tramping
tramping
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE TRAMP AS COOK
Then did he study some half hourBut as the Comick saith his heart was in the kitchen.
Then did he study some half hourBut as the Comick saith his heart was in the kitchen.
Then did he study some half hourBut as the Comick saith his heart was in the kitchen.
Then did he study some half hour
But as the Comick saith his heart was in the kitchen.
ITHINK Coleridge was annoyed by the man who interrupted him with the words “Them’s the jockeys for me,” referring to some steak puddings which had been brought before his eyes. Coleridge was regarding some choice bit of Scottish scenery, the Falls of Clyde, I think, and a rough, unlikely-looking fellow had used what Coleridge had considered absolutely the right adjective concerningthem—majestic—and the poet turned on him to learn more of this verbal grace. Then a toad leapt from the mouth of the princess who had previously given a pearl. “Them’s the jockeys for me,” said he, regarding the steak puddings. It is recorded somewhere in Coleridge’sTable Talk. I read it some twenty or twenty-five years ago, and the two expressions have remained with me—“majestic” and “them’s the jockeys.” In fact, I adopted the word majestic as applied to scenery there and then, that, and the Shakespearian “majestical.” “It seemed I did him wrong, being so majestical.” It has almost become a vice of style. That, however, is by the way. The poetry of our life, and of our book, shall be interlarded with—I may not say puddings; one does not lard with puddings, with the fatness of cooking and eating.
The dawn stars make one hungry. Noontide makes one hungry, and so does afternoon. The tramp is loath to tighten his belt.
I have described, in another book, how one should make coffee, and I will not repeat. But the first thing about it is love, as I wrotein a verse during my tramp with Vachel Lindsay, “Coffee should be made with love; that’s the first ingredient,” and “the chief cause of coffee being just indifferent is your indifference towards the coffee.” I feel this is also true of the most of cooking. You must bring a loving heart to the primus or the camp fire. No soured personality can be trusted to stir the beans, far less make the coffee. I have not examined the psychology of good cooks, but I imagine few of them are bitter, few of them are egoists. Watch a thoroughgoing egoist over the camp fire, cooking foryou. But I ask too much—take the pan from him, take the pot away.
He will be saying to you, “I had a very interesting letter from Thomas Hardy apropos of a letter I wrote to theTimes, approving entirely what I said—” Meanwhile the coffeepot has tilted on its stone and is pouring its goodness to the ants and the beetles. It is a miching malicho, it means mischief. You must take over from him, let him sit himself on a rock and pour forth, but not tend the fire and let the coffeepot pour forth.
Lindsay wrote a reply to my recipe for making coffee. His was a recipe for making tea. He did not omit love. But as well as tea leaves he recommended leaves of various books to be put in the pot. I do not know that I care for this tea from book leaves and, I suppose, old bindings. I have had it indoors, given me by some dusty recluse, in his portentous library. Qua tea it was not so excellent, qua soporific, it was good.
One may put in a little philosophy, however, with both tea and coffee. “Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?” We need a little for our repast, but we want no soda to bring out the flavor.
Lindsay, being an American, knew little of tea. That is why we traveled almost exclusively on coffee. In any case, a practical detail to be noted, it is not wise to make coffee and tea from the same pot. The flavors adhere even to a very well rinsed vessel and spoil one another. If there are two of you, each may carry his own pot, one for tea, one for coffee. But it is simpler to be unanimous as regards the choice of beverage. In Russia I trampedalmost always on tea, because the tea is so good there and needs no milk. In some districts milk is difficult to obtain. In America, however, “evaporated” and “condensed” in cans are obtainable everywhere, and are conveniently carried. You need only make two tiny perforations in the lid of the condensed milk tin. You blow through one, and it drives a thin stream of milk out at the other. You cover these perforations with a leaf or a piece of paper, and thus sealed, the can is carried safely in the rucksack. Of course, if you open with a can opener it is likely to be difficult to keep your milk for more than one meal—or it will make an unpleasant mixture in your rucksack.
China tea has the advantage that it needs no milk. Indeed, milk spoils it. It should be made very weak, and it is then more refreshing than Indian tea. I prefer a good Chinese blend, especially on tramp. It is not, however, possible to prepare tea in any elegant fashion. There is no “five o’clock” in the wilds. You brew a pot of tea at any hour which taste suggests. The luxurious maycarry a small teapot and merely boil the water in the can or coffeepot. But the rougher method is not without appeal. You can sift two spoonfuls of tea into your coffeepot when the water is boiling and at once take it off the fire. A better plan is to cut off a small square from your mosquito netting and tie the tea in that. Your first mugful will be rather weak, but your second, third and fourth, progressively stronger unless you are able to pull out the little bag of swollen tea leaves. Wash the bit of netting, and it is ready for next time. It will last several weeks if you do not lose it.
I find you can walk further after tea, but coffee makes you more sociable. You talk more after coffee. If Mrs. Thrale had made the great Doctor coffee instead of tea Boswell would have missed much more of what he said. Though tea indoors is very different from tea out of doors. As a domestic drink it is productive of high spirits, but out of doors it enkindles purpose. You walk and think and are silent. It is good for artists and writers. Forms and ideas rise unbidden to the mind. What good thinking comes after the morningtea on the road—whole chapters, whole stories, curious conceits and fancies! But after coffee you cannot keep anything to yourself, and if you have no companion you take to singing.
