In camp and kitchen : A handy guide for emigrants and settlers

"In camp and kitchen" by Lucy H. Yates is a practical handbook for emigrants and settlers written in the early 20th century. It concentrates on how to secure safe water, build makeshift fireplaces and ovens, manage stores, bake bread, and cook nourishing meals with minimal equipment. Blending basic food science with step-by-step methods and straightforward recipes, it aims to keep pioneers healthy, economical, and self-reliant in camp, hut, or new homestead. The opening of this guide sets a pragmatic, good-humoured tone with a motto about what to take and leave behind, stressing that daily meals are central to health and morale. It then details how to cook in the open with stone-and-clay hearths, biscuit‑tin and barrel ovens, ash cooking in clay, hay‑box heat retention, “billy” double-pot steaming, and simple frying and spit-roasting, before scaling up to trench kitchens and hut fireplaces. Practical add-ons include oil and spirit stoves, notes on early electric ranges, and a mincing machine. Next, it covers water purification and storage (improvised filters, rain capture, dew, and a model cistern), sanitary waste disposal and composting, cool storage pits, a smoke-curing shed, and a simple ice house. It provides breadmaking from hop yeast to quick breads (damper, flapjacks, corn breads, chupatties), plain pastry and suet puddings, and a clear primer on food needs, butchering and jointing, cleaning fish and fowl, and vegetable preparation. It closes this opening portion by explaining the “reason why” of roasting, baking, boiling, stewing, frying, braising, and grilling, and begins a set of simple soup and broth recipes. (This is an automatically generated summary.)