Forest and Stream 
P a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, fl.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1912. 
VOL. LXXVIIL—No. 20. 
127 Franklin St., New York 
Some Camping'Out Foods 
And Outdoor-Life Conveniences of Other Nations 
By L. LODIAN 
S EVERAL years ago I penned a number of 
articles for this journal on my camping 
experiences in Siberia, accompanied by a 
profusion of illustrations from Russian-Asiatic 
photographs. Having traveled through some 
score of other countries, an insight can be 
given into various of the commissariat con¬ 
veniences of journeyers in those lands, con¬ 
fining the descriptions, however, to articles not 
known generally—in fact, almost entirely un- 
A VIRGIN TROUT STREAM. 
known—to the American sportsman. The illus¬ 
trations accompanying were made direct from 
the actual goods by the editor of Forest and 
Stre.am. 
It is desirable to call attention to this feature 
of originality, as many of these articles might 
well be used by our own professionals and 
amateurs, yet none of them will be found listed 
in any American camping-supply catalogue. 
The city-dweller can, however, easily get most 
of them himself by a quick trip through the 
foreigners’ haunts and colonies in our greater 
cities, where many importers handle them. The 
country resident can instruct his town-supply 
man to round up a collection of the goods. 
But it is not sufficient to make an article 
merely interesting or instructive. If possible, it 
must have a commercial value to the equipment- 
supply trade. So much is every journal de¬ 
pendent to a certain extent on its advertising 
patronage, that loyalty to its advertisers—the 
suggesting of possible markets for useful pro¬ 
ducts—is imperative. There is many an adver¬ 
tiser—and non-advertiser—who has got a 
thousand-dollar idea from his particular journal 
(and kept quiet about it!), and all for the price 
of a subscription! This article, then, not alone 
tells of food conveniences of other countries, 
but also largely gives a brief insight into camp¬ 
ing life in the various lands named. 
IBERIK-AMERICA—SUN-DRIED BEEF. 
Iberik-America, like Latin-America, is a use¬ 
ful generic term covering the whole of Spanish- 
and Portuguese-speaking America from the 
Rio Grande to Punta-de-Arenas (Point-of- 
Sands). Through the whole of this vast stretch 
of some 7,000 miles of territory, you will find 
the tasajo, or sun-dried beef, in use. It is 
marketed in lariat and sheet form; also in the 
whole 200-pound carcase minus a single bone. 
The former two are the best, as the natives, 
when in need of thread for sewing, can easily 
finger out a sufficient quantity of tendon twine. 
This unsalted sun-dried beef is the most im¬ 
portant article in the Hispano-American ranch¬ 
man’s dietary. It ranks the highest in sustain¬ 
ing power, is cleanly to handle—always an im¬ 
portant consideration—and, with the maize tor¬ 
tilla or corn disk, is the real stuff with which 
the Andes explorer has to do in negotiating 
those formidable climbs. Tasajo can be 
broken or torn up between the fingers, if thin, 
and eaten uncooked thus. It is tasty, appetiz¬ 
ing, but sometimes toughish. Rapid boiling 
makes it tougher; prolonged simmering softens 
it. The pemmican of our American Indians I 
have often used, but it is distinctly inferior to 
the unsalted sun-dried tasajo. 
The lariat form of the tasajo is often further 
useful in that, in a shack, it can be unrolled 
from its narrow belting-like transport form and 
used as a makeshift clothesline across the hut 
for hanging and drying clothes on. Once, east 
of the Andes—not then being very familiar with 
the tasajo and its extemporized uses—I was 
amused to see a gaucho cut off a bit of the 
free end of the “clothesline,” and nonchalantly 
toss it into the soup-pot! That olla podrida 
was all right, however! 
CHINA. 
Sun-dried oysters are a product of China, and 
are much used on the great caravan routes. 
They are cleanly to handle, and can be slowly 
WHERE FISH KNOW NO LURE. 
mouthed and eaten as they are—as is done in 
situ by the Oriental overlander on camel-back— 
or served hot in the “boil” (stew-pan) on 
arrival at the caravanseri—the universal half¬ 
way house of the interior Asiatic trade routes. 
Their nutritive value is dubious. I write from 
actual experience of many a feed on them. 
Oyster stew in a shack would be usually pro¬ 
nounced a luxury, but, if wanting them, the 
reader can buy them by the pound or barrel of 
various Manhattan Oriental importers—all “dry 