If, however, you are very tired or wet through with rain, coffee has more power to restore. It is better then to make it without milk. Put seven or eight lumps of sugar in the pot and heat water and sugar together, not too much water. When quite hot, sizzling, float a double portion or even treble portion of coffee on top. Do not, for this potation, use mosquito netting. The coffee should then be watched—for it may rise suddenly and become wasted. It is as well to stir it, and then a useful device is the using of cross sticks. “If you make the sign of the cross over a pot of coffee it will not boil over,” say the cowboys. And it is a curious fact that two dead twigs, placed crosswise over the top of the coffeepot, seem to cast a spell on the brew. The brew should simmer for a quarter of an hour or more. Then add a little cold water and stir up. The grouts will go to the bottom, leaving a fine liquor. Though very strong, this typeof coffee is not bitter. You sip it; it lasts a long while. It is much better than medicine for you, and will drive out any amount of damp from your system. I think it better than coffee and rum, or warm damson gin, or any of the concomitants of aspirin. No tramp should carry aspirin. It is depressing to mind and soul, and generally causes you to give up adventures.
Bread and cheese and coffee make a good combination, as of course do cake and coffee, any sort of coffee and cake. Bread and sardine and coffee go down very well, to say nothing of fried trout. Directly you get your fish, scrape it and clean it, a dirty job, but you get used to it, wash it and fry it. If you can eat it within a quarter of an hour of its swimming in the stream you get some of the hidden and lost potentialities of trout, the inner worth of those delightful pink spots, those scales your color-loving eye is loath to scrape. However, remember the coffee. It can simmer gently while you fry. Bully beef is redeemed by coffee, so is Maconochie. Eggs go well, but they must be fried. Boiledeggs go better with tea. Wash them and then boil them in the same water from which you will make the tea. It improves the tea. But be careful of the eggs as they boil that they do not dance together and crack one another. For in that case your tea water will be spoiled.
In Poland, and in Border States and in Russia there are excellent hard bannocks which soften when heated. You slit them and insert butter. In Russia they are calledbubliki; they sell them in the East End of all great cities. They go remarkably well with tea.
In Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, there are excellent oaten and rye cakes. They are delightful with Indian tea and milk; not so good with China tea.
America, marvelous country, provides the greatest variety of breakfast foods, cakes, and pies in the world. What can compare with pumpkin pie, blackberry pie, peach pie? You go into an unromantic-looking “ville” or “burg,” and surely come away with an unbroken round of pie to civilize the camp cuisine.
On a long tramping expedition one is bound to study to some degree the body and its needs. The Army marches on its stomach, so do you. An attack of indigestion can make a strong man almost too weak to move. Beware of the cakes of bread sold in the market place in Mohammedan cities, what in Central Asia the Sarts and Uzbeks bake. They are difficult to swallow, even with wine, and once inside become a stiff indigestible mass. Millet bread is also difficult to assimilate. Maize flour bread is also upon occasion bad to tramp on. On the other hand, no harm comes from any variety of wheaten and oaten biscuit. One of the tramp’s temptations is toward wild fruit. He can easily make himself very unwell by eating unripe or bitter ripe fruit—even when boiled with sugar. Again, if the coffeepot gets dirty inside and brown curds adhere to the side you will find you are drinking something rather upsetting with your coffee. There is no need to scrub the outside of the coffeepot but cleanliness within should bede rigueur. Dried apricots, when obtainable, are ideal to take on tramp, but they should be washed before cooking.The stones should be broken and the kernels thrown in with the flesh of the fruit and some sugar—an ideal dish.
Potatoes are difficult to carry, but when obtained can be easily cooked under the seemingly dead ashes of your camp fire. They are greatly enjoyed, as all know who have even on a picnic roasted them and dandled them timorously in their fingers. It is just as well to hoist them out of the ashes on the end of a sharpened stick. If the stick will not go in, the potatoes are probably not yet cooked.
Similarly, various birds, having been plucked of feathers, can be cooked under the ashes. The fire ought to have been burning an hour or so, and have accumulated much ember before cooking a bird is tried. But a hollow may be found for your chicken and the ashes carefully raked and heaped over it.
Perhaps, however, the best way to cook a young chicken is to fry it. It is easily fried over the glowing embers and is immensely tasty. Chicken, with a tang of wood smoke is a feast! One cannot think of having a chicken every day. But enough has been said to showthat the cuisine of the out-of-door life is not utterly primitive. There is a variety of good things for those who are not ascetics. And besides all these good things there enter by chance into the ménage mushrooms, so shockingly overlooked by town-bred folk; wine, especially thevin du pays, which is sometimes almost a free gift to the wanderer; honey just taken from the bee; Devonshire cream if you are in the English West Country, and also bountiful cider. There are good cheeses; though out of door all cheese is good. You can take your freshpetit Suissealong with you in France; your Gruyère, your Stilton—there is some good cheese in every country, and all manner of rough cream cheeses in the mountains. Goat-milk cheese is apt to make one very thirsty, so one should have wine to go with it. In America there is the never-to-be-forgotten strawberry shortcake. You can also get a brick of ice cream if you carry a chilling box. In Turkish villages you can go into the restaurants and lift such delicacies as stuffed peppers—even the thought of them is an appetiser. Thebon viveurcan carry with him hispetit verre. Upon my honor, this tramping business is not altogether an “eating of roots in the desert.” Still, when provisions run out and you are far from human habitation, you may be reduced to eating grass. That is the reverse side of the picture.