Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying
and broiling, and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to
reduce it to a pulp. Now and then you find a man who has a natural
inclination to the culinary art, and who does very well within
familiar limits.
Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E.
G. and C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such
a man. But Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell
the nature of the canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans.
If the picture was strange to him, there was no guessing what he
would do with the contents of the can. He was capable of roasting
strawberries, and serving green peas cold for dessert. One day a
can of mullagatawny soup and a can of apricots were handed out to
him simultaneously and without explanations. Edouard solved the
problem by opening both cans and cooking them together. We had a
new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX APRICOTS. It was not as bad as
it sounds. It tasted somewhat like chutney.
The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so
good to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man
who puts up provisions for camp has a great advantage over the
dealers who must satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses.
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