June 8, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
721 
Some Camping-Out Foods 
And Outdoor-Life Conveniences of Other Nations 
By L. LODIAN 
Photographs from Original Article. 
(Concluded from page 622.) 
ARABIA AND SARACEN COUNTRIES—A POCKET COFFEE- 
MILL. 
The inventive ingenuity of the Arab nomad 
is manifested in his pocket coffee-mill. He has 
had it these hundreds of years. Anybody is 
free to copy it'and make it. The mill is, in¬ 
ternally, like our own coffee-mill mechanism, 
but the case is no bigger than a small marine 
telescope, so the whole affair can be carried 
in saddle-bag or pocket. The awkward handle 
of our own grinders is circumvented by the 
Arab having a foldable and detachable handle, 
which may be slipped inside the mill. The bot¬ 
tom part forms a permanent cup. The case is 
of brass, built to last for years. The specimen 
illustrated cost at an Arabian importer’s in 
Manhattan $2.75, but bigger ones can be ob¬ 
tained up to $6—all. however, kept within 
pocket dimensions. The duty on hand-made 
goods (45 per cent, ad valorem) puts the price 
up. American firms could turn them out in 
aluminum for a couple of dollars. Sheet-iron 
ones are undesirable; brass is too heavy; it 
verdigrises on neglected grease-contact, and 
gives a brassy odor to the hands in warm 
weather. 
It is in the handle of the coffee-mill that 
desert-craft shows itself. There are more travel 
“wrinkles” learnable in the tropics than in the 
Arctic. Arctic-craft is still an unknown prob¬ 
lem. Your Arab takes that detachable handle 
and uses it as makeshift nut crackers, or as a 
temporary pincers or nippers or wrench, or as 
a hammer for small purposes. The same handle 
adjusts the screw under the bottom of the mill 
(which extends part-way down into the lower 
half of mill); the slight turning of this screw 
gives a finfe or coarse grinding of the coffee. 
Usually, the Arab wants flour-like coffee- 
powder. It can indeed be arranged to produce 
an impalpable pow¬ 
der like wheat flour, 
but then the exer¬ 
tion of turning the 
mill through so fine 
a sieve is too great. 
However, crude pep¬ 
per can be reduced 
in it with a mini¬ 
mum of effort, and 
as fine as the store- 
sold article. 
FRUIT-SHEETING. 
The central Asiatic 
and Syrian nomads 
are never without 
their fruit-sheeting. 
This, resembles a 
side of leather, and 
is made from apri¬ 
cots. It is of re¬ 
freshing acidulated 
taste, and can be 
used for all the 
purposes for which 
we use dried apri¬ 
cots. Its use is 
reglementary in the 
Turkish army, as it is anti-scorbutic and gently 
aperitive. [ 
The wandering tent-dw'ellers use a strip of 
this fruit-sheeting as a family barometer. On 
the approach of unsettled weather it becomes 
limp, the citric-acid content attracting the 
moisture. Dr}' spells are indicated by it dry¬ 
ing up, leather-like. The seaw'eed barometers 
outside the doors of our Gloucester fisherfolk 
are a kindred institution; in this case the salt- 
content attracting humidity from the air. 
AUSTRIA—COMPRESSED COFFEE. 
The advantages of the fig-coffee of this and 
other Teutonic countries is its adaptability for 
use either for forming a coffee-like beverage or 
as a sustaining fruit-food. 
Fig-coffee has been in use in the Tyrol region 
of central Europe for over a century. It first 
came into vogue about 1806, when, due to the 
victorious French so crippling British com¬ 
merce on land and sea that little of the real 
coffee berry got into the continental ports, the 
mid-Europeans turned to dried figs as a substi¬ 
tute. These were roasted, ground and com¬ 
pressed into handy pocket briquet sizes. They 
are thus made to this day. 
The infusion is prepared more simply than 
ordinary coffee; thus, there is no question of 
grinding, but you just break off a piece the 
size of a walnut, drop in cup, pour on the 
scalding water, and tlie trick is done. So no 
coffeepot even is necessary, as you imbibe di¬ 
rect from the grounds a la Osmani. The bever¬ 
age is an agreeable coffee-like one, of figgy 
flavor, and should be sweetened to taste; but it 
lacks the essential vivifying twang of the pure 
Mocha or Colima berry. No coffee substitute 
or extract ever yet approached the genuine 
article. I have for years tried the whole gamut 
of them, in various parts of the globe, and, 
truth to tell, there is nothing to equal the gen¬ 
uine genial berry. 
As a food the fig-coffee has its sole advantage 
over the products of Arabia, Java, the Antilles 
and Latin-America. It can be and is used as a 
concentrated sustaining food. Guides and 
mountaineers in the Tyrol carry it. It has 
probably saved many a life. If you were canoe¬ 
ing or boating, and were so unfortunate as to 
have a “spill” that deprived you of all your 
provisions, save a package of ground coffee that 
chanced to be in a coat pocket—and all happen¬ 
ing at a distance of maybe a couple of days’ 
journey from the nearest relief post—why, 
things would look comical (or serious) for vou 
on that sole base of lone coffee. You could 
keep up some on it as a stimulant, but it is,not 
a food, and even at that you would need a fire 
to make it—but lo! you lost the matches, or 
they may be water-soaked in your pocket. 
True, an entirely passable coffee may be made 
with cold water, and you can thus momentarily 
be independent of even the ghost of a fire, but 
this requires time—an hour or two. I have 
frequently resorted to this cold-water coffee¬ 
pot a handful of it into the canteen or the im¬ 
permeable leather bag, with the requisite water, 
let it soak an hour or so till the coffee grounds 
repose at the bottom (proof that they have 
yielded their virtue to the water), and the re¬ 
sult has often been a delicious refreshing coffee 
drink. If marching at the time, either per cara¬ 
van or alone, the disturbing effects of jolting 
on the water-container will be such that the 
coffee is “done” much sooner, say. in half an 
hour. As this cold-water coffee idea will not 
be found in any travel or camping work, it is 
listed here, en passant: but I hesitate to assert 
that I ever “invented’’ it. Cold-water tea may 
be prepared similarly. 
But M'ith the compressed fig-coffee, in an 
emergency, you have only to break off a small 
nugget-sized chunk at a time, and, by rigorous 
thrifting of it, could make a pound briquet of 
it serve as a sustaining food for a couple of 
days, and thus turn a mishap into a comedy. 
The flavor is of a decidedly caramelic-bitterish 
sort, rather flat, but the life-supporting sugar 
is there in a somewhat altered form. That sugar 
is of course its all-important feature over ordi¬ 
nary coffee. 
Even as a coffee-infusion, the fig-coffee 
grounds are always edible, and form a food 
in emergency; whereas, coffee-bean grounds 
possess no more nutrition than sawdust. 
OAT-BREAD SAUSAGE-LINKS—SCOTLAND. 
The oat-bread sausage of Scotland is without 
doubt the most life-sustaining bread known on 
this globe. It has been familiar to the clan 
shepherds of the Highlands since the days of 
Bruce. When minding their flocks, that pure 
oat-bread sausage, with cheese and buttermilk, 
1. Pocket Coffee Mill (Ara'jia). 2. Handle of Coffee Mill (slips inside for carrying). 
3. Stone Dry Fish (Japan). 4, Stringed Walnuts (Asia Minor). 5. Compressed Rice 
Makaroni (China). 6. Ball Butter (Prato-Italy). 
