St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-09-30

1t Is Sure to Sc Good If You
Knock the Grounds Out of the
Pot Against the Log just Right.
Forest and Stream.
A study of camp life will establish
many simple truths which have not yet
become automatic in popular philos-
ophy. Thus, there many ways of wash
Ing table knives, many of them ingeni-
Gus, most of them troublesome; yet it
seems to have escaped general knowl-
edge that the only way to clean a greasy
knife is 10 stick it in the ground and
then wipe it upon ones trousers leg.
Take it also in the matter of coffee.
There are many cook books in the land,
and each of these will give several ways
OF making coffee. Your wife'S folks will
have their way, and every lady visitor
Will give you her recipe. How singular
that the only correct way of making
good coffee has never been announced
publicly!
A few days in camp will teach it. In
the first place, you must never, under
any circumstances, wash the coffee pot.
Every other vessel about the camp
should be kept scrupulouSly clean, but
the coffee pot should never be washed.
After each meal the coffee grounds
should be emptied out into the end of
the fire, and the coffee pot should be
knocked gently against the side log, in
order to diSengage to the proper extent
the adherent grounds.
After this the coffee pot should be left
inverted, about six feet from the fire.
place, with the lid resting upon the bot
tom of the pot. This position should be
maintained till the next meal, without
variation from day to day.
am disposed to think that careful
observance of the directions up to this
point have most to do with the sue
that the instruction not to wash
the coffee pot is essential. The size
of the coffee pot, contrary to common
impression, has nothing whatever to do
with the amount of the coffee to be
used; neither has the number of per-
sons at table anything to do with it.
You always have drinking cup about
your camp, for instance the porcelain
lined or blue granite sort.
You take this cup and pour it full of
the ground coffee, so that the top of the
heaped up coffee is inst level with the
rim of the cup. This rule should be
followed in all cases, a cupful of ground
coffee for each meal, be the drinkers
Two. lOur OF more.
You can put this into the pot of water
before you put the water on the fire. and
so bring it to boil. or you can boil tue
water first, then put in the coffee and
bring it to a boil again. There seems
to be no difference about this. The
main skill in making coffee seems to lie
in the knocking out of the grounds on
the fire log.
An Impractical hand may knock out
the grounds too clean or not clean
enough, or may leave the pot right side
up for the sun to shine into, in any of
which eases failure must result. By the
observance of the above plain and easy
rules l have never known poor coffee to
be made in camp.
The right kind of coffee pot is made
OF sheet iron, riyited, and is wider at
the bottom than at the top, so that it is
not always tumbling over when you set
it OH the fire. A proper coffee pot must
be set square down upon the fire.
L always have my doubts about the
man who suspends his coffee pot over
the fire by means of a gypsy fork, or
allows it to depend from chain or
wire. Nine times out of ten that man
is tenderfoOt aud builds too big fire.
used to have rOund-bottomed coffee
pot which liked to be treated in that
way, but it is no more in my kit.
1t was frSt-ciaSS nuisance, always
spilling at the critical moment, and
needing besides bonfire to boil it. The
Old-timer has nice, narrow little fire
between two side logs, and at this he
will boil his coffee, cook spiderful of
bacon and eggs, and broiI bass or a
bird, all at the same time, or so nearly
spontaneously that no one at the table
will kick.
Portable, "read place where the dish
es are. The old-timer never burns his
hands, either. nor gets red In the face,
nor swears while cooking. He does it
just as easy, because he knows how.