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A Bacon Bat
GIRL who lived in the country and had some city friends visiting her gave them the time of their lives at a bacon bat. She telephoned around to some of the young people and invited them to appear about five o'clock in picnic clothes. The hike wouldn't be long, she announced.
At the specified time a jolly bunch assembled to squabble good-naturedly over the various packages and bundles assigned to them to be carried. Under the hostess's direction they betook themselves via footpath and trail to a stone-walled pasture spicy with sweet fern.
Long toasting switches were readily cut by the boys from the trees in the vicinity and wood was collected for two fires. Over one the coffee was set to boil, and over the other the young folks proceeded to toast bacon. Rolls were provided in which to insert the crisp juicy morsels after toasting, and each person [54] ate his or her own bacon sandwiches broiling hot without further ceremony.
Cucumber pickles and mustard proved popular accompaniments and the coffee was appreciated - drunk from tin cups.
There followed some huckleberry turnovers and homemade cookies, but on top of the bacon and rolls they were almost superfluous.
Instead of bacon, chops, steak, or Frankfurters may be roasted, as well as corn in season, but bacon is the least messy to eat.
Following the supper came stories and songs around the bonfire till late in the evening. The city guests enjoyed it all because to them it was so great a novelty. For the hostess it was a much easier way to introduce her guests to her friends than a more formal affair would have been.
A bacon bat is especially fun in spring or fall, but is also very enjoyable on the beach in summer vacation time.
A marshmallow roast in the evening is first cousin to a bacon bat. [55] L
An account of one particular evening, written up as a model to copy: a hike to a pasture, two fires, bacon toasted on cut sticks and eaten in rolls. There is no recipe, and the point of the page is social rather than culinary.
- What a bacon bat wasAn outdoor bacon roast. The word bat is used here in the sense of an outing or a spree, and the modern name for the whole thing is a cookout. The only part that has really changed is the equipment.
- The stickBacon toasted on a green switch over a fire needs a rasher with some body to it. A thin wet-cured supermarket slice will tear off the stick and burn before it crisps. Ask for thick-cut dry-cured, and expect it to drip fat into the flames and flare.
- Two fires, and whyOne fire for the coffee, one for the toasting. Coffee wants a steady pot over coals and bacon wants flame and attention, and one fire cannot do both at once without somebody being in the way. It is the most practical sentence on the page.
- Boiled coffeeThe coffee is set on to boil, grounds and all, and drunk out of tin cups. Boiling extracts hard and turns it bitter; if you are reproducing this, lift it off the moment it rises and let the grounds settle instead of letting it roll.
- Open fire, cut woodTwo fires in a stone-walled pasture, wood gathered from round about, switches cut from standing trees. None of that can be assumed now. The pasture is somebody’s land, most places have a season when open fires are prohibited outright, and cutting living wood is not done.
- Huckleberry turnoversHuckleberry is not one fruit but a group of wild berries that differ from region to region, and none of them is sold in shops. Blueberries are the usual stand-in, and the author herself admits the turnovers were almost superfluous after the bacon.
The interesting thing on this page is why the party was given at all. A girl in the country had city friends staying and needed to introduce them to the local young people, and the author says outright that a bacon bat was an easier way to manage it than a more formal affair would have been — strangers standing round a fire with food in their hands do not have to be introduced in a drawing room. The mechanics show the household too. She telephoned around to invite people, in a book otherwise full of written and hand-made invitations, and the packages were divided among the guests to carry on the walk, so no servant was involved at any point in the evening. The division of labour is settled in a single clause: the boys cut the toasting switches.