Fig.2. The Ideal
Fry-Pan.
When we come to the question of the food supplies
to be taken aboard, much will depend upon the
individual. Hard tack, soft tack, flour, beans, corned
beef, salt pork, bacon, hams, canned meats, sardines,
canned fruits and vegetables, cornmeal, lard, butter,
cheese, condensed milk, sweetened and unsweetened,
coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate, pepper, salt, mustard,
vinegar, poultry seasoning, sugar and rice are some of
the staple comestibles that suggest themselves, but
these may be added to or subtracted from according to
circumstances.
A ham is one of the most easily procured
comestibles. Pick out a small one, not too fat. If you
want it tough as leather, boil it furiously for a
couple of hours, then haul it out of the pot and eat
it. If you want a delicate, tender and juicy ham soak
it in a bucket of fresh water for twelve hours. Then
scrape it well and pop it into a big pot full of cold
fresh water. Let it come slowly to the boil. As soon
as the water reaches the boiling stage, regulate the
heat so that a gentle simmering, the faintest possible
ebullition is kept up for five or six hours, according
to the size of the joint. Then take it out of the pot
and skin it. The rind will come off as easily as an
old shoe. Then return meat to the water in which it
was boiled and let it remain until it is quite cold.
Next, dish it, drain it and put it in the ice box to
harden. Cut in very thin slices with a sharp knife,
and you will admit that cooked after this scientific
formula ham is mighty fine eating.
Fig.3. A Nest of Stew-pans.
Corned beef cooked after this same fashion will
also be a success. The secret is a simple one of
chemistry. Hard boiling hardens the fibers and tears
the meat to rags. Gentle simmering softens the meat
while allowing it to retain its juices.
The navy bean at present in use, though much may be
said in its praise, is far inferior to the lima bean.
This legume if substituted for the insignificant (by
comparison only) little bean on which Boston
breakfasts every Sabbath morn will be found so
palatable that the lesser variety will never again be
used. Procure a quart of lima beans. Pick out all that
are shriveled or discolored. Soak the rest all night
in plenty of cold fresh water and in the morning you
will find them plump and tender. Wash them well and
place them in a pot on the fire with a square piece of
salt pork weighing three-quarters of a pound; simmer
them gently till they are tender, but not till they
reach the porridge stage. On the contrary, let each
bean be separate like the soft and swelling grains of
well-cooked rice. Strain through a colander, saving a
pint of the water in which they were boiled. Pack in
the bean pot. Bury the chunk of pork in the beans.
Season the pint of water reserved as mentioned above,
to your liking. Pour over the beans in the pot and put
in the oven to bake. The flavoring of beans depends
upon the taste of the cook.
Sirloin steaks are a good staple viand. Make the
butcher cut them not less than two inches thick. If
you cannot grill them heat your fry-pan almost
red-hot. Put no fat in the pan. Place your steak cut
into convenient chunks into the hot pan. Let one side
sear for a minute or so to keep in the juices. Then
turn meat over. It will be cooked sufficiently for
most palates in five or six minutes. Place on a piping
hot platter, spread some fresh butter on the steak,
sprinkle with pepper, and pipe to grub. Chops may be
cooked in the same way.
Meat may be roasted in an iron pot if the cook has
no oven. Moderate heat, continuous care to prevent
burning, and frequent basting are the three requisites
of a successful pot roast.
So far as beverages are concerned, useful hints in
that direction are given in Fig.5, which shows a
picturesque and shipshape vessel to carry when
a-cruising.
There is no daintier dish than a fresh, fat
lobster, generous and juicy, just hauled from the pot
in which he was caught. Pick out a particularly lively
specimen of medium size but heavy. The cock lobster
may be distinguished from the hen by the narrowness of
the tail, the upper two fins of which are stiff and
hard, while the tail of the hen is broader and the
fins soft. The male has the higher flavor; the flesh,
too, is firmer and the color when boiled is a deeper
red. The hen is well adapted for lobster a la Newburg,
hut for eating on the half-shell a male in prime
condition is far preferable.
Fig.4. Ice Tub.
The secret of cooking lobsters is to plunge them
into a pot of furiously boiling sea water, and to keep
the water in a condition of fast ebullition for just
twenty minutes. Fresh water to which salt is added
will not do so well. Salt water fresh from the ocean
is indispensable. It brings out the correct flavor and
imparts an indefinable zest to the lobster. Hard shell
crabs may be boiled in the same way, but ten minutes
will be ample time.
All fresh vegetables are, in the opinion of the
writer, improved in flavor by cooking them in sea
water fresh from the ocean, not from a harbor
contaminated by noxious influences from the shore. All
vegetables should be immersed in boiling water and
cooked till done. Potatoes will take about half an
hour to boil, but cabbages, carrots and turnips much
longer. I should not advise the cooking of the
last-named three esculents aboard a small craft.
Canned asparagus, French peas and string beans take
little time to prepare and are excellent if a reliable
brand is purchased. Open the can, drain off the liquid
and throw it away. Wash the vegetables, strain the
water off, place in a stew-pan with a lump of butter,
and heat thoroughly. The liquid of canned vegetables
is unfit for human food.
