The Fun of Cooking: A Story for Girls and Boys

STRAWBERRY RUSSE

Get a dozen ladyfingers, split them in halves, and cut each one in two. Arrange these around the edge of small glasses; fill the centers with berries cut in halves and sweetened, and cover with whipped cream; put one berry on top of each.

"Oh, Miss Betty give me one more, please!" begged Brownie. "I love special ones, just for me."

"Very well; here is one of the cunningest ones you ever saw."

BOX SHORTCAKES

Get from the baker's some small, oblong sponge-cakes; with a sharp knife mark all around the top edge, and then take out the middle part, leaving small, empty boxes. Fill these heaping full of sliced berries, or, if you can get them, small field berries, and cover the tops with powdered sugar; pass a pitcher of cream.

"Of course you can make little cakes at home for these instead of buying them at the baker's, but really, for this particular receipt, the bought ones are better. Hark! Isn't that your mother calling?"

It was, so they called Jack, who was reading "Kim" in the library, and all went home.

CHAPTER VIII

IN CAMP

"I've a nice long vacation ahead of me," announced Father Blair at breakfast one hot summer morning, "and I've set my heart on going to Maine on a camping trip. I don't want any guide to take care of me, yet I do need some one who will help me cook. I had thought of asking you to go, Jack, but as 'boys don't cook' – of course – "

"Oh, but they do camp cooking!" Jack exclaimed enthusiastically; "all sorts of things – bacon, and fried eggs, and corn-bread – "

"But, you see, you can't make any of those, and my digestion being delicate, I don't feel that I can be experimented upon," said his father, with a twinkle in his eye. "Now if only you had taken lessons all these months as the girls have, I might consider taking you."

"I'll learn right off, honestly I will! I'll begin this very day. And I can make cheese dreams, and – and boil eggs, now."

"How long do you boil them, Jack?"

"Till they're done!" said Jack, triumphantly.

Father Blair went off laughing, and said he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stand his son's cooking.

Jack spent a nervous day. Would his father really take him to Maine, to the camp in the woods he had always heard about, where his father and his men friends went nearly every year? Or would he be left at home merely because he did not know how to cook? At last he consulted his mother.

"I think Father will surely take you," she said comfortingly; "and he is just pretending about the cooking; he can do all kinds of camp cookery beautifully, and up there he will teach you himself how to make things."

So, sure enough, in just a week, Jack and his father were off for the woods of Maine, to a lake where the fishing was wonderful. They had a little log-cabin to sleep in, with a lean-to for their stores and cooking things, and there was a circle of stones, all blackened from other fires, where they could cook out of doors. The trees ran right down to the water's edge, and it was so still, and cool, and lovely that, if they had not been so hungry they could have sat and looked out at the lake for hours. As it was, as soon as they were settled and the guide had paddled off, they decided to have supper at once.

The first thing was to make a fire, and Jack brought an armful of twigs and began to lay them in the stone fireplace.

"No, that's not the way," said his father. "There are several kinds of camp-fires, and the one we want to-night is the quick one. You must get two green sticks, about three feet long, with crotches at the top, and stick them well into the ground so they will cross at the top; then you can fill the kettle with water and hang it up, two feet from the fire, and under it you arrange loosely some very dry small twigs; have some larger ones at hand to put on as they burn up; that makes a hot, quick fire; some campers call it a 'wigwam' fire, because they build it up in that pointed shape. To-night, however, the first thing to do is to start the coffee; this is the way to make it:"

CAMP COFFEE

1 pint of cold water.

3 heaping tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.

As soon as the water bubbles, and before it really boils, take the kettle off and let it stand for ten minutes where it is hot. Pour a tablespoonful of cold water down the spout to settle it.

While the coffee was making, they cut a large slice of ham from the whole one they had brought with them, and after the frying-pan was heated on the coals, they put this in it to cook. Then Jack got out four eggs to have them ready, while Father Blair gave him this simple rule:

HAM AND EGGS

Cut off the rind; when the pan is hot, put the meat in; turn often; season with pepper. Take up, put on a hot dish, and cover; break the eggs into the hot fat, and when they are set, turn each one carefully over and brown it.

