When I was reading Cooking Out-of-Doors (Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., 1960), I was impressed by just how dedicated they seemed to be. I wasn't a Girl Scout-- just a Camp Fire Girl (now just Camp Fire), which I guess is kind of seen as the off-brand, even though it's slightly older? In any case, we did a little camping, but it was often day camping or at most, a night or two of actual outdoor camping. From the looks of Cooking Out-of-Doors, the Girl Scouts must have been way more hard core.
Yes, they made Some-Mores (their name for S'mores in this book), but they also apparently made honest-to-god candy when they were camping too.
I mean, they made a syrup that had to be cooked to the hard ball stage over an open fire! And the syrup was tested the old-fashioned way, by dropping some into cold water, rather than just using a candy thermometer! (And the puffed rice had to be heated in a hand-crafted reflector oven first, so it would be sufficiently crisp!) That is some dedication to outdoor cookery.
But that's not all! The Girl Scouts were apparently planning to be outside for a while. They were planning ahead like people at the beginning of the pandemic who didn't want to leave their homes for weeks.
Yes, they went full-on sour dough! They would have to be outside for at least the better part of a week for this to be worth the time and effort.
And if you think they were just enjoying a little summer camping, well... What? Do you think the Girl Scouts were soft?
There are recipes for not one, but two...
Two types of bread made with snow. Snow! So they were apparently camping out in the snow. (I can only imagine how many bits of twigs, gravel, bird shit, etc. would be in bread made with 18 cups of snow gathered by middle schoolers.)
In short, being an adult in charge of a bunch of girls camping out for a week, perhaps in the snow(!) would definitely be a level if I were in charge of designing hell. I'm glad I was a soft little Camp Fire Girl, and that the adults who had to deal with me never had to spend entire weeks trying to get me to assemble a reflector oven and bake snow-based breads in it.
I'm still wondering how you get a reflector oven hot in the winter. They talk about everything being cold, cold, cold to make this work, so I'm imagining it well below freezing, and the sun is pretty weak even on bright, sunny days. Our aunt who lived out of state talked about camping with the girl scouts. Since camping was so popular, each troop was assigned a weekend to camp regardless of weather. Her troop went camping when it was snowing, and she described it as a bunch of girls huddled in a tent, and they would basically reach outside to the fire to cook something then go back in. It did not sound fun. Day camp in the summer with canoeing, swimming, and a hill size water slide sounds much more fun (not to mention that Miss Grace was awesome at her job). I'm glad we got the older, off-brand cousin.
ReplyDeleteYeah-- I definitely would not have enjoyed trying to camp in the winter! It's bad enough when you're NOT outside in a tent.
DeleteHa! Maybe that's why the candy was in there-- First Aid merit badges for half the troop!
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