Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1914-07-22
HOW TO COOK A LOON,
A valuable Recipe for Campers on
Maine Lakes.

Valuable Recipe for Campers on
Maine Lakes.
youths oompanion.l
Before Caleb Peaslee had turned to
farming, he had filed various inches in
life, sailor, fisherman, woodsman. OK
teamster, and cook, and he was prouder of
his success as q camp and woods cook
than OF all his other accomplishments
combined. Many were the strange dishes
that he could describe in detail - .lie-
mum" and "long hash" and sscamp chow
der" among them, and very precise were
his directions for cooking each dish.
NOW lignum," said he, impressively,
holding Jed GIBSON with a faded, al
though shrewd, blue eye, ''that's suthin'
you never get in the woods till you're
about ready to break camp, and come out
in the spring. Then some fine, warm, yell
Ter day the cook'n get up mess OF lig-
mum, and when he does-you hear me-
the crew'll eat. When you make Iignum,
you hunt round and get little OF every
thing in the camp, and put into tn. big
kittle, and cook it till it's done. You
want to put in everything ali together
p'taters and beef and pork and turnips,
IL you have 'em-and they'll all come out
tender and nice. / even knew an Injun
tan moccasin to git into the lignum kittle
once, and the crew eat more'n half OF it
before they knowed what it was. They
wouldn't have knowed then il one OF the
men hadn't found the lacin' OF the moe
casin laced through the holes"
"Accordin' to that, them" Jed leased the
old man, "you can tender up most any
kind OF meat by runnin' it through lig-
mum kittle. Did we ever try it on wild
truck?"
"Pve tried most all kinds OF meat at one
time and another" returned Caleb, pleas
antly, land they all come out in the lig-
mum puffickly tender and fit to eat, even
coots."
sever you try a loon?" persisted Jed,
with friendly malice. 81 cooked a loon
two days once, and then l undertook to
eat it, and it's fact that had to chew
Considerable on the gravy, and as for the
loon, / couldn't make dent in it, and
had to give up"
The undercurrent OF raillery in Jed's
tone had not gone unobserved by Caleb,
and the lines about his mouth crinkled.
.'Now a loon, Jeddie," replied Caleb,
with such conviction in his tone that Jed
was impressed in spite of himself, sis a
queer bird, and it requires queer treat
ment to cook it. II tell you jest how it's
done, like enough you'll think it's all
foolishness, and MAKE fun OF me for be-
levin such things. But Pm goin' to
chance it, and tell you.
"Fust place." Caleb went on, you've got
to let the loon hang in draft somewheres
for two days. Then you want to get lot
of white-ash roots, not the trunk wood,
but the roots, and make you fire, and let
it burn down to Goals once or twice, SOS
to get good bed OF Goals. Then you've
got to fill your kittle about half full of
pond water-spring water amt good for
nothin' when you're b'ilin' loon. Next
thing you want to do is to hunt round and
find brick; and after you've put your
loon in the kittle, you just shove that
brick down into the kittle endways jest as
easy as you can, and make sure the brick
rests on the end on the bottom OF the
kittle. You cook your loon that way, and
you won't have any trouble.
"But," objected the thoroughly puzzled
Jed, show in tunket is a man goin' to tell
how long to cook it?"
''Sure enough" replied Caleb, and his
smile deepened and widened into hearty
chuckle. "You orter know how long to
cook it, Wal, Jeddis, you jest keep it
cookin' till you get the brick soft 'nough
so you en- stick fork through it easy.
Then your loon'll be done enough to eat"