"You cook bacon exactly in this way, too; only you must be careful not to cook it too long; you take it up when it is still transparent and before it turns to dry chips. Now, if you will get out the cups and sugar and condensed milk, and the bread and butter, supper will be ready."

They slept that night rolled up in their blankets in the bunks built on the cabin walls, and woke very early to hear the birds singing at the top of their little lungs. When they had had a dip in the lake and the fire was burning brightly and the kettle was on, Jack said he wanted more ham and eggs for breakfast.

"Not a bit of it!" said his father. "We are too far from civilization to have eggs every day; remember, the guide will not be back for a week with any more, and we must be saving of these. This morning we will have bacon – lots of it – and corn-cakes; by dinner-time, if we have any sort of luck, we shall have some fish to fry."

As they had two frying-pans, Jack used the smaller one on one side of the fire for the bacon, while his father, after mixing the cakes, baked them in the larger one. As the strips of bacon grew a little brown and curly, Jack took them up one by one and kept them hot till the cakes and coffee were ready too.

"Pour out all the bacon fat from the pan and save it," said his father, as Jack finished the last piece. "It's the best thing in the world to cook with in camp, for it flavors everything just as you want it. We'll need all we can get of it. And here's your receipt for the cakes."

CORN-CAKES

½ pint of corn-meal.

¼ pint of flour.

1 rounded teaspoonful of baking-powder.

1 rounded teaspoonful of sugar.

½ teaspoonful of salt.

Mix all together, and then gently add cold water and stir till you have a thick batter. Have ready a hot frying-pan, well greased, and put the batter in in spoonfuls; they will run together as they bake, but you can cut them apart; turn them over and brown on the under side.

After breakfast they heated some water and washed up all the dishes, made their beds, and picked everything up around the cabin. Jack hated to waste time doing this, he was in such a hurry to go fishing, but his father would not leave till it was all done. "Campers often let things go," he said, "and soon the whole place is full of empty tin cans, and half-burned sticks, and all sorts of rubbish, and it's a horrid place to live in. You'll find it pays to keep everything about a camp in decent shape. But now we will get off."

The lake was full of bass, and long before noon they had several fine ones, enough for two meals. "Some day soon we will go into the deep woods and fish for trout," said Father Blair. "This is too easy; trout-fishing is the real sport for us."

Then Jack had his first lesson in scaling and cleaning a fish, and found it no joke; however, after a time it went more easily, and then his father left him, to make a new kind of fire.

"This is what I call a lasting fire," he said. "The quick kind we made first goes out too soon to leave a bed of coals which we need to bake with. This is the way I do: I make a little pile of twigs just as before, but close up to a rock; then I stand several large sticks up in front and lean them back so they rest on the rock – so; then, as they burn, they fall down into the twig-fire and make coals. By adding wood from time to time I could keep this for hours. Now for my oven!"

He dug a hole about eight inches deep and a foot long right under the edge of the fire, and was soon able to fill it with hot coals. "When that is hot, say in ten minutes, I shall take the coals out and put my potatoes in."

BAKED POTATOES

Wash potatoes of even size; put them in the oven under the fire, cover with ashes, and put coals on top; new potatoes will cook in half an hour, old ones in forty minutes.

"Now how is your fish getting on? Luckily you don't have to scale all our fish; some you can skin, and some, like trout, you simply clean and cook just as they are. This is the way you do a good-sized fish:"

BROILED FISH

Scale or skin, clean, and wipe dry. Spread open the broiler and rub the wires with bacon rind or pork; cut the head off and split the fish open down the back, and lay it in; hold the broiler over the coals and turn it often; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

It was only a moment before the fish began to sizzle deliciously, and by the time it was done, the potatoes were done too, and white as snow after their black coats had been taken off. Together they made a wonderful meal, and there was enough fish left for supper.

WARMED-OVER FISH

1 pint of fish.

1 pint of hot mashed potato.

1 beaten egg.

Salt and pepper.

Use any kind of cooked fish, removing the skin and bones. Mix the ingredients, make into little cakes, and fry brown in a little hot fat.

