Meatpacking

“ The subsistence of the soldiers consists solely of fresh beef: eaten without bread, or vegetables, or even salt. Morning, noon, and night, beef, and beef alone, furnishes their repast. The manner of cooking it is this. A small circular hole, three or four inches in depth, is made in the ground, and a fire kindled in it. A long, slender stick or wooden skewer, sharpened to a point at both ends, is run through a piece of meat, and one end of the stick so fastened in the ground on one side of the hole, that the meat hangs at a low angle over the flame and coals of the fire. ”

“ Remarkable how those two dozen will fly—almost as if the little fellows had turned into birds! The reason I am opposed to pork and lard camping is that we all know nowadays how diseased such meat may be. To go into the woods for health and run any avoidable risks is folly. Get a flitch of the best bacon and the best bacon is Ferris bacon. From this you will get enough fat for all frying purposes; also, in case you use fat as a substitute for butter, there will be enough bacon fat for cakes, etc.
[4] I cannot emphasize too often the absolute importance of keeping a clean camp. ”

“ It is none of my business if a man wants to make a salmi of his woodcock: I simply deplore his taste or ignorance.
I shall commence with what has probably been brought in when the party arrived, so the cook will not have to hunt far to know how to cook supper. Beef, pork, lamb, ham, bacon, sausage, etc.
Broiled Steaks:—Camp is a poor place for tough meat; so when you buy, get something so that you can, at least, stick a fork in the gravy when it is cooked. Have a good bed of hardwood coals, if possible. At any rate, have no smoke. Put the broiler over the hot coals and get it hissing hot. ”

“ Meat makes a dirty camp. [4]
[3] A brother camper says that he thinks even the fish would feel neglected without pork. On the contrary, trout are very sensitive to good bacon—in short, prefer it to salt pork. If you do not believe this true fish story, then catch two dozen half pound trout, slice your bacon thin and draw off the bacon fat. Take out the bacon, put the fat back into the frying pan—don’t burn yourself—and pop in one-half dozen trout. After the first mouthful you will find that my contention that trout are most sensitive to bacon entirely true. ”

“ Turn in a pint of milk, a piece of butter, salt and pepper; let it come to a boil, stir in a little thickening, and it is ready to eat. Don’t burn your tongue.
MEATS.
Unless camping in a game country, we seldom have any other meat than what may be brought into camp on the occasional visits to town. But it has been thought advisable to treat the subject as if there were a market within easy access, for the benefit of those who may be thus advantageously placed. Deer, bear, hares, squirrels, rabbits, grouse, quail and shore birds, however, will be at times available. ”

“ After becoming wearied with the sport, we commenced saving the choicest parts of the meat—the hump steak, shoulder cuts, and loins—which were lashed to our saddles and carried to the camp. When again at our camp, we stretched ropes like a clothes lines, and proceeded to cut up our meat in long, thin strips, and hang it out to dry. This is the universal method among hunters and Indians, of curing buffalo meat—no salt being used. It is exposed to the heat of the sun during the day, and is taken down in the evening, before the dew falls, and put in the mess sacks. ”

“ There was a mile of open country surrounding our camp, and if two men could not turn the beef on that space, it was useless for others to offer assistance. In the stillness of the morning hour, we could hear the running and see the flashes from six-shooters, marking the course of the outlaw. After making a half circle, we heard them coming direct for the herd. For fear of a stampede, we raised a great commotion around the sleeping cattle; but in spite of our precaution, as the ladino beef reëntered the herd, over half the beeves jumped to their feet and began milling. ”

“ The fresh-meat ration was thoroughly appreciated by the men, even though they rarely if ever got the full allowance stipulated in Army Regulations, for it was a relief from the salt pork, salt beef, or boiled fresh meat ration of settled camp. I remember one occasion in the Mine Run Campaign, during the last days of November, 1863, when the army was put on short beef rations, that the men cut and scraped off the little rain-bleached shreds of meat that remained on the head of a steer which lay near our line of battle at Robertson’s Tavern. ”

“ We returned to camp that night pretty well tired out, and hungry enough to eat "beef" (troop horse, isn't it?) , and wondering what our good Poulter, the battery chef, had prepared in the shape of grub—we had fought all day on a couple of "Spratt's gum-hardeners." As we neared the camp a most appetising odour smote our olfactory nerves. "Beef stew," says our No. 1, who has a wonderful nose for odours. "Garn," retorts Driver Jones, who loves a joke; "more likely an old goat that's 'scorfed' the inside of one of 'Redfern's trenches' (this is a battery joke) ; too strong for beef." ”

“ So, charging this way and that; galloping wildly in pursuit of the man who seemed to be fleeing for his life, or wheeling to do battle with the rider who kept just so far in his rear, he was decoyed to the very outskirts of the camp.
If he had been qualified to weigh motives, the heart that brindle-roan steer would surely have burst at; the pure effrontery of the thing: not only must he yield his life and give his body for meat, that those yearning stomachs might be filled with his flesh; he must deliver that meat at the most convenient spot, as a butcher brings our chops to the kitchen door. ”

“ The soiled and blood-stained garments of the half-score figures gathered around the cheerful, crackling fire, in attitudes of careless ease, for the most part with pipe in mouth, the half-picked bones and fragments of meat scattered profusely here and there, telling of a hearty meal just passed by. The horses, rudely hoppled, grazing eagerly hard-by, their sides still wet with sweat; the plentiful supply of rudely-butchered meat that hung suspended from the trees around, mostly of buffalo and deer, all told plainly that this was the bivouac of hunters, resting after a successful day’s chase. ”

