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Early frontier cooking was greatly influenced by place and season. Indigenous plants and animals
supplied much of the food. Other provisions (flour, dried beans, coffee, sugar, etc.) were stocked
at points of origin and resupplied along the way. The first pioneers in most places ate by
campfires. By necessity, foods were cooked by very simple methods. Dutch ovens, frying pans,
boiling pots, and roasting spits were typically employed. As settlements grew, so did the range of
cuisine. Why? Improvements in housing and transportation enabled a greater variety of food to be
prepared in more traditional ways.
Recommended reading (with recipes)
Several good books have recently been published on this topi. Each provides historical context
and modernized recipes:
"In 1840 there were only 150 Americans in Oregon. Then "Oregon Fever," the lure of a new
frontier, began the move westward for New Englanders, Southerners, and even settlers in the
Missour and Missisppi valleys. During the next 20 years, tens of thousands of settlers came over
the Oregon trail to the Pacific Northwest. They settled in the fertile valleys to begin a frontier
experience, adapting their recipes to the ingredients of the region. After clearing land and building
homes, the pioneers planted corps and fruit orchards...The trek to Oregon over the Oregon Trail
is considered to be the largest and longest migration by land in the history of mankind...Most
immigrants brough little more than the clothes on their backs with them on the difficult journey.
Those who brough cattle and other farm animals lost most of their stock, including animals
needed to pull their wagons. In spite of having to travel light, some immigrants succeeded in
bringing cows, pigs, chickens, seeds, and tree-root stocks to start their farms...Although game and
wild plants could be relied upon to provide some nourishment along the way, the covered wagons
were loaded with enough food to last the journey. Food for the trip had to be compact,
lightweight, and nonperishable. Each family brought along such staples as flour, sugar, cornmeal,
coffee, dried beans, rice, bacon, and salt port. Some also brought dried fruit. Mealtime on the
Oregon Trail was goverened by the sun...Breakfast had to be completed by 4 a.m. so that the
wagon train could be on its way by daybreak. Beans, cornmeal mush, Johnnycakes or pancakes,
and coffee were the usual breakfast. Fresh milk was available from the dairy cows that some
families brought along, and pioneers took advantage go the rough rides of the wagon to churn
their butter. "Nooning" at midday meant stopping for rest and a meal. Little time could be spent
preparing the noonday meal, since the wagon train could only travel by daylight. Usually a piece
of meat was fried over the camp fire. Longer-cooking stews were left for the evening meal. The
women made bread dough while riding in the wagons and timed the rising so that it would be
ready to bake when evening camp was made..."
PROVISIONS
"Supplies for a march should be put up in the most secure, compact, and portable shape. Bacon
should be packed in strong sacks of a hundred pounds to each; or, in very hot climates, put in
boxes and surrounded with bran, which in a great measure prevents the fat from melting away. If
pork be used, in order to avoid transporting about forty per cent. Of useless weight, it should be
taken out of the barrels and packed like bacon; then so placed in the bottom of the wagons as to
keep it cool. The pork, if well cured, will keep several months in this way, but bacon is preferable.
"Flour should be packed in stout double canvas sacks well sewed, a hundred pounds in each sack.
Butter may be preservd by boiling it thoroughly, and skimming off the scum as it rises to the top
until it is quite clear like oil. It is then placed in tin canisters and soldered up. This mode of
preserving butter has been adopted in the hot climate of southern Texas, and it is found to keep
sweet for a great length of time, and its flavor is but little impaired by the process. Sugar may be
well secured in India-rubber or gutta-percha sacks, or so placed in the wagon as not to risk
getting wet.
