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Spareribs Roasted
Camp Fire Girls in the south are experts on roasting spareribs. While the potatoes bake in the ashes, they say, safely wrapped in clay to prevent burning, the spareribs may be broiling over the bed of coals on a grate securely placed over the fire. Allow two spareribs and one potato to a person, or more if desired.
Or, and this is more fun, probably because it requires more work, cranes are built stoutly at either side of the bed of coals, and the spareribs are strung on two pieces of heavy wire and both wires are fastened firmly to the cranes. The roast should be about 14 inches from the fire, and as one side is seared, a twist of one wire over the other presents the reverse side to the fire, and by twisting the wire the cooking is kept even on all sides. The ribs should be rubbed with salt before being placed over the fire. If the sticks of the crane are strong and the wire stout so that there are no accidents, and you have heated some sauerkraut or boiled some cabbage in the meantime, you will have a delicious dinner.
An open-fire method with two options: a grate over the coals, or a rotisserie improvised from forked uprights and twisted wire. Both work, but the timings and the hardware need attention.
- Use the right wireGalvanized wire gives off zinc oxide fumes when heated in a fire, and coated or painted wire will shed its coating onto the meat. Use plain (black annealed) steel or stainless steel wire only, or skip the cranes and use a grate.
- Distance and heatFourteen inches from a bed of coals is slower than a modern grill, and a full rack will likely want an hour or more rather than twenty minutes, depending entirely on how hot the bed is; the recipe's own mention of searing suggests a lively fire. Keep the coals raked into an even bed and add a few fresh ones as they die back rather than building the fire up.
- DonenessPork is safe at 145F, but spareribs are still tough there. Ribs eat properly at 190-203F internal, when the connective tissue has broken down; test by twisting a bone rather than by clock.
- "Two spareribs to a person"This means two rib bones, which is a modest portion by present standards. A full rack of spareribs runs 11-13 bones and 3-4 lb, and feeds three or four people generously.
- The clay-baked potatoesUse ordinary unglazed clay or clean subsoil, not modelling clay, which contains oils and polymers. Wrap in a layer about half an inch thick; a medium potato takes roughly an hour in hot ashes, and the shell is cracked off and discarded.
- SaltRubbing with salt alone is the whole seasoning here. Salting an hour or more ahead lets it penetrate; if you want more, a dry rub goes on at the same stage, but sugary rubs will scorch over a long fire.
- The krautSauerkraut wants only to be warmed through; hard boiling dulls the sourness that cuts the fat of the ribs. Set it at the edge of the coals in a covered pot for the last half hour. (Note that the recipe's 'boiled' applies to the cabbage alternative, not the kraut.)
The Camp Fire Girls were founded in 1910, a few years before this kind of book flourished, and outdoor cookery was one of the organization's signal skills — earning honors for cooking over a wood fire was part of the program. The rig described here, two uprights and a twisted wire that turns the meat by unwinding, is a camp version of the old hearth practice of hanging a roast from a twisted cord and letting it wind and unwind before the fire; the clockwork bottle jack mechanised the same turning motion. Spareribs with sauerkraut or boiled cabbage is a pairing generally traced to German settlement in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states, where it remains a New Year's dish, though the book places its experts in the South. Baking potatoes in a clay jacket in the ashes is far older than either, and turns up wherever there is a fire and clay soil.