The two-gallon metal pot sloshed with water as a Scout hoisted it onto the camp stove and lit the burner. I watched from a distance as a circle of orange and red flame licked the bottom of the pot. The patrol’s grubmaster fished a couple of envelopes of sausage gravy mix from this patrol box, ripped off the tops, and dumped the contents into the now lukewarm water. I caught his eye as he stirred the white powder into the water.

“What are you making there, Tommy?” I casually asked. (That’s not the Scout’s real name…I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.)

“Gravy. For biscuits and gravy,” he replied with complete confidence.

“Interesting. How much are you making?”

“I don’t know. This much.” He pointed to the battered pot.

“Did you read the instructions before you started?”

“Um, no…this is the way mom makes it.”

“Does she? Tommy, it’s great that you’re cooking on this outing, but do you think you should take a look at the instructions on the gravy mix and tell me what you find?”

He retrieved one of the envelopes. The water/powder mix started to boil. After a few minutes, he looked up.

“Oops,” he said with a smile.

The instructions called for a cup of water and a cup of milk per envelope.

Oops indeed! Luckily, that patrol knew how to make biscuits in a Dutch oven. Well, almost. The tops were a lovely golden brown, and the bottoms were charcoal. It was a meager breakfast, but a big lesson.

I tell this story to illustrate a valuable but often overlooked skill that Scouts gain: the desire and ability to follow instructions. Anyone who has ever held a job, put together a piece of furniture, baked a cake, or conducted a scientific experiment knows how important it often is to do things in the right order.

I love watching someone assemble something without even a glance at the instructions, and chuckling when they scratch their head when it doesn’t work or there are “spare” parts.

Cooking on a campout is good training for the kind of tasks real people face every day. There is nothing inherently magical about cooking — other activities can teach the same skill. But cooking has the advantage of giving feedback in the form of a delicious meal or a culinary disaster.

Do you put the spaghetti into cold water and then boil it? Read the instructions. Do you dump the powdered cheese mixture right into the boiling water/macaroni, or should you drain the pasta first? I think you should read the instructions on the back of the box.

Cooking — and following directions — is a life skill that not everyone masters. Some never have the opportunity. Others don’t even try. In Scouts, young men and women regularly get chances to cook, follow a proven procedure, and learn. It only takes one flubbing of your patrol’s meal to understand why you might want to think (decide your menu), plan (assemble the ingredients), and follow the step-by-step instructions.

Believe me, you don’t want to be the leader of that hungry patrol scraping burnt biscuits off the bottom of a Dutch oven. Television chefs make it look so easy. But cooking, like life, has many variations. Follow a recipe of your own making, and the results can be very satisfying indeed.

Scout On!

Scott Fishel wears several hats in Scouting, including a longtime association with Troop 178 in Morton. You can contact him at [email protected]. Find a Scout unit in your community at beascout.org.