Other than making most foods more tasty and digestible, cooking makes them safer to eat by destroying bacteria, toxins, and harmful plant and animal products in the food. Your survival chances increase as your knowledge of field survival skills increase, as you improve your ability to improvise, and as you learn to apply the principles of cooking and preserving the foods you obtain in the field.

ROASTING OR BROILING.- This is a quick way to prepare wild plant foods and tender meats. Roast meat by putting it on a stick and holding it near embers. Roasting hardens the outside of the meat and retains the juices.

BAKING.- Baking is cooking in an oven over steady, moderate heat. The oven may be a pit under your fire, a closed vessel, leaf, or clay wrapping. To bake in a pit, first fill it with hot coals. Drop the covered vessel containing water and food in the pit. Place a layer of coals over it; then cover the vessel and pit with a thin layer of dirt. Whenever possible, line your pit with stones so it holds more heat. Pit cooking protects food from flies and other pests and reveals no flame at night.

STEAMING.- Steaming can be done without a container and is suitable for foods that require little cooking, like shellfish. Place your food in a pit filled with heated stones over which leaves are placed. Put more leaves over your food. Then force a stick through the leaves down to the food pocket. Pack a layer of dirt on top of the leaves and around the stick. Remove the stick and pour water to the food through the hole that remains. This is a slow but effective way to cook.

PARCHING.- Parching maybe a desirable method of preparing some foods, especially grains and nuts. To parch food, place it in a metal container and heat slowly until thoroughly scorched. In the absence of a suitable container, a heated, flat stone may be used. Anything that holds food or water may be used as a container-turtle shells, seashells, leaves, bamboo, or a section of bark.

DRYING.- Plant food can be dried by wind, sun, air, fire, or combination of these four. The object of drying food is to get rid of the water. Cutting meat across the grain in 1/4-inch strips and either drying it in the wind or smoke produces "jerky." Put the strips of meat on a wooden grate and dry them until the meat is brittle. Use willow, alders, cottonwood, birch, and dwarf birch for firewood because woods that contain pitch, such as pine and fir, make the meat unpalatable. Hang the meat high and build a slow smoldering fire under it. Perhaps a quicker method of smoking meat is the following:

1. Dig a hole in the ground about a yard deep and one-half yard wide.

2. Make a small fire at the bottom of the hole. (After starting the fire, use green wood because it will smoke.)

3. Place an improvised wooden grate about three fourths of a yard up from the bottom.

4. Use poles, boughs, leaves, or other available material to cover the pit.

The methods of preserving fish and birds are much the same as for other meats. To prepare fish for smoking, cut off the heads, and remove the backbones. Then spread the fish flat and skewer in that position. Thin willow branches with bark removed make good skewers. Fish also may be dried in the sun.

Hang them from branches or spread them on hot rocks. When the meat dries, splash it with seawater to salt the outside. Do not keep seafood unless it is well dried and salted. Plantains, bananas, breadfruit, leaves, berries, and other wild fruits can be dried by air, sun, wind, or fire, either with or without smoke. Cut fruit into thin slices and place in the sun or before a fire. Mushrooms dry easily and may be kept indefinitely. If the mushrooms are dried, soak them in water before you use them.