Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

i64CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTexpensive. In appearance they resemble round Educatorcrackers. Half a dozen of them, with a smallcake of chocolate, make a satisfying lunch. PlasmonItself is the proteid of milk in powdered form, containing80% of pure protein. It may be used eitherdry or dissolved in water. When sprinkled dry overany kind of food, or cooked in with cereals, bread,soups, etc., it adds very much to the nutritive valuewithout altering the flavor of the food.Various kinds of meat biscuits have been tried outmost thoroughly by troops and travelers, but withoutsatisfaction. Kipling said, ''compressed vegetablesand meat biscuits may be nourishing, but whatTommy Atkins needs is bulk in his inside." Inthis he was doing the vegetables injustice,for, whencooked, they do swell up and fill one's inside.CoijDENSED Soups.—Nearly all go-light outfitsinclude a supply of compressed soups. Some of theseare of good flavor, others are of w^hat Stewart EdwardWhite calls the ''dishwater brand." Herecommends Knorr's pea, bean, lentil, rice, onion(none of the others), and particularly Maggi'sgreen pea and lentil. Of bouillon capsules he saysthat "they serve to flavor hot water, and that is abouG'all." I agree with him throughout. Maggi's soupsare packed in tin-foil before putting on the paperwrapper. This excludes moisture, but I havefound that it will not keep out the industrious weevil.Condensed soups have their uses, chiefly aspick-me-ups; but they do not by any means containenough nourishment to furnish a hungry man's meal.I mention them here only as a warning against puttingconfidence in them for any such purpose.Bouillon cubes, etc., are much worse, in this respect.Properly they are nothing but condiments orappetizers for healthy people and mild stimulants forthe sick. Their actual food value has been determinedby the Bureau of Chemistry of the U. S. Departmentof Agriculture, which was led to investigatethe matter because "these articles are erroneously believedto be convenient forms of concentrated meat.'*