"Dessicated or dried vegetables are almost equal to the fresh, and ar put up in such a compact an
portable form as easily to be transported over the plains. They have been extensively used in the
Crimean war, and by our own army in Utah, and have been very generally approved. They are
prepared by cutting the fresh vegetables into thin slices and subjecting them to a very powerful
press, which removes the juice and leaves a solid cake, which, after having been thoroughly dried
in an oven, becomes almost hard as a rock. A small piece of this, about half the size of a man's
hand, when boiled, swells up so as to fill a vegetable dish, and is sufficient for four men. It is
believed that the antiscorbutic properties of vegetables are not impaired by dessication, and they
will keep for years if not exposed to dampness. Canned vegetables are very good for
campaigning, but are not so portable as when put up in the other form. The dessicated vegetables
used in our army have been prepared by Chollet and Co., 46 Rue Richer, Paris.
"There is an agency for them in New York. I regard these compressed vegetables as the best
preparation for prairie traveling that has yet been discovered. A single ration weights, before
boiling, only an ounce, and a cubic yard contains 16,000 rations. In making up their outfit for the
plains, men are very prone to overload their teams with a great variety of useless articles. It is a
good rule to carry nothing more than is absolutely necessary for use upon the journey. One can
not expect, with the limited allowance of transportation that emigrants usually have, to indulge in
luxuries upon such expeditions, and articles for use in California can be purchased there at less
cost than that of overland transport.
"The allowance of provisions for men in marching should be much greater than when they take no
exercise. The army ration I have always found insufficient for soldiers who perform hard service,
yet it is ample for them when in quarters. The following table shows the amount of subsistence
consumed per day by each man of Dr. Rae's party, in his spring journey to the Arctic regions of
North America in 1854:
"I would advise all persons who travel for any considerable time through a country where they
can procure no vegetables to carry with them some antiscorbutics, and if they can not transport
dessicated or canned vegetables, citric acid answers a good purpose, and is very portable. When
mixed with sugar and water, with a few drops of the essence of lemon, it is difficult to distinguish
it from lemonade. Wild onions are excellent as antiscorbutics; also wild grapes and greens. An
infusion of hemlock leaves is also said to be an antidote to scurvy.
"The most portable and simple preparation of subsistence that I know of, and which is used
extensively by the Mexicans and Indians, is called "cold flour." It is made by parching corn, and
pounding it in a mortar to the consistency of coarse meal; a little sugar and cinnamon added
makes it quite palatable. When the traveler becomes hungry or thirsty, a little of the flour is mixed
with water and drunk. It is an excellent article for a traveler who desires to go the greatest length
of time upon the smallest amoung ot transportation. It is said that half a bushel is sufficient to
subsists a man thirty days
"Persons undergoing severe labor, and driven to great extremities for food, will derive sustenance
from various sources that would never occur to them under ordinary circumstances. In passing
over the Rocky Mountains during the winter of 1857-8, our supplies of provisions were enterely
consumed in eighteen days before reaching the first settlements in New Mexico, and we were
obliged to resort to a variety of expedients to supply the deficiency. Our poor mules were fast
failing and dropping down from exhaustion in the deep snows, and our only dependence for the
means of sustaining life was upon these starved animals as they became unserviceable and could
go no farther. We had no salt, sugar, coffee, or tobacco, which, at a time when men are
performing the severest labor that the human system is capable of enduring, was a great
privation...A decoction of the dried wild or horsemint, which we found abundant under the snow,
was quite palatable, and answered instead of coffee. It dries up in that climate, but does not lose
its flavor. We suggered greatly for the want of salt; but, by burining the outside of our mule
steaks, and sprinkling a little gunpowder on them, it did not require a very extensive stretch of the
imagination to fancy the presence of both salt and pepper. We tried the meat of horse, colt, and
mules, all of which were in a starved condition, and of course not very tender, juicy, or nutritious.
We consumed the enoumous amount of five to six pounds of this meat per man daily, but
continued to grow weak and thin, until, at the expiration of twelve days, we were able to perform
but little labor, and were continually craving for fat meat.
"The allowance of provisions for each grown person, to make the journey from the Missouri
River to California, should suffice for 110 days. The following is deemed requisite, viz.: 150 lbs of
flour or its equivalent in hard bread; 25 lbs. Of bacon or pork, and enough fresh beef to be driven
on the hoof to make up the meat component of the ration; 15 lbs. of coffee, and 25 lbs. of sugar;
also a quantity or saleratus or yeast powders for making bread, and salt and pepper.
