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Canadian Camp Vinegar
I TEASPOON CAYENNE PEPPER 2 TABLESPOONS SOY SAUCE 2 CUPS VINEGAR 4 TABLESPOONS WALNUT CATSUP 6 ANCHOVIES, MASHED I GARLIC CLOVE Shake everything together in a glass jar, stand it in the sun for a fortnight to steep, shaking occasionally. Strain through a tamis, put in very small bottles and cork tight. The reason the words "fortnight" and "tamis" occur in this recipe is that it is English in origin, originally used by big game hunters in more or less permanent camps when on safari in Africa. The spicy condiments suggest Indian or oriental fire. It is the peppiest sauce we know and was brought by British sportsmen to Canada years ago, to warm things up when in camp along the big game trail. 4 MIGHTY MUSTARDS English mustard-the mightiest. Colman's imported mustard has all the bite of a horse or horseradish. It's best made fresh in small quantities for use at one meal. You simply stir a little of the "Double Superfine (Warranted Pure)" powder from its tiny mustard-colored can in a saucer with some cold water until all lumps are broken up and it's smooth as the girl friend's brow, thick as her other boy friend, and creamy as love.
German-American-that would be Gulden's, for it just suits our bland national taste and although the bottles get smaller and smaller and the price zooms higher the fewer, the little wooden paddle that comes with it stays exactly the same size and makes it all the easier to smear on. As a matter of fact, years ago when a big bottle sold for a nickel German picnickers spread it half an inch thick on rye in place of butter, just as some of us do now with bottled mayonnaise.
French-the mustard of Dijon isn't as bland as our German-American type and neither is it as sharp as the English. It has a taste of its own which recommends it to lots of people and the Dijon bottle is cutest of the lot. Pickle bottle mustard-this is the juice left in a bottle of mixed mustard pickles and to our mind it's tops for camp. It kills 2 birds with 1 stone, you can eat your mustard in the form of pickles and have it, too, for seasoning hot dogs and such. There are several epicurean and so-called gourmet mustards on the market, one of them made "For Men Only," but they're nothing to write home about.
Mustard plasters-that English mustard powder has double value in camp, because it's the only kind you can eat and also make into a mustard plaster, which is often needed if you're living outdoors. Mix mustard with equal amount of flour, wet with water and smear on a cloth.
A Worcestershire-style steeped condiment: no cooking, just time in a warm place and a good strain. The finished sauce is a seasoning, used by the teaspoon.
- Fortnight and tamisA fortnight is fourteen days. A tamis is a drum sieve of fine cloth or mesh; a double layer of muslin in a strainer does the same job, and a coffee filter gives a brighter, clearer sauce.
- Walnut catsupNot a tomato product. Walnut ketchup is a thin, near-black liquid of green walnuts salted, pressed and spiced, still sold by a few British firms. Mushroom ketchup is the closest common substitute; failing that, use an equal volume of Worcestershire sauce and accept a different sauce.
- AnchoviesSalt-packed anchovies, rinsed and boned, dissolve into the vinegar better than oil-packed fillets and give a cleaner flavour. Oil-packed will work but will leave an oily film to skim off before bottling.
- The steepingSun on a jar is simply gentle warmth, and the recipe wants a fortnight of it. A warm windowsill or the top of a refrigerator will serve if you would rather not leave the jar in direct summer sun. Shake it every day or two rather than occasionally.
- Keep the acid upThe preservation here is the vinegar, so use a standard 5 percent acidity vinegar and do not dilute it or increase the anchovy and soy in proportion. Bruise the garlic clove and leave it whole so it strains out cleanly.
- Bottles and storage"Very small bottles" is deliberate: each opening exposes the sauce to air. Sterilise the bottles, cork or cap tight, and keep the working bottle in the refrigerator once opened. It will hold several months.
- Yield and useAbout two cups after straining. A teaspoon lifts a stew, a pan of beans or a fried fish; used by the tablespoon it will overwhelm anything it touches.
Bottled steeped sauces of this kind descend from the anchovy-and-vinegar condiments of Georgian and Victorian England, of which Worcestershire is only the most famous survivor. Walnut ketchup, one of the oldest English store sauces, was made every autumn from green walnuts too young to have set their shells, and its job in a mixture like this one is to supply depth and colour rather than nuttiness. The claim that this particular formula travelled from African hunting camps to the Canadian bush by way of British sportsmen is the sort of provenance camp-cookery writers liked to attach to a recipe, and it should be read as tradition rather than record; what is genuinely true is that a concentrated sauce in a corked bottle solved a real problem, since a few ounces of it could season weeks of plain fried, boiled and campfire food carried in without refrigeration.