POT HOLDER:

This can be made from two forked sticks and a firm upright driven into the ground. Bind the branches together so that the forks fit in opposite directions on the upright.

The cantilever action will maintain the height you set it at, and push sideways will swing the pot away from the flames. With a longer upright you could control cooking height also.

VARIABLE POT HOOK:

Since the distance between the fire and the food will affect the speed at which the food cooks make this hanging device so that you can control your cooking.

Cut a strong piece with several branches from a small tree or bush and trim the branches to 10-12cm (4-5in). Strip off the bark which may hide a rotten branch.

BAMBOO CUP:

Cut a section of bamboo just below a natural joint and then cut just below the next join up. Smooth the edges to prevent splinters.

SPOON:

Start with a flattish piece of wood and scribe a spoon shape on it with the point of your knife. Then whittle away to the required shape. Do not hurry, this will only result in mistakes. NEVER cut towards yourself or your hand.

BIRCH BARK CONTAINERS:

Use the inner layer of birch bark to make storage boxes or temporary cooking vessels-which can be used for boiling. Sew or tie them near the top to prevent unfolding.

An alternative for temporary vessels is to peg the top edges with split sticks, but you might well spill the contents if the vessels suddenly unfold.

Make another vessel, but with a larger base, and you will have a lid to fit over the first. A circle, folded into quarters, will make a cone shaped cup or a boiling vessel if suspended.

COOKING TIPS #?:

Water boils faster when set above the flames! So you have to hang it using some kind of tripod otherwise if you set the pot in the fire you might end up by seeing your pot in the fire which has collapsed while burning, not counting the risk to burn yourself.

One other way if you have a the pot is to set it as close to the fire as possible even among the burning coals MAKING SURE that the lid is on and not the burning type, being so close will make the water boil real good.

Hot charcoal put under a big vessel will do just as good a job and one need hot water a lot in camps. If water is plentiful as well as wood then MAKE SURE you ALWAYS have some hot water boiling or close to the flame to keep hot.

And REMEMBER that to sterilise water it has to boil for 10 minutes long. No matter what some may say be safe!

MERELY MOISTENING YOUR LIPS WITH POLLUTED WATER CAN KILL YOU IF NOT DISABLE YOU TOO!.

COOKING UNDER THE TENT:

Now it's raining and cold, so lets go cooking under a tent. FIRST take in consideration the direction of the prevailing wind.

We start as fig 1 of 2 pickets of 1 m. 30 #enfonce# of 30 cm. in the soil about, the solidity of these 2 # montants# insures that of the whole work.

So MAKE SURE that it is solid. These 2 pickets are separated by 1m.25 see M M' At the top you #brele# a T cross.

2 #perches# P are then crossed in A and the opening of the angle is determined by the form of the tent see small dotted line.# We suppose here a regular patrol.

Height 180cm width 200cm. At 1 meter ahead of this construction plant 2 other #montants# of 1m.60 or about. fig 2 these 2 #montants# (n n) are united by a cross piece in V; 2 #oblique# S S' complete the #charpente#.

A view in perspective is shown in fig 4. All this construction can be done with light #perches# or bamboo stalks.

Use the green wood as much as possible. The superior triangle formed by A and the T cross is crossed by a strong stick F fig 1 & 3.

This triangle will be completely closed by sticks one on top of the other and tightly jointed to prevent smoke to slide under the tent.

In this work fig3 all the knots or inequalities, roughness of the sticks that would create a draft MUST be cut off with a knife.

Do observe that all the sticks pass on the same side of the small #montant# in F in reverse from ordinary #clayonage#.

This tent covers a surface 1m X 1m.25 in which centre will be made the fireplace. The tent is #adosser# to the triangle formed by #perches# P & fixing the top to point A fig 2

COOKING FIRE:

The simplest type of campfire is built by laying some flat DRY rock in a rough circle. This prevents the fire from spreading to nearby shrubs.

The rocks also give the camp cook a level place to put his pots and pans (canteen) and reflect the fire's heat to make cooking more efficient.

In the centre of this rock circle, the cook places a handful of pine needles, some shredded tree bark or dried grass.

He builds a teepee of tiny twigs over this tinder and crouching down with his back to the wind, strikes a match.

Cupping this tiny flame between his hands, the camper then touches the match to the side closes to him, putting the flame up under his tinder so the rising heat will ignite it.

If he is properly prepared he adds progressively larger twigs & branches at hand, and he patiently adds them to his fire one or 2 at a time.

If he piles on too much wood too quickly, the blaze will be smothered and he will have to start over, so with patience the camper will slowly build up his fire till it is burning strongly.

The camper who proceeds to pile on half his wood supplies to create a blazing furnace will find himself forced to stand far back from it, being toasted on the front of his body while his backside hangs out in the cold night air.

He can easily AVOID this and save himself the effort of stumbling around in the dark to gather more wood by building a small fire that he can squat next to within easy reach to handle his cooking utensil & stand over to be warmed on both sides at once.

The smaller fire will also save the tired camper the efforts of scraping a thick accumulation of soot off the bottom of his pot and will stretch a small wood supply though the night.

One way to make more efficient use of a fire is to lay the rocks in a keyhole shape.

The blazing fire at the big end of this arrangement is used for heat and light, while the cook scraped coals from the main blaze into the smaller end to use in preparing his gourmet specials, reducing soot scraping even more.

ARMY CANTEEN:

One more advantage of those army canteens if you have them, included in it a couple bread plastic bag along, so that you can just shove the canteen into one of them, after having clean the inside of course.

The extra soot was scraped off on the sand then you just put the cold canteen into the bag without further worry, or into 2 bags if you prefer; this avoids cleaning and messing up everything. We say Cold canteen, for a warm or hot one will melt the plastic. (OOP's!)

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