In camp and kitchen

In Short

First published in 1912, In Camp and Kitchen: A Handy Guide for Emigrants and Settlers is a manual designed for individuals facing the practical realities of colonial life. Lucy H. Yates bypasses romanticized wilderness myths to offer direct instruction on field cooking, butchery, home construction, and resource management. Covering everything from baking bread on open embers to installing improvised water filters and rust-proofing iron tools, the book remains a compelling historical document. It endures as a crisp, pragmatic snapshot of Edwardian self-reliance and outdoor domestic economy.

The Story

The book opens with a sober assessment of the emigrant's true needs: time, patience, and money, balanced by the shedding of hurry, worry, and doubt. Yates establishes that while homebound readers might find colonial pioneering romantic, real survival on a distant homestead depends on physical health, humor, and the constant, inescapable duty of preparing three meals a day. She begins with the fundamentals of fire-making and rough camp cookery, teaching the reader how to construct stone-paved cooking pits, fashion wooden or iron spits for roasting half-sides of mutton, and manage basic iron and enamelled cookware without standard kitchen amenities.

From outdoor camp craft, the narrative expands into the mechanics of establishing a log-hut kitchen and permanent settlement. Yates details the slaughtering, bleeding, and quartering of livestock, alongside instructions for dressing wild game, plucking waterfowl, and preparing fresh or pond-caught fish. She covers fundamental culinary techniques—baking bread with home-brewed or dried yeasts, making pastry without proper rolling pins, boiling broths without toughening meat, and utilizing paper-bag cookery to preserve juices and minimize washing-up.

As the settler moves from basic survival to establishing a permanent household, Yates introduces modern technologies and structural engineering. She provides precise specifications for portable and full-sized electric stoves for regions with power, details Dr. George Vivian Poore’s adaptation of the Venetian rainwater cistern system using perforated cement diaphragms and double filter beds, and explains how to excavate underground, thatch-roofed root cellars for food preservation.

The book concludes with a wide-ranging directory of simplified recipes—from Cornish pasties and gamekeeper’s broth to batter puddings and toffee—interwoven with indispensable household hacks. Yates instructs the settler on fireproofing wooden roofs with perforated water pipes, creating waterproof putty from cheese and quicklime, snapping glass with heated wire, preventing rust using lard and resin, and staying warm in extreme cold. The text finishes with a checklist of essential equipment, ensuring the settler is fully prepared to maintain a functional home far from civilization.

How It Unfolds

The settler sets out Addressing the prospective pioneer, Yates establishes the mental discipline and basic equipment needed for life abroad, emphasizing that good humor and daily hot meals matter more than romantic expectations.

Mastering the open fire The initial lessons demonstrate how to bake meat and bread in stone-paved earth pits, construct roasting spits from non-poisonous woods, and maintain elementary iron frying pans over open campfires.

Building the camp kitchen Transitioning to permanent shelter, Yates outlines the trade of the camp cook, detailing methods for sourcing clean water, building curing houses for meat, and even selecting portable electric stoves where local power is available.

Provisioning and butchery The focus shifts to raw materials, detailing how to bleed, skin, and quarter livestock according to standard butchery diagrams, as well as how to dress game, cure fish, and safely boil shellfish.

The mechanics of baking and boiling Yates explains the chemical processes behind yeast fermentation, the rules of tenderizing meat through slow simmering, and the application of paper-bag cookery to conserve heat and simplify camp cleanup.

Simplified recipes and household utility The guide concludes with direct recipes for sturdy meals, alongside practical bush-craft recipes for rust prevention, roof-fire defense, glass cutting, and cold-weather survival.

The People

Because this text is an instructional field manual, the central "figures" are the emigrant settler himself and the environmental forces he must master.

• The Emigrant Settler: The reader, framed as an outgoing colonist or pioneer who wants to build a self-sustaining life abroad. He faces physical exhaustion, harsh climates, limited equipment, and the relentless demand for daily sustenance. Through study and adaptability, he transforms from an inexperienced traveler into a capable camp cook, builder, and homestead manager.
• The Camp Cook: Highlighted through exemplary anecdotes—such as a former public-school boy turned sub-contractor—the camp cook seeks financial independence and social standing within rugged camps. He overcomes a lack of professional training through strict organization, earning the respect and physical assistance of the working crew.
• Mother Earth and the Elements: The surrounding natural environment acts as both adversary and provider. Nature threatens the settler with spoiled food, fire risks, pure cold, and contaminated water, yet offers clay for hearths, clean leaves for baking insulation, and cool soil for root storage.

In Its Own Voice

"Things to Take: Time, Patience, Money. Things to Leave: Hurry, Worry, Doubt." An expert's concise summary of a colonist's primary needs, framed as a foundational rule for surviving overseas.

"A little experience will make any one quite skilful in the use of the most unpromising materials, and if compelled to do it a man can generally produce a quite appetising meal with nothing but a clay fireplace and a few old meat tins." Yates explaining how resourcefulness easily replaces formal culinary equipment in the bush.

"The Red Indians knew this, and one of them seeing a white man suffering from cold once remarked to him, 'You no keep your breath warm and so, you cold.'" A native observation cited to illustrate the practical necessity of covering the mouth in extreme frost.

What It's Really About

In Camp and Kitchen is fundamentally about the preservation of human dignity, health, and order through domestic discipline in untamed environments. Beneath its practical recipes and construction diagrams, the book argues that civilization is sustained not by grand conquests, but by the daily, methodical routine of preparing proper food and maintaining a clean, efficient hearth. Yates asserts that resourcefulness, adaptability, and a steady sense of humor are as essential to survival as technical skill. The text continuously balances old-world traditions with modern technical innovation, arguing that true self-reliance requires a complete understanding of raw materials—from the physics of yeast and heat transfer to the chemical preservation of iron and wood.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers interested in historical foodways, outdoor survival, Edwardian social history, or homesteading will find In Camp and Kitchen both charming and remarkably practical. Yates writes with an unpretentious, crisp authority that makes early twentieth-century field craft immediately accessible. Reading the text feels like sitting down with a stern yet thoroughly encouraging mentor who refuses to tolerate self-pity or sloppiness.

The book is refreshingly free of modern culinary pretense, offering instead a fascinating look at an era when cooking required an intimate understanding of building fires, dressing carcasses, and improvising tools from scrap metal and stone. Readers should be prepared for period-specific elements, including early 1900s technical terminology, simplified views of indigenous customs, and an unapologetic, utilitarian approach to animal butchery. Yet, its enduring value lies in its celebration of practical ingenuity. Whether you want to know how to bake bread under a pile of hot leaves or protect your iron tools from rust, Yates delivers timeless lessons in making the most of unpromising materials.