"These are the chief articles of subsistence necessary for the trip, and they should be used with
economy, reserving a good portion for the western half of the journey. Heretofore many of the
California emigrants have improvidently exhausted their stocks of provisions before reaching their
journey's and, and have, in many cases, been obliged to pay the most exorbinant prices in makign
up the deficiency. It is true that if persons choose to pass through Salt Lake City, and the
Mormons happen to be in an amicable mood, supplies may sometimes be procured from
them; but those who have visited them well know how little reliance is to be placed upon their
hospitality or spirit of accomodation.
"I once traveled with a party of New Yorkers en route for California. They were perfectly
ignorant of every thing relating to this kind of campaigning, and have overloaded their wagons
with almost every thing except the very articles most important and necessary; the consequence
was, that they exhausted their teams, and were obliged to throw aways the greater part of their
loading. They soon learned that Champagne, East India sweetmeats, olives, etc., etc., were not
the most useful articles for a prairie tour."
RECOMMENDED READING:
HOW MUCH DID THIS COST?
Pork, 11cents/lb
PERIOD RECIPES
MODERNIZED RECIPES
The foods and recipes of Gold Rush California were as diverse as the people who lived in that place
and time. It was a convergence of cultures (Anglo-American, Spanish, Chinese, Mexican etc.) and
economic status: downright rich to dirt poor. Folks venturing into towns could sample the
finest Victorian fare or drink themselves into oblivion on cheap whisky. Camp fare was similar to
what the pioneers ate on the Oregon trail: belly-filling foods made with local ingredients (freshly
shot game, fruits & vegetables) and store-bought provisions (coffee, beans & bacon). As time
progressed, so did the food. Sourdough bread was a staple of the forty-niners.
"With the discovery of gold, California...abruptly changed character. The territory had launched itself upon an agricultural
career, but with the gold strike California's farms were abandoned, and so were its towns. As ships from the East Coast reached
California, their crews promptly deserted and went gold hunting too; by July 1850, the harbor of San Francisco was clogged with
five hundred vessels becalmed for want of crews. San Fransico was promoted from a small village named Yerba Vueina, "good herb,"
for a local plant with a mint-like flavor, to a thriving, bustling metropolis of 25,000 citizens, mostly miners. In 1849, eighty
thousand new gold seekers entered California...Three-quarters of the gold hunters were Americans, bringin with them Anglo-Saxon
eating habits destined to overwhelm Spanish-Mexican ideas. The same phenomenon already encountered on a frontier inhabited by
a society with no women in the kitchen was now repeated, strengthening the American tendency to neglect culinary niceties: women made
up only eight percent of California's new population, and in the mining areas only two percent. The successful prospectors were
heavy spenders; they had to be when it came to food, which was outrageously expensive. Since nobody in California wanted to rais ti,
everything had to be imported. Nevertheless, for unsuccessful, or not yet sucessful prospectors, San Francisco developed, iknt eh
1850s, relatively modest hotels and boarding houses, whose prices were reasonable in their context. Everybody sat down at a common
table, and the food was hearty. Meanwhile, for epicurians among those who had struck it rich, a surprising number of French restaurants
were opened. The first important one was named Le Poulet d'Or...For the moment, the spectacular potentiality of California as a
grwoer of food was neglected. its new-found riches served chiefly, in this domain, to further developments of Oregon as a food-supplying
state, catering to the California gold-rush population."
"Hundreds of the accounts of westward mighration speak either of near-starvation or of having to make do with whatever might be
at hand. A forty-niner, writing in his journal, described a meeting with another wagon train: "Their sugar, rice, beans & flour
were also out & they had been living on nothing but hard tack & coffee, & coffee and hard tack. They had no shot guns and & of
course took no game. This reconciled us, I assure you, & we censured ourselves for our past time growling, & find, instead
of suffering, we have been feasting." His group, in fact, had been varying a diet of salt pork with "Jack Ass" rabbits on which, the
journal says, "we fared sumptuously."
