Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

DRESSING GAME AND FISH 279be as tough as sole leather; but, in any case, itwill retain its flavor and sustenance. Whenpounded pretty fine, jerky makes excellent soup;but it is good enough as it is, and a man can liveon it exclusively without suffering an inordinatecraving for bread.The breasts (only) of grouse and other^ gamebirds can be cured in the same way, and are good.Some do not like their meat smoked. A wayof jerking without smoking was described by " anold-timer" for the New York Sun:" Cut the choicest of the meat into strips ten Inches longand two inches square. Sprinkle them quite liberally withLet the salt worksalt, but not enough to make them bitter.on them for a couple of hours. While it is doing it you goand put down two logs a foot or so in diameter side byside and about the same distance apart. Between thelogs make a fire of dry hemlock bark." Hemlock, or a relative of hemlock, is always apt tobe found in deer hunting regions, and I never go intocamp without taking pains to gather up a lot of hemlockbark for use. It is the best material for the purpose becauseit will make a fire of hot coals without running toblaze or smoke. Birch bark would be ideal for the purpose,but it is all blaze with birch bark. Hickory wood couldn'tbe beat for jerking venison, but hickory wood would smokethe meat, and jerked venison isn't smoked venison, as agood many folks suppose it is, not by a long shot." Having got your bed of hemlock bark coais in fineshape, and having driven at the inside edge of the endsof each log a crotched stick long enough after it is securelydriven to have the crotch perhaps a foot above the logs,and having extended from crotch to crotch in these stickstwo poles that are thus suspended above the fire, cut asmany half inch hardwood sticks as you need, long enoughto reach across from one pole to another and rest securelyon them. On these sticks string your strips of deer meatby thrusting them through the meat near one end of thestrips, the sticks being sharpened at one end to facilitatethat operation." This will leave the strips hanging from their sticksmuch as the candles used to hang from theirs in the oldfashioned moulds, if any hunter of this generation is happyenough to have recollections of the days when we madeour own candles. Place the sticks with their pendent meatover the coals. Turn the concave sides of lengths of hem-This will keep in thelock bark over the top of the sticks.