The Old Woodsman’s turkey stuffing

In honor of Thanksgiving, I give you Horace Kephart’s simple woodsman’s recipe for turkey stuffing. Of course, those who are actually preparing dinner today are hopefully beyond needing a recipe and will be sitting at the table, well stuffed themselves by this time, maybe having pumpkin pie.

But there are a host of people who, having dinner at a friend’s table today, will have their own turkey at home, maybe secretly, in the coming days. This is for you.

The following is verbatim from the 1910 second edition of Kephart’s Camp Cookery, Outing Publishing Co. It appears unchanged in the ”Camp Cookery” chapter  in the current University of Tennessee Press reissue of the Macmillan 1917 edition of Camping and Woodcraft.

Here goes:

Stuffing for turkey

1. If chestnuts are procurable, roast a quart of them, remove shells, and mash.

Add a teaspoon of salt, and some pepper. Mix well together, and stuff the bird with them.

2. Chop some fat salt pork very fine; soak stale bread or crackers in hot water, mash smooth, and mix with the chopped pork. Season with salt, pepper, sage, and chopped onion. No game bird save the wild turkey should be stuffed, unless you deliberately wish to disguise the natural flavor.

That’s it, an old-time, minimal approach to stuffing.

The funny thing is that when I read the recipe, I thought it was one recipe with with two steps, using (if you have them) chestnuts AND salt pork. And I thought it must be a very rare editing error that Kephart would have you stuff the turkey in the first step, then go on to mix the rest of the recipe and do what with it?

I pointed out this apparent error to my wife and her friend Margaret, with whom she happened to be on the phone this afternoon. When they stopped laughing, they explained to me that Kephart was giving us two different recipes, and it was unlikely, nowadays at least, that a cook would mix chestnuts with salt pork. If you have chestnuts, do recipe #1. If not, use recipe #2 with salt pork.

Kep’s got several recipes for cooking the turkey: roasted (“Suspend the fowl before a high bed of hardwood coals….”) and boiled. Who boils a turkey now? We deep fry them in fat. So much better for us.

Captain Kenealy’s 1899 recipe for moose ragout

Horace Kephart wrote once that he hated cooking, but he felt someone had to write a cookbook about outdoor cookery, so he did it. His Camp Cookery was published in 1910 by Outing Publishing Company.

I myself haven’t hunted moose in years, but since we’re in the late stages of moose hunting season and there may be cooks open to new recipes, I offer up the following not-so-new recipe from Kephart’s book, page 60 of the second edition, 1910. Kephart attributes the recipe to a Captain Kenealy, author of Yachting Wrinkles, Outing Publishing Co., 1899. I haven’t tried it on moose, but it sure works with beef, and it has a distinctly great-grandmotherly air to it. It was not uncommon to use sugar in dishes such as this, and Captain Kenealy suggests the use of the turnip, a root now generally neglected though luckily still obtainable at our local produce counter.

“Stewing is an admireable way of making palatable coarse and tough pieces of meat, but it requires the knack, like all other culinary processes. Have a hot fry-pan ready, cut the meat up into small squares and put it (without any dripping or fat) into the pan. Let it brown well, adding a small quantity of granulated sugar and sliced onions to taste. Cook until the onions are tender and well colored. Then empty the fry-pan into a stew-pan and add boiling water to cover the meat, and let it simmer gently for two or three hours. Flavor with salt, pepper, sweet herbs, curry powder or what you will. The result will be a savory dish of tender meat, called by the French a ragout. It is easy to prepare in this way. Do not boil it furiously as is sometimes done, or it will become tough. This dish may be thickened with browned flour, and vegetables may be added–turnips, carrots, celery, etc., cut into small pieces and browned with the meat. The sugar improves the flavor fastly. The only condiments actually necessary are pepper and salt. Other flavorings are luxuries.”

Thank you, Captain Kenealy. If someone has some moose to to spare, I’d give this a try to share. Bon appetit!

Incidentally, Camp Cookery is now available in a reprint edition from Algrove Publishing Ltd, 2003, ISBN 1-894572-71-8.