First dress the carcass and then stretch it on a framework of black birch sticks, for this sweet wood imparts no disagreeable odor or taste to the meat.
Next build a big fire at each end of the pit (Fig. 114), not right under the body of the animal, but so arranged that when the melted fat drops from the carcass it will not fall on the hot coals to blaze up and spoil your barbecue. Build big fires with plenty of small sticks so as to make good red hot coals before you put the meat on to cook.
First bake the inside of the barbecued beast, then turn it over and bake the outside. To be well done, an animal the size of a sheep should be cooking at least seven or eight hours over a charcoal fire. Baste the meat with melted bacon fat mixed with any sauce you may have or no sauce at all, for bacon fat itself is good enough for anyone, or use hot salt water.
Of course, it is much better to use charcoal for this purpose, but charcoal is not always handy. One can, however,
A day or two ahead of the barbecue day, by building big fires of wood about the thickness of one's wrist. After the fire has been burning briskly for a while, it should be covered up with ashes or dirt and allowed to smoulder all night, and turn the wood into charcoal in place of consuming it.
Roll the top of your flour bag back (Fig. 136), then build a cone of flour in the middle of the bag and make a crater in the top of the flour mountain.
In the crater dump a heaping teaspoon--or, to use Mr. Vreeland's expression, put in "one and a half heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder," to which add a half spoonful of salt; mix these together with the dry flour, and when this is thoroughly done begin to pour water into the crater, a little at a time, mixing the dough as you work by stirring it around inside your miniature volcano. Gradually the flour will slide from the sides into the _lava_ of the center, as the water is poured in and care taken to avoid lumps.
Make the dough as soft as may be, not batter but very soft dough, stiff enough, however, to roll between your well-floured hands.
Put the potatoes with their skins on them on a bed of hot embers two or three inches thick, then cover the potatoes with more hot coals. If this is done properly the spuds will cook slowly, even with the fire burning above them. Don't be a chump and throw the potatoes in the fire where the outer rind will burn to charcoal while the inside remains raw.