BOILED POTATOES

Choose those which are the same size, so they will all be done at once. Peel them, dropping each one in cold water till all are done, and then put them in a pot of boiling, salted water, and cook gently half an hour. When soft, pour off the water, stand the pot, uncovered, close to the fire, and let them get dry. Eat them with salt and butter as they are, or mash them in the kettle, adding the same seasoning.

Jack cooked these, and mixed the cakes and got them all ready to brown. "What else are we going to have, Father Blair?" he asked anxiously. "I don't think these will be half enough."

"I think I feel just like pancakes," said his father, throwing down the book he had been reading. "I hope there's plenty of that prepared flour, Jack. I think I shall want about six cakes; how many will you need?"

Jack said he thought he could manage with eight, if they were pretty good-sized.

PANCAKES

Take two cups of prepared flour and mix with water (or use half water and half condensed milk) until it makes a batter like thick cream. Have ready a hot, greased frying-pan; pour in the batter from a small pitcher.

"Sometimes I have these instead of bread to eat with meat, and then we have gravy on them. Then sometimes we have maple-syrup, and call them dessert."

"Syrup for me!" said Jack, struggling to turn his fish-cakes without breaking them. "But I didn't know you were so much of a cook, Father."

"Jack, while we are eating, I'll tell you a true story, one of the dark secrets of my eventful life; that will explain to you why I believe a man should know how to cook."

So when the pancakes were finished and Jack had time to listen, his father told him the story of how, when they were first married, the Blairs had taken a trip across the prairie, and had camped a long way from a town; how Mother Blair had been taken ill and could not do the cooking, and poor Father Blair had to do everything for her and himself too, and did not know how to cook an egg, or make a cup of tea, or a bit of toast; and what a time it was! "I tell you, Jack, after that was over, I went to work and learned how to do a few things; and now, as you say," he added complacently, "I'm quite a cook. And the sooner you learn to cook, the better, for some day you'll need to know how; all men do."

"S'pose so," Jack murmured thoughtfully.

The next day was perfect for trout-fishing, so they started early with some lunch, and went back into the deep woods where there was a brown stream all full of little rocks and hollows, and there Jack took his first lesson in fly-fishing, and at night he was the proudest of boys when they looked at their basket of speckled beauties, four of which he had caught. It was great fun to cook them too, when they got back to camp.

SMALL FISH, BROILED

Clean the fish; put them on a green stick, passing it through their gills; put a slice of bacon or salt pork between each two fish; have a hot bed of coals, and hold them over this till done, turning often.

Several of the larger ones they strung on a string and put away in a dark, cool place among the rocks, and kept them till the next day, when they cooked them in a different way, and had:

PANNED FISH

Clean the fish; cut off the heads and break the spines, to keep them from curling as they cook. Put three slices of bacon or pork into a frying-pan, and, when this is done, take it out and put in the fish; cook quickly and turn often.

One day a rain-storm came on, so they could not go fishing, but had to stay in and play games and read and write letters. At noon, they went to a sheltered corner of the rocks and made a quick fire, where the rain could not reach it, and cooked their dinner; they had:

CORNED-BEEF HASH

1 can of corned beef.

1 onion.

2 large cups of cold boiled potato.

Pepper and dry mustard.

Cook the onion, after slicing it fine, in a little fat. Chop the potatoes and beef and add these, with the seasoning; when the under side is brown, turn it like an omelet.

For supper they had to go to their stores again; this time they had

STEAMED SALMON

Turn the salmon into a dish; take out the bones and fat, and pour away the juice; season with salt and pepper; put in a covered can and stand in a kettle of boiling water till very hot.

"We'll have fried potatoes with the salmon, Jack. Can you make those all alone?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Jack, who by this time could do a great many things.

FRIED POTATOES

Slice cooked or raw potatoes; heat a frying-pan, put in enough fat to cover the bottom when melted, and cook the potatoes till brown; scrape them up from the bottom often, so they will not burn.

The potatoes and salmon made a very good supper, but Jack was not sorry to hear that, when the guide made his weekly visit the next day, he would bring eggs and milk and vegetables.

"And I'm going to send for a little light sheet-iron stove made especially for campers," said Mr. Blair. "Then we'll have real corn-bread, and baked fish, and biscuits. Don't you want to learn to make biscuits like Mildred's, Jack?"

