Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

374 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTlarge onion. Pare six large, smooth potatoes, cutfive of them into quarters, and drop them into thekettle; scrape the sixth one into the soup for thickening.Season with salt and white pepper to taste.When, by skirmishing with the wooden fork, youcan fish up bones with no meat on them, the soupis cooked, and the kettle may be set aside to cool."Any kind of game may be used in a similar way,provided that none but lean meat be used. Soupis improved by first soaking the chopped-up meatin cold water, and using this water to boil in thereafter.Soup should be skimmed for some timeafter it has started simmering, to remove greaseand scum.To anyone who knows petite marmite or pouleau-pot,these simple directions will seem barbarous— and so they are ; but barbarism has its compensations.A really first-class soup cannot be madewithout a full day's previous preparation and theresources of a city grocery. Mulligatawny, forexample, requires thirty-two varieties of spices andother condiments. No start can be made with anystandard soup until one has a supply of " stock "made of veal or beef, mutton or poultry, by longsimmering and skimming and straining.In camp, stock can be made expeditiously bycutting one or two pounds of venison into thinslices, then into dice, cover with cold water, boilgently twenty minutes, take from the fire, skim,and strain. A tolerable substitute is Liebig's beefextract, or beef cubes, dissolved in water.Onion, cloves, mace, celery seed, salt, and redor white pepper, are used for seasoning. Sassafrasleaves, dried before the fire and powdered, makethe gumbo file of the Creoles. Recipes for a fewsimple, nourishing soups, are given below:Venison Soup.— " Put 4 or 5 lbs. of deer ribsin a bucket of water. Cook slowly until only halfa bucket of ' stock ' remains. Add i can tomatoes,54 cup rice, and salt to taste. Cook until these aredone." (Dr. O. M. Clay.)