In the book, "Woodcraft ands Camping" Nessmuk a.k.a.George W.Sears WRITES take 10qts water add 10oz lime and 4 oz alum, let it stand till clear,fold the cloth snugly, put it in another vessel,pour the solution on it,let it soak for 12 hours, take it out,rinse in luke warm rain water,stretch and let it dry in the sun,your tent is ready to use.Nessmuk was, by all accounts,a Trekker of the highest order,and his book is interesting reading.

You should also check out Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart. It's funny how little changed from 1750 to 1900 in the way of hiking and camping equipment. The German rucksack of the AWI is the same as the "rucksack" in Kephart's work, and Kephart has illustrations. Field rations are pretty much the same with rockahominy the best thing, supplemented with a bit of jerky. Improvised shelters, etc etc. Kephart builds on Sears' work.

BTW the thing missing from Sears info on the canvas, if I remember it right, is the angle of the canvas. The treatment he documents helps to tighten the fibers, and increase surface tension in the fabric. BUT one needs a good angle so that the water will run down the fabric before it finds a path through the fabric. Without a good pitch on the walls of the fabric, the water will come through and leaks will appear. (Sears probably and correctly understood his audience to have some idea of pitching a tent.) So folks who use this treatment for say a dining fly that is almost paralel to the ground..., will be wet.

LD

Say LD,
What's 'rockahominy.' I know what ground hominy is (mesa or grits depending on fineness), and I know what dried hominy is. What's rockahominy.
Sparks

I googled up rockahominy and ended up on this informative site.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods011.htm

Sparks

As the link you provided indicates..., you parch corn, then grind it up a bit. The grinding apparently makes sure you get full the stuff fully digested, so one gets the max calories from the corn. They also added some maple sugar to the stuff, and would drink it like a soup, or thicker as a porridge, or eat it dry with water to wash it down.

You can use a stone mortar and pestle, or I use a coffee mill.

LD

How does this powdered parched corn differ from the corn meal you buy off the shelf? Would corn meal work mixed with the maple suger?

Yes, it has worked for me in the past.

wait a mintue..Snakebite brings up a pretty good question. How does cornmeal differ from parched corn? Inquiring minds want to know, (plus one marginal nitwit.. )

A good modern equivalent to parched corn is "corn nuts". I buy mine at 7/11.

I found an item at a Whole Foods store called Gladcorn, about 5.00 a lb.It taste good and is filling. I found it in the bulk food bins.

The difference as far as convenience is in the cooking time. You see cornmeal takes a few minutes to boil, while rockahominy is ready when it hits the hot water. Rockahominy may be eaten "raw", about a couple of teaspoons full followed by a big swig of water was an instant trail ration. As for digestion and calories, the cooking that takes place during the parching probably helps to break down any protein in the corn, thus allowing you to digest it, while without the cooking it might take longer to digest, or not digest very well at all. According to the calorie charts, rockahominy yielded better calories than parched corn, and (iirc) the parched corn yielded more calories than the cornmeal. (I wonder if they were using plain rockahominy or parched corn, or if they used it bolstered with maple sugar and assumed the reader understood that.)

LD

Hi all....I home make my "psudo" rock-a-hominy by simply browning a cup of regular yellow or white corn meal in a dry skillet on the stove...stir it constantly as it lightly browns...after that let it cool...
then I add brown sugar to taste, or crumble up one of those real Vermont "maple leaf" maple sugar candies for the traditional maple flavor...or you can get all cajun on it for variety with cayanne pepper and spices if youre brave...store it in a small leather draw string sack strung around your neck, and eat a dry spoon full of it washed down with a big swig of water as needed....but a spoonfull or two at a time is all you should eat.

This will swell a little in your tummy, and keep you feeling full on just a few spoon fulls. At least thats how it works for me...

You can even get fancy and make a special spoon just for your measure of rock-a-hominy like the American Indians were said to do...

Anyway, it works for me...
T.C.Albert

Okay. Mr. Albert....that actually sounds pretty smart..(no wonder it never occured to me... )I'll have to try that.

Thanks T.C. That's the information I was looking for.

And by the way, I enjoyed your new article. I've seen old boot tops sewn and used for storing and carrying hand tools and things
but never considered adding a stap and flap. Good idea.

I don't remember where I learned this but here goes.

Shell a few ears of dried feed corn. Grind it to a coarse meal. I have a cheap hand mill that I use for cornmeal and coffee, it really works well for coffee. Brown it in a little lard or bacon grease in a cast iron pan, stirring constantly until it is all an even light brown. I like to add a little brown sugar and some fine ground (in a mortar and pestle) kosher salt after the corn is browned. Spread it out in cake pans or on cookie sheets to cool.

I keep my parched corn in a bucksking bag that I sewed with very close stitches. A handful stirred into cool water and drunk will keep you feeling full for hours. The stuff seems to be pretty much bulletproof as long as you keep it dry. I fell in a creek and got mine good and wet once. I spread it out on my fishskin in the sun to dry. Tasted a little less sweet than it had, but other than that it was none the worse for it's swim.

It gives real meaning to the line in "Crocodile Dundee" "It tastes like sh*t, but you can live on it".

Three Hawks