" 'A party recently left Joe's store at Mormon Bar for the Valley, and a friend of the Star furnishes the following statistiics--
showing the amount of "the necessaries of life" which is required for an eight day's trip in the mountains:
Trail provisions & Oregon prices, c. 1852
FOOD AVAILBILITY, RETAIL PRICES & GROCERY STORES
"No characteristic of gold rush California is so well known as the astronomical prices at which everything seemed to sell. Beefs
seven or eight dollars a head in February 1848, sold for twenty-five to one hundred dollars by the summer. A year later, "little of it
was to be had, and then only jerked, at correspondingly high prices." Flour, eight dollars a barrel before Marshall's discovery,
soared by the summer of 1849 to fifty dollars in San Francisco and eighty-five at Sutter's Fort. The year 1849 also saw bay
oysters and eggs available from established californios going at a dollar apiece. In Sacramento potatoes and onions sold at a
dollar and a half a pound, and in the mines at least a few of those changed hands for a dollar each, "entirely out of reach as an
article of food." In Placerville a plain slice of bread sold for a dollar, a buttered one for two. The Sonora hospital counted out
five dollars in gold dust for each six-ounce bottle of lime juice that was purchased. Canned fruits were marked up 2000 percent
over retail rates on the eastern seaboard. For dinner at Sacramento on Christmas day, 1849, Catherine Haun paid two and a half
dollars for a grizzly bear steak and another dollar for a side of cabbage...Almost all the forty-niners expressed bemusement that
vegetables should sell by the pound rather than by the bushel...On September 21, 1849...Dr. Charles Frederick Winslow wrote to
associates back east...'Canistered provisions and vegetables and all sorts of fruit are first rate but very expensive in this
country.' Flour came from Oregon and Australia. Chile sent beans, China sent rice. Argentina shipped jerky...In July 1850 a ship
arrived from Boston loaded with ice that sold for eighty cents a pound...As early as January 1, 1850, well-intergrated grocery companies
like Warren & Co. tacked broadsides on pines and oaks of the Sierra slope to announce the opening of such emporia as "the Excelcior tent
at Mormon Island." Inside...included 'Pork, Flour, Bread, Beef, Hams, Mackeral, Sugar, Molasses, Coffee, Teas, Butter & Cheese,
Pickles, Beans, Peas, Rice, Chocolate, Spices, Salt, Soap, Vinegar, &c,' as well as 'Every variety of Preserved Meats and
Vegetables and Fruits [more than eighty different kinds], Tongues and Sounds; Smoked Halibut, Dry Cod Fish; Eggs fresh and fine;
Figs, Raisins; Almonds and Nuts; China Preserves, China Bread and cakes; Butter Crackers, Boston Crackers, and many other very
desirable and choice bits. No doubt the prices at the Excelsior were as fabulous as those already described. The California dream was,
after all, a fortune overnight...Therein lies the clue to the nature of the retail economy of 1949 that is too little recounted
in the histories. The provisions market on the California frontier--and on other metal mining frontiers to follow--was not
characterized so much by dizzying high prices as by a crazy instability. Prices of every edible from wheaten flour and salt pork
to oranges and canned caviar did not start at sky-high levels and only eventually decline to merely high levels. From the beginning
they swung widly from absurdly high to (for the merchants) dishearteningly low."
RESTAURANT DINING
Although historians tell us the "grand hotels" of the west were not established in the 1870s there is
evidence of "grand dining" in western mining regions prior to this time. The larger the city, the more
elegant the dining options. In 1849, however, most Gold Rush towns were just springing onto the map.
Saloons, boarding house meals, and crude camp cooking were the norm.
"Hotels and resorts sprang up, crude at first, but by the 1880's such elaborate affairs as the Del Monte in
Monterey, the Raymond in Pasadena, and Coronado in San Diego, all models of Atlantic elegance. This
transition began sometime in the early 1870's, although there were traces of it a half-decade before."