“ In camp all day looking after the meat, except early in the morning, then after 10 a.m., then 4 p.m., when I visited the camels. Heavy fog indeed, and got fearfully wet going through the high grass, but had no change of raiment, so were obliged to dry our clothes on us. Men still very sick. We shall start in the morning, as the meat is jerked, and weighed sixty-nine pounds, with six pounds of beef, seventy-five pounds; about six days' grub, so that if we don't hit a station in that time another nag must die. ”

“ There are various makes of prepared flours in the market, under as many various names. As a rule they are very handy to the camper, as they are put up in small packages, by which the necessity (65) of breaking out a large package is avoided, and they also avert some mistakes of omission common to men doing work they are not accustomed to do.
Fils-d’une-chienne:—Fry out the fat from some salt pork. Soak hard-tack in water till it is soft. Drop it in the hot fat and cook.
SOUPS. Beef Stew:—Take 1 pound of lean meat, wash clean, and put it in cold water over a slow fire. ”

“ I have observed that the old ones pass all the carcasses, which, trailing to the ground, are hanging before the butchers’ shops, as if they were on a sort of parole d'honneur not to touch them; the middle-aged ones wistfully eye this meat, yet jog on also, while the piglings, who (so like mankind) have more appetite than judgment, can rarely resist taking a nibble; yet, no sooner does the dead calf begin again to move, than from the window immediately above out pops the head of a butcher, who, drinking his coffee, whip in hand, inflicts a prompt punishment, sounding quite equal to the offence. ”

“ Ultimately, our fresh Beef, Mutton and Pork, will come to us from the Prairies in refrigerating cars: each animal having been killed while in perfect health, unfevered and untortured by days of cramped, galled, and thirsty suffering, on the cars. This will leave their offal, including a large portion of their bones, to enrich the fields whence their sustenance was drawn and from which they should never be taken. The cost of transporting the meat, hides, and tallow, in such cars, would be less than that of bringing through the animals on their legs ”

“ The hunters’ sharp knives soon cut through the tough skin, and several slices of the flesh were added to the store of meat with which they set off on their return to the camp. It was the leader’s intention to send some of his people to bring in the horn and a further portion of the flesh, should it not in the meantime have been devoured by jackals, hyenas, and other scavengers of the wilds. Their arrival was greeted with a shout of satisfaction by the people. While some eagerly set to work to cook the meat brought to them, others went out to bring in a further supply. ”

“ The meat-packing industry affords an excellent example of the principle: The animal is surveyed and “laid off like a map”; and each workman as the carcass passes him has one operation to perform. One man sticks the pig, another scalds it, another pulls the hair from a particular portion of the body, one cuts the slits for the gambols, another inserts the sticks, still others hoist the body to the hanger, and so on as it proceeds along its course scores of persons are each doing a very limited portion of the work until the entire animal is prepared and packed for shipment. ”

“ The cities and towns of this region are mainly receiving and collecting points for farm produce. Nearly every village is equipped with elevators and grain-handling machinery; the larger towns, as a rule, have stock-yards and the necessary facilities for cattle shipment; the large cities are usually centres of meat-packing. Most of the meat-packing is a necessity; for although cattle may be shipped alive and beef may be transported in refrigerator ships and cars, pork is not marketable unless pickled, salted, or smoked. ”

“ The meat is hung on these hooks, where it is exposed to the mud and dirt of the streets as well as the hair of the animal. Men with two large baskets, one in front, one behind, filled with the refuse of meat, follow near by. If they wear trousers they have them rolled up high so the blood from the dripping meat will not soil them, but run down their bare legs and be absorbed in the sand. It is asserted that the poor do not allow this mixture in the basket to go to waste, but are as glad to get it as we are to get sirloin steak. ”

“ For instance, drifting southwest they would have nothing but a level plain to travel over for a distance of three hundred miles to the Pecos river near the old Mexico line.
John and I built a small stone house on the head of "Bonetta" Canyon and had a hog killing time all by ourselves. Hunting was our delight at first, until it became old. We always had four or five different kinds of meat in camp. Buffalo meat was way below par with us, for we could go a few hundred yards from camp any time of day and kill any number of the woolly brutes. ”

“ It is a day of lassitude and idleness; for the meat is hanging over the strings, and they can only wait upon it. They lounge around the camp, mending their bridles and lassos, or looking to their weapons; they lead their horses to the water, and then picket them on fresh ground; they cut large pieces of meat, and broil them over the fires. Hundreds of them are at all times engaged in this last occupation. They seem to eat continually. ”

“ Camp-fire tasks were a necessary wage in order to earn the full enjoyment and benefit of the hunting trip; and looking for some task with which to turn my hand, I helped Jim feed the hounds. To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a bone; however, our dogs were not ordinary. It took time to feed them, and a prodigious amount of meat. We had packed between three and four hundred pounds of wild-horse meat, which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub oak near camp. ”

“ Then camp was made, the wagons were again corralled, the herds turned out, and the principal meal of the day, which might be called breakfast or dinner, was prepared. Perhaps during the morning the hunters had killed buffalo or antelope, and this with bread satisfied the keen appetites of the men. If fresh meat had not been killed, there was always an abundance of dried meat, which every one liked. At two or three o’clock the herds were again brought in, and the train was set in motion, the journey continuing until dark or after. ”

“ The trail was blocked, and the butcher came no more. This was a sad thing to us. I know that more than once that morning the Prince went to the door, and looked up sharply toward the point where the mule made his appearance when the trail was open, and that his face expressed uncommon concern when he had settled in his mind that the beef supply was at an end.
It is pretty certain that the two butchers had been waiting for some good excuse to shut up shop with out offending the miners, until their claims s hould
be opened in the spring. ”