This section is from the book "Camping And Woodcraft", by Horace Kephart. Also available from Amazon: Camping and Woodcraft.
To bake in the ashes: remove one outer husk, stripping off the silk, break off about an inch of the silk end, and twist end of husks tightly dowm over the broken end. Then bake in the ashes and embers as directed for potatoes. Time, about one hour.
To boil: prepare as above, but tie the ends of husks; this preserves the sweetness of the corn Put in enough boiling salted water to cover th« ears. Boil thirty minutes. Like potatoes, corn is injured by over-boiling. When cooked, cut off the bull and remove the shucks.
Cold boiled corn may be cut from the cob and fried, or mixed with mashed potatoes arid fried.
Soak 1 pint split peas overnight drain them, add 1 pound rice, some salt, pepper, and 1/2 teaspoonful ginger. Stir, and cover with 1 quart water. Stir and cook slowly until done and almost dry. Make into a mound, garnished with fried onions and sliced hard-boiled eggs.
One who camps early in the season can add a toothsome dish, now and then, to his menu by gathering fresh greens in the woods and marshes.* As a salad (watercress, peppergrass, dandelion, wild mustard, sorrel, etc.) : wash in cold salted water, if necessary, although this abstracts some of the flavor; dry immediately and thoroughly. Break into convenient, pieces, rejecting tough stems. Prepare a simple French dressing, thus:
1 tablespoonful vinegar, 3 tablespoonfuls best olive oil, 1/2 teaspoonful salt,
1/4 teaspoonful black pepper.
Put salt and pepper in bowl, gradually add oil, rubbing and mixing till salt is dissolved; then add by degrees the vinegar, stirring continuously one minute. In default of oil use cream and melted butter; but plain vinegar, salt, and pepper will do. Pour the dressing over the salad, turn the latter upside down, mix well, and serve.
A scalded salad is prepared in camp by cutting bacon into small dice, frying, adding vinegar, pepper, and a little salt to the grease, and pouring this, scalding hot, over the greens.
Greens may be boiled with salt pork, bacon, or other meat. To boil them separately: first soak in cold salted water for a few minutes, then drain well, and put into enough boiling salted water to cover, pressing them down until the pot is full. Cover, and boil steadily until tender, which may be from twenty minutes to an hour, depending upon kind of greens used. If the plants are a little older than they should be, parboil in water to which a little baking soda has been added; then drain, and continue boiling in plain water, salted.
Some greens are improved by chopping fine after boiling, putting in hot frying-pan with a tablespoonful of butter and some salt and pepper, and stirring until thoroughly heated.
Poke stalks are cooked like asparagus. They should not be over four inches long, and should show only a tuft of leaves at the top; if much older than this, they are unwholesome. Wash the stalks, scrape them, and lay in cold water for an hour; then tie loosely in bundles, put in a kettle of boiling water, and boil three-fourths of an hour, or until tender; drain, lay on buttered toast, dust with pepper and salt, cover with melted butter, and serve.
* Nearly a hundred edible wild plants, besides mushrooms and fruits, are discussed in Volume II, under head of Edible Plants of the Wilderness.
Jerusalem artichokes must be watched when boiling and removed as soon as tender; if left longer in the water they harden.
Dock and sorrel may be cooked like spinach: pick over and wash, drain, shake, and press out adhering water; put in kettle with one cup water, cover kettle, place over moderate fire, and steam thus twenty minutes; then drain, chop very fine., and heat in frying-pan as directed above.
Every one who camps in summer should take with him a mushroom book, such as Gibson's, Atkinson's, or Nina Marshall's. (Such a book in pocket form, with colored illustrations, is a desideratum.) Follow recipes in book. Mushrooms are very easy to prepare, cook quickly, and offer a great variety of flavors. The following general directions are condensed from Mcllvaine's One Thousand American Fungi:
As they are found, cut loose well above attachment. Keep spore surface down until top is brushed clean and every particle of dirt removed from stem. If stem is hard, tough, or wormy, remove it. Do all possible cleaning in the field.
When ready to cook, wash by throwing into deep pan of water. Pass fingers quietly through them upward; let stand a moment for dirt to settle; then gather them from the water with fingers as a drain. Remove any adhering dirt with rough cloth. Thus wash in two or three waters. Lay to drain.
The largest amount of flavor is in the skin, the removal of which is seldom justifiable.
Cook in any way you can cook an oyster.
Use well-spread caps only. Place caps on double broiler, gills down. Broil two minutes. Ture, and broil two minutes more. While hot, season with salt and pepper, butter well, especially on gill side. Serve on toasfc.
Heat butter boiling hot in frying-pan. Fry five minutes. Serve on hot dish, pouring over them the sauce made by thickening the butter with a little flour.
Carry a vial of olive oil, or a small can of butter, and some pepper and salt mixed. Make fire of dry twigs. Split a green stick (sassafras, birch, 01 spicewood, is best) at one end; put mushroom in the cleft, broil, oil or butter, and eat from stick.
Cover bottom of tin plate with the caps, spore surface up. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place a bit of butter on each- Put another tin plate on top. Set on coals, or on a heated stone, fifteen minutes. No better baking will result in the best oven.
All mushrooms on the following list are delicious :
Coprinus comatus. Lactarius volemus.
 
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