Food Utilizalion Outdoors: cleaning and cooking or preservation and use of available food, and related items when in the field. Use all of the animals you kill. Bleed, gut, and clean. Eat meat and all internal organs except the liver of a seal or polar bear as previously noted. Make jerky out of excess meat using the technique discussed under the Food section. Clean and dry the stomach, bladder, or intestines for water bags or food storage. Dry tendons and pound them between two rocks to make strong cord. Use antler tips for chipping and shaping of stone tools. Feathers are useful for fletching arrows and spears. Bones make good scrapers, spear tips, and fish hooks. The dried penis of a bull makes an excellent tool handle. Stake out a green hide, fleshy side up, and scrape it to remove meat and fat. Wash it with water again and scrape clean. Dry in the sun adding salt to the skin if available. Soak in lime water for three days and scrape the reverse side if you want to remove hair. Lay it on the soft grass and pound using a rounded stone hammer. To tan the hide, save the animal’s brains in a sealed section of intestine. After the hide is prepared as indicated above, rub warmed and mashed brains over the hide until it is saturated. Roll the hide in a ball with the brains inside, keep warm overnight. Restake the next day, and remove the excess brain tissue. Pull the skin back and forth over a rope, then smoke it until it is dry.
Consider the multiple uses of the wild edible plants in selecting and memorizing the ones available in your area of interest. Select a cooking technique best suited to your food. Options are roasting over a fire, cooking on a heated flat rock, buried under coals of fire, boiling with water in an open container, or using a steam pit. The latter is made by digging a 2x2 foot hole and lining it with flat rocks. A fire is used to heat the rocks. Remove coals when rocks are hot. Fill the hole with wet green leaves and grass, and place the food in the center thereof. Cover the hole with a flat rock, and allow the food to steam cook at least two hours.
Sun-dried berries and jerky can be pounded into a paste and then mixed together with melted suet to make pemmican balls. (Suet is the fatty tissue collected from the kidney area of an animal). Pack the balls into the cleansed intestines of large animals. Tie the intestines shut and store them in a cool dry place. Pemmican balls will keep for months. All fruits and most plants can be preserved by sun drying. See the Food Drying section for details. Seeds should be prepared for storage by parching. Make or improvise a shallow non-flammable tray and cover the bottom with a thin layer of seeds. A pocket in a rock makes a good tray. Cover the seeds with hot hardwood coals and stir until the seeds are toasted. Pour the contents onto a flat rock, and flip the hot coals away with a green stick. Store in a small pit dug into the earth under a rock overhang. First, line the pit with a 6-inch layer of dried grass. Add dried seeds and cover with 2 inches of leaves or grass topped by 3 or 4 inches of bark. Juniper bark will provide the best protection from insects. Cover with 8 inches of soil and pack it firm. Seeds will keep many months if they do not get wet.