""So completely was California inundated with taverns, boarding houses, etc.," wrote an Englsih lady in 1851, that the Golden
State could as aptly have been named "the Hotel State."...A miner who arrived in 1849 remembered that "there were any
number of eating houses and hotels" in Coloma, where it all began. Red Dog, a camp of only two hundred people in Nevada County,
California, had a restaurant featuring "Choice Meals served up at al hours, day or night, in the best style." Indian Bar's Hotel
Humboldt added dinner music...meals of oysters...salmon...roast beef, mince pie and pudding and Madiera, claret, and
champagne...At Placerville's Cary House, hangtown fry was invented. At its El Dorado Hotek, the fare included beef under specials
species, veal, peas, potatoes, sauerkraut, bacon, and hash...As the gateway to the goldfields, San Francisco established early on
its enduring reputation as a restaurant city. Hall McAllister and Sam Ward were so disgusted with ship's food when they
disembarked from the steamer Panama on June 4, 1849, that they foreswore digging for gold and instead opened a restaurant on
Telegraph Hill. At first pork and beans were the only improvement ont he Panama's galley they could manage. By December...nearby competitors
at the Ward house...had improvised an ingenious menu from available ingredients that included baked trout with anchovy sauce
($1.50), curried sausages ($1), and bread pudding ($.75). Johann Knocke ran another typical restaurant for miners. He
opened at five each morning and closed at eleven at night, featuring fishballs (dried fish and boiled potatoes) and "hot cakes done
brown" as his specialties...What Cheer served four thousand meals daily. Each day diners consumed twelve hundred eggs,
one hundred pounds of butter, five hundred pounds of potatoes, four hundred quarts of milk...In the mining towns, a fine
restaurant was one of the ems by which hosts demonstrated to eastern or European guests...that, despite their geographical
isolation, they where thoroughly cosmopolitan."
Bill of Fare, What Cheer Restaurant, San Francisco California, mid-19th century
Bill of Fare, Ward House (restaurant), San Francisco California, December 27, 1849:
Russ House Menu, San Francisco, 1877:
ETHNIC CULINARY INFLUENCE
"Given the miners' adventurousness in adopting la cuisine francaise, and the innovation of the free lunch, it is curious that they
did not take a keen interest in most of the other "ethnic" foods and modes of prepration to which they were exposed. The argonauts
who traveled by sea to California sometimes commented, even favorably now and then, on the way people ate in the Caribbean and in the
Latin American ports...But the typical notice of edibles in their diaries dwells on the abundance, lushness, and cheapness of
fruits in Sao Paolo, Valparaiso, Acapulco, or whatever. With the occasional exception of the man who prepared "chili" for hist mates,
and the appearance of the odd enchilada on the free lunch bars...despite the fact that Chileans and Mexicans were numerous in
California--South American and Mexican foods and styles of prepration had little impact on the Californians...To be sure, groups of
non-Americans that were large enough on the mining frontier to create the sustain and ethnic community clung to familiar foods
and forms of cookery...Italian gold miners...shunned regulation biscuits, cornbread, and sourdough in favor of the classic
loaves of their homeland, even though this meant taking considerable pains to construct the beehive oven required to bake them
properly...Forty-niners from South Wales had their "dampers"--flour water, and salt dough covered with hardwood coals--which were
said to have been durable for a week...Mexicans manning a pack train...cooked tortillas on a hot cheet of iron, frijoles...and "charui fried in hot
mantequilla."...eating places considered best in the mining country were run by Germans, French, or Italians, it may be that their
menus reflected the national cuisines of their proprietors...Any number of boarding restaurants were well known at the time
to cater to specific groups...With the exception of the French...and the Chinese, the Cornish almost alone among mining country
ethnic region. Cornish women were reputed to be excellent cooks, peerless in the use of citron, jellies, raisins, currants, and
saffron...the enduring popualrity of the pasty...in...mining districts is exceptional...On the face of it, the cocina of the californios,
the Hispanics who had California almost to themselves in 1848, should have had a great deal of influence on the arrival of
forty-niners...Californio cookery failed to influence the new Californians because few of the latter vistied in the homes of the former
and fewer yet were invited...Nor did the somewhat different foodways of the Mexicans who swarmed to California have much effect
on the habits of other forty-niners. Even those American gold-seekers who crossed Mexico on their way to California...tended to
cling to their own diet and modes of preparation and shun that of the Sonorans. This is worth remark because...some Mexican
foods were better adapated to life in the mines that were their American equivalents. Whereas baking saleratus biscuit or
sourdough bread required considerable time and a makeshift oven, tortillas could be cooked in a minute on a sheet of iron or
flat rock. Refried beans were more easily whipped up than a crock of baked beans...The Americans and at least the English-
speaking forty-niners from abroad despised the Mexicans for, among other things, their poverty. They "ate French" because cusines
francaise represented to them what the rich ate back East. By the same principle, they were unlikely to adopt the foodways of a
people whom they had just defeated in war..."