Hard clams or quahogs are plentiful at any port
during the boating season. The recuperative qualities
of the small variety served ice-cold on the half shell
with a dash of Tabasco sauce and no other seasoning
are beyond praise. Now while the little clam is
excellent eating just as soon as opened from the
shell, taking care to waste none of his precious
juices, his elder brother also has inestimable
gastronomic values.
The easiest and simplest method of preparing clam
broth is to scrub the clams well and wash them in
several waters. Put them in an iron pot, without any C
water or liquid. Let them r remain on the fire for
twenty minutes. Then strain the juice, into which put
a little fresh butter, a small quantity of milk, and a
dash of red pepper. Drink while hot.
Fig.5. A Traveling Companion.
Never add water to clam broth, and never let it
boil after the milk is added, as it will curdle nine
times out of ten.
To make clam soup, clean the clams as for broth.
Place them in an iron pot on the stove. As soon as
they open take them out of their shells and chop very
fine. A hardwood bowl and a two-bladed chopping knife
are the best apparatus for this job. Strain the clam
liquor, return to the pot, add minced onions to taste
and the chopped clams; simmer gently for one hour,
thicken to taste with cracker dust, season with sweet
herbs and pepper; let boil fast for ten minutes, take
off the stove and add some hot milk and a lump of
fresh butter. Serve.
Clam chowder is an old sea dish whose popularity
seems likely never to wane. It is a simple dish to
prepare, although many cooks make a mystery of it. Cut
half a pound of streaky salt pork into small cubes.
Fry in an iron pot together with half a dozen medium
sized sliced onions until they are light brown. Chop
fifty hard shell clams fine. Peel and slice thin a
dozen large raw potatoes. Break up four sea biscuits
and soak till soft in cold water or milk. Scald and
peel and slice six ripe and juicy tomatoes. Put these
ingredients into the pot in layers, pour over them the
strained juice of the clams. Season with red and black
pepper, sauces and herbs to taste. Cover an inch with
hot fresh water and simmer for three hours. A pint of
sour California claret added just before serving is an
improvement. An old hen makes tiptop chowder cooked in
the same fashion.
Fish chowder may be prepared in a similar way. Cod,
haddock, sea bass and bluefish are good made into a
chowder.
The soft shell clam makes a delicate stew or broth.
The tough parts should be rejected from the chopping
bowl. Boiled for twenty minutes and eaten from the
shell with a little butter and pepper they are also
very appetizing. A big potful soon disappears.
There is no excuse for the yachtsman neglecting to
enjoy the delights of fish fresh from the sea. Fishing
tackle should always be carried. Bluefish and mackerel
may be caught by trolling; and if you have fisherman's
luck, once in a blue moon a Spanish mackerel may fall
to your lot. If so, that day must be marked by a white
stone, for a Spanish mackerel transferred in about two
shakes of a lamb's tail from the fish hook to the
fry-pan, or better still, if your arrangements permit,
to the gridiron or broiler, is good enough for the
gods to feed on. Two axioms should be borne in mind,
namely, to fry in plenty of boiling fat or to plunge
into boiling water. Never humiliate a fish by placing
him in a cold fry-pan or into a cooking pot of cold
water.
Before frying fish dip in well-beaten egg and then
sprinkle with bread crumbs or cracker dust, dip in egg
again, and then add more bread crumbs or cracker dust.
This is for epicures. For ordinary seafarers if the
fish is rolled in yellow cornmeal without the egg the
result will be nearly the same. Cut up large fish into
suitable sizes, but fry small fish whole.
Soft shell crabs should be cooked in boiling fat.
When brown they are done. Ten minutes is usually
enough to cook them thoroughly.
Always when you boil fish of any kind indigenous to
salt water or fresh put them in boiling water either
from the sea or fresh water well salted. A little
vinegar added is good. A two pound fish should cook
sufficiently in fifteen or at most twenty minutes.
Fish with white flesh take longer to boil than those
with dark.
An excellent sauce for boiled fish may be made
thus: Put a piece of butter as big as an egg in a
saucepan or a tomato can; heat till it bubbles, add a
heaping tablespoonful of flour, stir till quite
smooth; pour slowly into this, stirring continually, a
pint of the water the fish was cooked in, and add two
hard boiled eggs chopped fine. This may be flavored
with anchovy sauce or a few drops of Harvey or
Worcestershire. Some prefer the addition of a little
lemon juice or even vinegar. Every man to his
taste!
When a very little boy I sailed in the Derwent, a
small schooner engaged in carrying bottles from
Sunderland to London. The bottles were taken in from
the factory where they were made, stowed in the hold
of the schooner and transported to a wharf at Wapping.
Bottles are a clean kind of freight, and our skipper
being a very particular kind of a man the Derwent was
kept as bright as a new pin outside and inside, alow
and aloft. On this dashing little vessel I was cook
and cabin boy. There was no regular galley on deck,
simply an iron cooking stove erected on the foreside
of the mainmast; and on that in storm and calm I
boiled and baked for a crew of four for more than a
year -- in fact till I quit the coasting trade and
signed away foreign. My skipper took me under his
special guidance. The grub had to be well cooked and
the deck kept spotless or I used to suffer. Skipper
and mate were epicures after a fashion, go I had to
keep my weather eye open.
My experience in merchant vessels and pleasure
craft has fitted me to write with some small
assumption of authority on the subject of sea
cooking.
Some of my methods may seem queer and perhaps
grotesque, but condemn them not till you have tested
them in the crucible of experiment.
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