"Camp Cookery--Meats"

At a library sale a couple weeks ago, I came across a copy of Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart. Apparently first published in 1917, it offers a very different view of camping and the outdoors from that typical of today. I thought I might offer some excerpts, now and again, for the reader's enjoyment. So, today, I offer a bit of Kephart's advice on cooking meats:

The juices of meats and fish are their most palatable and nutritious ingredients. We extract them purposely in making soups, stews, and gravies, but in so doing we ruin the meat itself. Any fish, flesh, or fowl that is fit to be eaten for the good meat's sake should be cooked succulent, by first coagulating the outside (searing in a bright flame or in a very hot pan, or plunging into smoking hot grease or furiously boiling water) and then removed farther from the fire to cook gradually till done. The first process, which is quickly performed, is "the surprise." It sets the juices, and, in the case of frying, seals the fish or meat in a grease-proof envelope so that it will not become sodden but will dry crisp when drained. The horrors of the frying-pan that has been unskillfully wielded are too well known. Let us campers, to whom the frying-pan is an almost indispensable utensil, set a good example to our grease-afflicted country by using it according to the code of health and epicurean taste.