CHINESE RESTAURANTS
"The place of the Chinese in the food history of the mining West is...enigmatic...To many
Caucasians of the mining frontier...Chinese in the kitchen were reviled as "filthy Chinese cooks."...On the other hand, it is
clear that Chinese were often actively sought as cooks in private homes and in restaurants serving sturdy, conventional
American fare. Chinese restaurants, too, were popular from San Francisco to the remotest mining camp...Economics explains the ubiquity of
the Chinese in home kitchens, conventional hash houses, and boarding restaurants...Despite the sinophobia of the mining West, restaurants
run by Chinese and serving Cantonese fare, both "chop suey joints" and fine restaurants, were also quite popular. Within a few yars
of his arrival with the first wave of gold-seekers, San Francisco's Tsing Tsing Lee built the Balcony of Golden Joy and Delight into
a restaurant seating four hundred customers at a time...While originally intended for Chinese patrons, these restaurants soon
attracted Occidental customers. Like boarding house restaurants in the mining towns, most Chinese restaurants appear to have
charged a flat price for 'all you can eat."...In part, Chinese restaurants were popular because they were cheap...Imported ingredients
such as sauces, dried oysters and abalone, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and noodles were expensive. Nevertheless, by the 1860s,
Chinese importers were paying half a million dollars a year in comparatively low duties on such goods. Morever, Cantonese cooks howed
incredible ingenuity...in adapting to local ingredients."
About Chop Suey.
Food historians tell us during the American Civil War the civilians/soldiers of the north generally
ate better than the civilians/soldiers of the south. They also tell us the Southern plantation owner's
family ate quite differently from its slaves. Members of the
Gullah-Geechee community, Ohio
factory workers, wealthy Boston merchants, New Orleans Acadians, New Jersey Swedes,
Pennsylvania "Dutch," and Maine whaling sailors all preferred/enjoyed/ate different foods. In a
nation populated by settlers from many lands there was (as is today) no "typical" breakfast, lunch
and dinner menu. At the same time? The Industrial Revolution was making it possible to preserve
(cans, bottles) and distribute (railroads) large quantities of food to a greater number of
consumers. Indianapolis-based Van Camp's Packing Company supplied canned pork and bean
rations to the Union Army.
Most mid-19th century American cookbooks do not contain menus for typical meals. Some
contain suggestions for dinner parties and holiday feasts. Here is a sample week's suggested bill of fare for middle class families in Philadelphia, 1853. Be wary of
books/Web sites that
oversimplify the topic. If you want to identify authentic popular mid-19th century foods you can
scan these sites...
CIVILIAN FOOD:
SOLDIER FOOD
Suggested reading (with modernized recipes):
SLAVE SUBSISTENCE
What did the slaves eat on board ships heading for the New World?
