286 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
for man in the season when food is scarce; that is, in the 
winter or early spring. 
During summer and autumn there is always an abund- 
ance of familiar nuts and berries, so that we may rule 
them out, and seek only for edible plants and roots that 
are available when nuts and berries are not. 
Rock Tripe. The most wonderful of all is probably 
the greenish-black rock tripe, found on the bleakest, high- 
est rocks in the northern parts of this continent. There 
is a wonderful display of it on the cliffs about Mohonk 
Lake, in the Catskills. Richardson and Franklin, the 
great northern explorers, lived on it for months. It must 
be very carefully cooked or it produces cramps. First 
gather and wash it as clear as possible of sand and grit, 
washing it again and again, snipping off the gritty parts 
of the roots where it held onto the mother rock. Then 
roast it slowly in a pan till dry and crisp. Next boil 
it for one hour and serve it either hot or cold. It looks 
like thick gumbo soup with short, thick pieces of black 
and green leaves in it. It tastes a little like tapioca with 
a slight flavoring of licorice. On some it acts as a purge. 
Basszvood Browse or Buds . As a child I ate these raw 
in quantities, as did also most of my young friends, but 
they will be found the better for cooking. They are 
particularly good and large in the early spring. The 
inmost bark also has food value, but one must disfigure 
the tree to get that, so we leave it out. 
Slippery Elm. The same remarks apply to the buds 
and inner bark of the slippery elm. They are nutritious, 
acceptable food, especially when cooked with scraps of 
meat or fruit for flavoring. Furfhermore, its flowers 
come out in the spring before the leaves, and produce 
very early in the season great quantities of seed which 
are like little nuts in the middle of a nearly circular wing. 
These ripen by the time the leaves are half grown and 