Jack grew red all through his tan as he looked at his father's teasing face.

"Well," he said doubtfully, "I suppose biscuits are all right, and I'll learn to make them if you say so. But, Father, you won't want me ever to make cake or desserts, will you? I draw the line there!"

"We'll see!" laughed his father. "Perhaps you'll change your mind about that, some day."

CHAPTER IX

IN CAMP (CONTINUED)

There was a wait of a week before the camp stove could arrive, and during that time, Jack took lessons in all sorts of cooking, and learned to make a number of good things; and this was fortunate, for one day two friends of his father surprised them; they were on their way to a camp farther in the woods, and wanted to stay a night and a day with the Blairs before going on. This meant that there were four people to cook for instead of two, and it needed all the experience Jack had to do his share of the work.

The visitors did not come until supper was done, and everything was eaten up; not even a bit of fish was left over. So the Blairs had to go to their stores and find something they could get ready quickly, and something very hearty as well.

"These fellows are as hungry as hunters," Mr. Blair said, while the men were washing up in the lake and getting ready for supper. "Here's some tinned meat; let's have that, with potatoes in it."

"But potatoes take so long to cook – "

"Not the way I'm going to cook them; only ten minutes. You can peel four and slice them very thin, and put them in cold water, and then peel and slice an onion while I open the meat and boil the kettle for coffee. Then I'll show you how to make a:"

TEN-MINUTE STEW

4 potatoes, sliced very thin.

1 onion, sliced thin.

1 can of tinned meat (not corned beef).

Salt and pepper.

1 rounded tablespoonful of flour.

1 large cup of cold water.

Put the potatoes on to cook in a saucepan of boiling salted water. Then put the onion in a hot frying-pan with a tablespoonful of pork or bacon fat, and fry brown. Put the flour in the cold water and stir till it is smooth, and mix this with the onion and stir it up; when the potatoes are done, drain them and add next, and then put in the sliced meat and heat; do not boil.

By the time this was done, the coffee was ready too, and the nice hot stew was served with large cups of the coffee and plenty of bread and butter. With a second cup of coffee and crackers and cheese, their guests had made an excellent supper.

The next morning, Jack got up extra early, because he knew everybody would be anxious to go fishing. So he soon had the kettle boiling and the breakfast started, and cooked it all by himself while the men dressed. The principal dish was:

FRIED SALT PORK

Slice thin and put in a frying-pan with enough warm water to cover; stir it around till the water begins to simmer, and turn this all off and drain the pork. Then fry till crisp. Put this in a hot dish near the fire while you make the gravy.

1 tablespoonful of flour.

2 cups of boiling water.

A little pepper.

Put the flour in the grease in the frying-pan, and rub till smooth and brown; add the water slowly, stirring all the time, and then the pepper; when smooth and a little thick, pour over the fried pork.

With this he had pancakes, plenty of them, which were delicious with the pork gravy, and on these, with plenty of coffee, the men said they could get along very comfortably till dinner-time.

For dinner they had some of the fish they caught, broiled, with boiled potatoes; and, for dessert, corn-cakes and maple-syrup. For supper Jack took the fish left from dinner and made:

FISH-BALLS

1 pint of cooked fish, picked up small.

1 quart of hot mashed potato.

1 tablespoonful of butter.

A little pepper.

Beat all together till very light, and make into balls the size of an egg. Have ready a pail of very hot fat, and drop in two balls at a time and cook till light brown; take them out; keep hot; and put in two more, and so on.

After this, he had something which had taken a long time to make, but he did not mind it.

FRIED CORN-MEAL MUSH

1 rounded tablespoonful of salt.

1 quart of yellow corn-meal.

4 quarts of water.

Bring the water to a hard boil in a kettle over the fire; mix the meal with enough cold water to make a thick batter (this is to avoid lumps). Drop spoonfuls of the meal into the water gradually, so it does not stop boiling; when all is in, stir steadily for ten minutes. Then put a cover on the pot and hang it high over the fire so it will cook slowly for one hour; stir occasionally so it will not burn; then pack tightly in a pan and let it get perfectly cold and firm. (The best plan is to let it stand all night if you can.) When you wish to use it, slice it, and fry in very hot grease in the frying-pan till brown.

