Buying Food

The purchase of food is an important item of expense in operating a boys’ camp, large or small.  If the camp is a large one, one hundred or more boys, and you have a good-sized refrigerator and storehouse, always purchase in bulk form from a wholesale firm.  Canned goods, such as peas, tomatoes, corn, and apples, buy in gallon cans in case lots and save cost of extra tin and labels.  Cocoa may be purchased in five-pound cans.  Condensed milk (unsweetened) in 20-ounce cans.  Flour and sugar by the barrel.  Beans by the bushel.  Butter by the firkin[1].  For instance, a good heavy 200-pound hind quarter of beef will furnish a roast beef dinner, a steak breakfast, a meat stew supper, a meat hash breakfast, and a good thick soup full of nourishment from the bones.  The suet may be rendered into lard.  There will be no waste, and you get the very best of meat.  Buy lamb whole and fowl cleaned, and eggs by the crate.  Keep an accurate inventory, also the cost of foods.  It will be found interesting to make a resume of food at the end of each season, listing quantities, costs, and amounts used each day and ascertain the actual cost per day for each boy.

[Transcriber’s Footnote 1:  About 1/4 of a barrel or 9 gallons (34 liters).]

The following “Grocery List” is for a large camp, but it will serve also to form the basis of providing for small camps: 

Cocoa
Coffee
Sugar (granulated)
Beans, yellow
Beans, red kidney
Tapioca
Rice
Oatmeal (in bulk)
Cornmeal
Toasted Corn Flakes
Cream of Wheat
Shredded Wheat
Salt (table)
Salt (rock)
Pepper, black
Ginger
Cloves
Soda
Cinnamon
Baking Powder
Cream of Tartar
Magic yeast
Raisins (seeded)
Currants
Flour
Graham flour
Corn starch
Gelatin
Figs
Prunes
Evaporated fruits
Codfish cakes
Macaroni
Crackers
Ginger Snaps
Pilot Biscuits
Extracts: 
  Vanilla,
  Lemon
Kitchen Boquet (for gravy)
Chocolate cake
Lemons
Olive Oil
Vinegar
Lard
Butter
Eggs
Onions
Potatoes
Sapolio [soap]
Gold Dust
Laundry soap
Mustard (dry)
Mustard (prepared in mugs);
Chow Chow
Pickles
Piccalilli;
Chili Sauce
Bacon
Ham
Dried beef
Salt pork
Cheese
Matches
Candles
Kerosene oil
Lantern wicks
Chloride of Lime.

CANNED GOODS

Corn; Sliced peaches; Tomatoes; Shredded pineapple;
Peas; Strawberries; Lima beans; Clams (for chowder);
Beets; Condensed milk (unsweetened); Apples; Salmon;
Plums;

The Steward

A reliable person should be in charge of the food supplies.  In some camps he is called the Steward.  He will see that the supply is sufficient, arrange the menus in consultation with the Chef, keep his storeroom neat and scrupulously clean.  As a matter of record and for the purpose of ascertaining cost of feeding the boys, a number of camps keep a daily record like the illustrated form.