Recipe from the Country Cookbook, 1937
POSSUM
Possum and woodchuck should ha e the glands or kernels taken out from under the forelegs and the small of the back. many people also remove some of the layer of fat that lies under the skin. If the animal is to be baked a favorite stuffing is equal parts of boiled chestnuts, apple sauce, and breadcrumbs. The best possum we ever ate was left unstuffed, but its outside was stuck full os sassafras twigs until it looked like a porcupine. An Ozarks woodsman roasted it for us before an open fire, in sight of its skin which eh had tacked up on the wall to dry. There is an old recipe from teh deep South, however, which is the classic. "Place an ax handle across the possum's neck, hold the tail and pull until the neck is broken. Meanwhile have ready a pot of boiling oak lye, made of a quart of oak ashes and a gallon of water. As soon as the neck is broken, put the possum in this, for a minute; take out and scrape clean, open down the breast, remove entrails, and wash thoroughly. Hang in a cool place. Rub inside and out with salt and black or red pepper; place in a roasting pan, with a teacup of boiling water, one of vinegar, a tablespoon of butter and a half dozen or more small peeled potatoes (sweets, of course). Baste the meat frequently. When tender remove to a dish and garnish with potatoes and parsley."
Porcupine
Toss into fire and leave it there until quills burn off, wipe clean, split skin down the stomach and take it off, chopping off the ends of the legs; empty and season lightly, for the flavor is delicate. Stew or roast, whole or cup up. The skin is considered the best part if the beast be first salted, peppered,, and marinated for a day and then broiled.
COOKING IN THE ASHES
The simplest way of cooking in the world, coming down from the earliest use of fire by the human race, is that done without benefit of any implement; but just by the heat itself. And it is a mighty handy method for the sportsman in camp, for he can bury his Irish potatoes or sweets deep in the ashes of an old fire that has well heated the earth and they will be ready when he comes back with the fish or game that is to go with them.
Chestnuts, onions, acorn squash, and apples keep good company with the potatoes. A small cross should be cut in each chestnut shell at the stem end so the nuts will not explode when heat expands them, and also to facilitate shelling; but the skins of onions, squash and apples should be unbroken.
Both sweet and field corn are at their best roasted in this manner-- just pull off a few of the outer husks, be sure to take the corn out of the ashes as soon as it is done, and you will have th real roasting ears our forefathers gnawed so lustily.
Bananas follow an old tropical tradition when baked thus in their skins. They cook in short order, and after the ashes are dusted off they-re just slit open crack so the flesh can be sprinkled well with sugar and cinnamon and dug out with a spoon without letting the contents get cold, for only a cold potato tastes as soggy as a cold cooked banana.
ROASTED EGGS IN ASHES
Roasting is a hearty pioneer hearthside method of cooking eggs, probably brought by the Dutch to these shores. You need two iron frying pans for this, and first heat them both. Then partly fill one of them with hot ashes, being careful not to include any glowing coals. Place the eggs on these ashes leaving plenty of space between them. Cover with more hot ashes and then with the other frying pan. The eggs should be done in ten minutes. Eat hot with butter, salt and pepper, while munching crisp toast. Duck eggs are especially good baked in the ashes and of course turkey eggs would be swell.
After reading through just a couple of these recipes can you see why it would be important for you to put away? It would be a big bag of salt and have some cast iron pans for emergency storage. A cast Iron dutch oven would also be important to add to that storage.
Do you know why you would need lots of salt? Post your comment below
