r
the water has boiled, be set back and allowed to simmer. Do not throw
away the water you boil meat in. It will make good soup--unless every
one in camp has taken a hand at salting the meat, as is often the
case.

All green vegetables should be crisp and firm when they are cooked. If
they have been around camp for several days and have lost their
freshness, first soak them in cold water. A piece of pork cooked with
beans and peas will give them a richer flavour. The water that is on
canned vegetables should be poured off before cooking. Canned tomatoes
are an exception to this rule, however.

Save all the leftovers. If you do not know what else to do with them,
make a stew or soup. You can make soup of almost anything. The Chinese
use birds' nests and the Eskimos can make soup of old shoes. A very
palatable soup can be made from various kinds of vegetables with a few
bones or extract of beef added for body.

The length of time to cook things is the most troublesome thing to
the beginner. Nearly everything will take longer than you think.
Oatmeal is one of the things that every beginner is apt to burn, hence
the value of the double boiler.

Rice is one of the best camp foods if well cooked. It can be used in a
great variety of ways like cornmeal. But beware! There is nothing in
the whole list of human food that has quite the swelling power of
rice. Half a teacupful will soon swell up to fill the pot. A
tablespoonful to a person will be an ample allowance and then, unless
you have a good size pot to boil it in, have some one standing by
ready with an extra pan to catch the surplus when it begins to swell.

There are certain general rules for cooking which may help the
beginner although they are not absolute.

Mutton, beef, lamb, venison, chicken, and large birds or fish will
require from ten to twenty minutes' cooking for each pound of weight.
The principal value of this is to at least be sure that you need not
test a five-pound chicken after it has been cooking fifteen minutes to
see if it is done.

Peas, beans, potatoes, corn, onions, rice, turnips, beets, cabbage,
and macaroni should, when boiled, be done in from twenty to thirty
minutes. The surest test is to taste them. They will be burned in
that many seconds, if you allow the water to boil off or put them in
the middle of a smoky fire where they cannot be watched.

Fried things are the easiest to cook because you can tell when they
are done more easily.