rse if you get game and
fish, you can stay out over the month.

CHAPTER VIII

CAMP COOKERY

[Sidenote: Secret of Camp Cookery]

THE secret of successful camp cookery is experimentation and boldness.
If you have not an ingredient, substitute the nearest thing to it; or
something in the same general class of foods. After you get the logic of
what constitutes a pudding, or bread, or cake, or anything else, cut
loose from cook-books and invent with what is contained in your grub
bags. Do not be content until, by shifting trials, you get your
proportions just right for the best results. Even though a dish is quite
edible, if the possibility of improving it exists, do not be satisfied
with repeating it.

This chapter will not attempt to be a camp cook-book. Plenty of the
latter can be bought. It will try to explain dishes not found in camp
cook-books, but perhaps better adapted to the free and easy culinary
conditions that obtain over an open fire and in the open air.

After _bacon_ gets a little old, parboil the slices before frying them.

[Sidenote: How to Make Bread]

_Bread._--The secret of frying-pan bread is a medium stiff batter in the
proportion of one cup of flour, one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of
sugar, and a heaping teaspoon of baking powder. This is poured into the
well-greased and hot pan, and set flat near the fire. In a very few
moments it will rise and stiffen. Prop the pan nearly perpendicular
before the blaze. When done on one side, turn over. A clean sliver or a
fork stuck through the center of the loaf will tell you when it is done:
if the sliver comes out clean, without dough sticking to it, the baking
is finished.

In an oven the batter must be somewhat thinner. Stiff batter makes
close-grained heavy bread; thin batter makes light and crisp bread. The
problem is to strike the happy medium, for if too stiff the loaf is
soggy, and if too thin it sticks to the pan. Dough should be wet only at
the last moment, after the pan is ready, and should be lightly stirred,
never kneaded or beaten.

Biscuits are made in the same way, with the addition of a
dessert-spoonful of cottolene, or a half spoonful of olive oil.

Cornbread is a mixture of half cornmeal and half flour, with salt,
baking powder, and shortening.

[Sidenote: Unleavened Bread]

Unleavened bread properly made is better as a steady diet than any of
the baking powder products. The amateur cook is usually disgusted with