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Stove Barbecues

There's nothing complicated about Mrs. Angell's barbecue of lamb, either. All she did was to rub salt and pepper over the leg, make a few slashes so the juice would run, then she slapped it in her roasting pan without a cover and began basting with a swell sauce-half a bottle each of Worcestershire A-1 Sauce and catsup, with two tablespoons of butter and half a pound of fat, everything melted together and flavored with sugar, vinegar and a squirt or two of Tabasco. Then she tied a whole sliced onion with three cloves of garlic in a bit of cheese cloth, dropped it into the savory sauce and kept the basting spoon twirling. At the finish all the pan gravy was poured over the roast, so not one drop of the meat juice escaped.

Chicken may be barbecued in the same fashion. Just slit a broiler down the back, put in a well greased broiling pan and sear it on both sides beneath a blistering fire. You can use Mrs. Angell's sauce on this or make one in old Pennsylvania Dutch fashion out of half a cup of melted butter, snapped up with a tablespoon of tomato paste, say a third of a cup of vinegar, a teaspoon each of Worcestershire and kitchen bouquet and half a teaspoon each of onion juice, salt, pepper, and paprika. Never forgetting two or three buds of garlic. A paint brush is excellent for daubing this on, and at the finish you'll have extra fine dripping to dunk in.

Or buy three pounds of boned sirloin and marinate it in a pint of American white wine made peppy with a teaspoon of chili powder, a minced clove of garlic and one onion, grated. This is more on the line of the chile-ajo (chiligarlic) sauce of Mexico. Turn the meat a few times while it's in the stimulating wine bath, let it stay there a couple of hours, then take it out, dry it off and rub in salt, cayenne pepper and bacon grease. If possible, do the job over hot coals, if not, under the gas grill, or, in winter, when it's too cold to do anything outside except ski, you might take a tip from our butcher who broils his steaks at home by tossing them on the bed of coals in his basement furnace. But this is far from barbecuing, which depends almost entirely on marinating and basting lavishly with a peppery sauce of any temperature you fancy. There's no limit to meats and combinations thereof at the same barbecuegame is great, including porcupine and 'possum, fish, be it a big salmon or bigger muskellunge, anything from buffalo hump to bear haunch, even rattlers and alligators are barbecued on the Florida reptile farms. So if you yourself are game you can enjoy some fine feeds such as the head of a deer, calf or pig baked to succulent excellence in the camp bean hole. 1 DOING A DEER'S HEAD IN THE BEAN HOLE If you haven't got a bean hole, just dig a hole anywhere and line it with boulders, always taking care not to pick that flat black kind which are sure to explode when heated and scare amateur barbecuers back to the kitchen range, which isn't nearly so likely to blow up. You get the stones hot by building a fire in the hole, just as the Camp Fire Girls explain in Girlish Grub. Be sure to fork out any unburned sticks, tamp down the sizzling embers, and stick the deer's head in neck first, after removing eyes and brains. Leave the skin on and stuff all openings including the windpipe (which you afterward sew shut) with chunks of lime or lemon, peppers, garlic, onions, plenty of salt, pepper and cumin seed, as well as pork fat or ham. Some bean-holers remove the skin and rub the whole head with savory herbs, spices and condiments mixed together in lots of butter, for venison will stand plenty of larding. The head is then wrapped in a fresh hide, the bundle put in the hole and covered with fragrant leaves, coals and earth, with a new bonfire built on top.

In England January 30th is known as "Calf's-head Day" and is still celebrated by throwing a fresh calf's head into a bonfire to provide a primitive feast for the celebrators, but you can improve on that by throwing a Bull's Head Breakfast such as Pop Gosse described to Louise Lewers for her Nevada chapter in our America Cooks.

BULL'S HEAD BREAKFAST The head is taken from a yearling steer. Wash out the mouth, using a hose, around the teeth and under the tongue, and also the ears and nostrils. Leave the head intact. In the back of the neck, where cut off, also wash thoroughly. Put lemon up nostrils and under the tongue; also carrot. Salt and pepper wherever possible to put it in neck, mouth, etc. Get some heavy wrapping paper and wrap the head, plastering all seams and folds with flour and water; use about 5 thicknesses of the paper with the flour and water paste so that all crevices, etc., are so tight no juices can run out. Then wrap with clean flour sack, after that with burlap sacks and wire, so the whole package can be turned on the fire by using a pole with a hook on it. Meanwhile a pit has been prepared, with hot ashes and coals; this must be done some hours before putting in the dressed head, which is finally soaked thoroughly, so it will not burn when put into the pit. After placing in the bed of hot coals, cover with coals, hot rocks, and a sheet of iron; build a fire on top of the iron so the heat will be held in. Takes several hours to cook. Best to do at night, leaving it in overnight.

When taken out, cut the burlap off, also the paper wrappings, and, putting the neck side down, split the hide from chin on up, and it peels back like the paper off the wall, or the skin off anything. The flesh from the jowls is probably the best part, but many prefer the brains, which are got at by sawing straight through the skull. Take the tongue, skin it, and slice. Some like the eyeballs, but not everyone does. Serve with hot barbecue sauce, pickles, and all sorts of things, not forgetting Garlic Bread.