Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books

Paulsen concludes Guts with a chapter on the importance of human closeness to its food. There is a joy and pride that comes from catching, growing, processing, preparing, and cooking one’s own nourishment, Paulsen claims. “Most people seem to consider ‘roughing it’ to mean that they actually have to cook a meal—peel the potatoes, fry the steak, cut up the string beans. We forget that for most of man’s history there was no such thing as a frying pan or a cooking pot or a salt shaker or a fork” (Guts: 135). Paulsen experiences the wild as they did in prehistoric times, and Brian is forced to do the same in Hatchet, adapting to fulfill needs as they arise. The theme of an ancestral link to the survivors of the past is reoccurring in the memoir, though it is most noticeable in the final chapter. Paulsen then shares recipes that work for him (and Brian) in the final segment of the memoir:

Hot Water

Paulsen describes how to make a pot out of birch bark and pine pitch. With this makeshift pot, boiling water becomes possible. Add the water, then heat granite stones, and drop them into the water to ensure it boils.