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Show FISHERMAN'S LUCK only way he could tell the nature of the canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans. If the picture was strange to him, there was no guessing what he would do with the contents of the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and serving green peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mullagatawny soup and a can of apricots were handed out to him simultaneously and without explanations. Edouard solved the problem by opening both cans and cooking them together. We had a new soup that day, mullagatawny aux apricots. It was not as bad as it sounds. It tasted somewhat like chutney. The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so good to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man who puts up provisions for camp has a great advantage over the dealers who must satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses. I never can get any bacon in New York like that which I buy at a little shop in Quebec to take into the woods. If I ever set up in the grocery business, I shall try to get a good trade among anglers. It will be easy to please my customers. ~5~ THE OPEN FIRE The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact that they are usually cooked over an open fire. In the city they never taste as good. It is not merely a difference in freshness. It is a change in the sauce. If the truth must be told, even by an angler, there are at least five salt-water fish which are better than trout,-to eat. There is none better to catch. IV THE SMUDGE-FIRE But enough of the cooking-fire. Let us turn now to the subject of the smudge, known in Lower Canada as la boucane. The smudge owes its existence to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and the peppery midge,-le maringouin, la moustique, et le brulot. To what it owes its English name I do not know ; but its French name means simply a thick, nauseating, intolerable smoke. The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating a smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the black-fly, and ~.')!'3 |