Curmudgeon's Cookery - American Menu 

Homeopathic Soup 
"Take two starved pigeons, hang them by a string in the kitchen window, so that the sun will cast a shadow of the pigeons in an iron pot on the fire holding ten gallons of water. Boil the shadow over a slow fire for ten hours, and then give the patient one drop in a glass of water every ten days." Scientific American August 1846.
 Homeopathy is unscientific medicine that treats disease or conditions with very minute doses of an active ingredient, attenuated to something akin to one small drop in a very big lake of water. The greater the dilution,  the better, according to the homeopaths! The story goes that a patient forgot to take his daily prescription of homeopathic medicine, overdosed, and died…

Shadow Soup
"Pick out a good thin chicken (Shanghai breed is the best); disrobe him of his plumage; amputate his spurs; remove the comb from his head; confiscate his tail feathers; place him in a strong sunlight; let the shadow reach across two gallons of strained rain water in a shallow pan; let the shadow remain on the surface of the water for 10 minutes; then take him by the bill and lead him gently backwards and forwards through the water, three or four times; bring the water to a sudden boil; season to suit the taste and serve up with a raw onion and a bunch of wooden toothpicks.
This soup is very popular with boarding-house keepers and is said will cure the dyspepsia, or kill the patient, I have forgot which." Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh Donald Day

Mason-Dixon Mix
"Dig a pit exactly 2 feet deep and 1 1/2 feet in diameter in red clay soil. Line the pit with aged oak boards. Over a wood fire, in a big pot, bring 22 pounds of choice hominy to a full boil. Pour the hominy into the pit. Stir well. Sprinkle 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese on top. Cover with canvas. Let sit for 3 days. Cut into bite-sized wedges. Garnish. Serves many." From the Official Gourmet Handbook by Pasquale Bruno, Jr. This book is recommended for finally disclosing the truth about pasta trees and Rocky Mountain oysters in the chapter "All Mythed Up."

Lumberjack Hash 
"Big John Marshall was a cook on one of Whisky Jack's rafts. He was a good enough lumberjack cook, but one day the crew complained about the meals. They were all pretty much the same, day after day.
Whisky Jack thought that the meals could be better, so he talked with Big John and asked him whether he had ever had or seen a cook book. And the cook said, 'I got one of them cookery books once but I never could do anything with it. It was just of no use to me.'
'Was it too fancy for you?' asked Jack. 'That was it,' said big John, 'every one of the recipes began the same way, Take a Clean Dish. And that settled me.'
Big John dished up a lot of hash. It was good, and one of the crew asked him if he had a regular recipe for making it. 'No,' said the cook, 'it just accumulates.'" Whisky Jack Yarns  Charles E. Brown 1940

Muir's Bread
"Sheep camp bread, like most California camp bread, is baked in Dutch ovens, some of it in the form of yeast powder biscuit, an unwholesome sticky compound leading straight to dyspepsia. The greater part, however, is fermented with sour dough, a handful from each batch being saved and put away in the mouth of the flour sack to inoculate the next. The oven is simply a cast iron pot, about five inches deep and from twelve to eighteen inches wide. After the batch has been mixed and kneaded in a tin pan, the oven is slightly heated and rubbed with a piece of tallow or pork rind. The dough is then placed in it, pressed out against the sides, and left to rise.
When ready for baking a shovelful of coals is spread out by the side of the fire and the oven set upon them, while another shovelful is placed on top of the lid, which is raised from time to time to see that the requisite amount of heat is being kept up. With care good bread may be made in this way, though it is liable to be burned or be sour, or raised too much, and the weight of the oven is a serious objection." 
My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir. Muir (1838-1914) was a colorful character as well as a scientist, a visionary, and a skillful, very entertaining writer. He wrote eight books and many articles, most on the outdoors that he so truly loved.

Kermit McKemie mailto:kmckemie@astound.net