The next day the men left, after saying they had had a fine visit and had never had such good things to eat in camp. Then Jack and his father had a quiet time till the guide appeared once more, his boat full of stores and his pockets crammed with newspapers and letters; and in the end of his boat he had a small sheet-iron stove. That they quickly set up under the edge of the lean-to where, if it rained, it would not get wet and rusty.

"And now, Jack," said his father, rubbing his hands, "you shall taste my baked beans. I may say without boasting that they will be the very best you ever ate in your life. Women may be able to cook ordinary food, but it takes a man to cook beans – and I'm the man!"

Jack laughed, and said he wanted to learn how so he could beat his father making them, and he watched carefully everything that was done.

BAKED BEANS

Pick over a pint of beans and throw away all that are shriveled and poor. Wash the rest and put them in cold water to cover them, and let them stand all night. The next day, put the beans in fresh water and gently cook them half an hour, skimming them occasionally.

In another kettle, put a piece of salt pork as large as a man's fist; cover it with water and let it cook till the beans are done. Then drain the water off both, and cut the pork in two pieces; slice each piece part way down, leaving the lower portion solid. Put one piece in the bottom of an earthen dish, and pile the beans around and over it, and put the other piece on top. Mix

½ teaspoonful of salt.

¼ teaspoonful of pepper.

1 tablespoonful of molasses or sugar.

½ teaspoonful of dry mustard.

Pour this all over the beans and cover the pan; put in the oven, and bake at least two hours; uncover and brown during the last twenty minutes. If the beans get very dry, pour on half a cup of boiling water when they are half done.

"Aha!" said Father Blair, as he put the pan in the oven when they were ready to bake. "Those will be simply fine. Now we could have made them by putting them in a kettle over the fire and baking them so, or we could have buried the kettle in a hole in the ashes; but they are really better done in an oven if one happens to have one. And, anyway, I needed a stove to bake biscuit in, so that's why I got one. I think we will make some for supper, too, and put them in when the beans come out. The name of the one big biscuit I'm going to make to-night is:"

CAMPER'S BREAD

1½ pints of flour.

1½ rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.

½ teaspoonful of salt.

2 rounded teaspoonfuls of any kind of fat (lard is best).

½ pint of cold water.

Put the baking-powder and salt in the flour; mix well and then rub in the lard till there are no lumps left and it does not stick to the pan; add the water, a little at a time, and stir with the spoon till smooth. Grease a pan and put the dough in in rather a thin layer; smooth the top and bake, till, when you put in a sliver of wood, it comes out clean. Eat while warm; do not cut, but break into pieces.

"Now I could have cooked this just as I could have cooked the beans, without the oven. I could have put it in the frying-pan in a bed of hot ashes and covered it and put ashes on top and let it cook till done; but it's better to cook it this way if you can, because it's lighter and browner. When you want regular biscuits, all you do is to make the dough into little balls, and be sure you put flour on your hands before you try it, Jack, or you'll get into an awful mess. And then you put them in the pan and just bake them till they are done."

"I like the big loaf," said Jack. "It's more like real camp cooking; biscuits are for a house."

"And now we are going to have something extra good to-day – green corn on the cob. I tell you that's a luxury for campers! How will you have it, boiled or roasted?"

"Both," said Jack, who liked corn immensely.

"Very well, but one way at a time, young man! We will have it boiled this noon, and we will roast it over the coals to-night."

BOILED CORN

Have a deep kettle full of water boiling hard; take off the husks and silk, and boil the ears hard for twenty minutes; serve with butter and salt.

"Some campers boil the corn in the husk and think it is better that way, but I find I always burn my fingers taking off the leaves and silk, so I believe in peeling it as we do at home," said Jack's father, as he put the ears in the kettle slowly, so as not to stop the boiling of the water. "Now for supper, this is the way to fix it:"

ROAST CORN

Take off the husks and silk. Put a stick in the end of the ear, and toast it brown over a bed of coals; have ready butter and salt to put on each.

The baked beans proved all their cook promised they should be, and almost the best thing about them was that they were just as good cold as hot, and so saved cooking things sometimes when they were in a hurry.