"Slave ship cargoes brought crops directly from Africa to North America for enslaved Africans to consume during their passage to the New World under the
transatlantic slave trade. These crops included several basic starches central to the African diet, for instance rice, okra, tania, black-eyed peas, cassava, yams, and
kidney and lima beans. Other crops brought from Africa included peanuts (originally from South America), millet, sorghum, guinea melon, liquorice, watermelon,
and sesame (benne). Over time, these foods found their way into American footways and became a basic component of southern cuisine.
Without question, yams were the most common African staple fed to enslaved Africans on board ships bound for the Americas. The slave merchant John Barbot,
for example, noted that "a ship that takes in 500 slaves, must provide above 100,000 yams," or roughly 200 per person. The ship logs of the slave vessel
Elizabeth, bound for Rhode Island in 1754, listed provisions of "yams, plantain, bread [cornbread], fish and rice." In another example, the account books of the
slave ship Othello (1768-69) listed hundreds of baskets of yams taken on board as provisions along with lesser quantities of plantains, limes, pepper, palm oil, and
gobbagobs (goobers or peanuts).
One enslaved African told a free black in Charleston about the food eaten on the slave ship that brought him to America: "We had nothing to eat but yams, which
were thrown amongst us at random--and of those we had scarcely enough to support life. More than a third of us died on the passage, and when we arrived at
Charleston, I was not able to stand." The African yam, which is similar to the American "sweet potato," remained a popular food among slaves and whites alike. To
this day roasted and sugared yams and "sweet potato pie" are favourite southern delicacies--both having their origins in African slavery.
Black-eyed peas, which are actually beans, also were used as food on the slave voyages, and enslaved Africans in the Caribbean thereafter consumed these easily
cultivated beans as a basic food."
"Although some European foods were acceptable, experience taught slave traders that Africans did better when they were fed foods that they were accustomed to eating.
The Henrietta Marie may have stopped for yams, as they were thought to be the most suitable food for people from the Calabar region. Some 50,000 yams would have been
necessary to feed the 200 slaves aboard the Henrietta Marie, and it would have taken about one week to fully provision her for the voyage. Africans were usually fed twice
daily. Two cook stoves were found aboard the Henrietta Marie, one large one which was probably used to feed sailors and slaves, and this smaller one, possibly used in the
officer's quarters."
"...The diet of the Negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse beans boiled to the consistency of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and sometimes a small
quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce composed of palm-oil
mixed with flour, water and pepper, which the sailors call slabber-sauce. Yams are the favorite food of the Eboe or Bight Negroes, and rice or corn of those from
the Gold or Windward Coast; each preferring the produce of their native soil...Upon the Negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch and burn them.
And this has been accompanied with threats of forcing them to swallow the coals if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These means have generally had the
desired effect. I have also been credibly informed that a certain captain in the slave-trade, poured melted lead on such of his Negroes as obstinately refused their
food...."
What did the slaves eat when they arrived in America?
"It is difficult to assess the abundance or the quality of average Southern food in the absence of an
average Southerner--that is, a member of the middle class, for there was not much middle class to
occupy the wide gap between the plantation owner and the poor white, a group which already
existed in those times and could hardly expect to rise to any comfortable standards of living in
competition with the unpaid labor of slaves. The famous "hog and hominy" diet was at least
rendered a little less unhealthy by the prevalence on the Southern menu of greens, often ignored
by food writers, perhaps as a food so lowly as to be unworthy of their attention, but providers of
vitamins all the same. A significant passage in Frederick Law Olmsted's Seabord Slave States, a
product of his travels of the 1850s, suggests that slaves may have enjoyed a diet better balanced
than that of may whites. Olmsted remarked that the more modest Southern planters lived on
bacon (sometimes cooked with turnip greens), corn pone, coffee sweetened with molasses, and
not much else, while their slaves had corn meal and salt pork, plus sweet potatoes of their own
raising in the winter. Some owners encouraged the Negroes to grow vegetables for themselves
also, because thy discovered that "negroes fed on three-quarters of a pound of bread and bacon
are more prone to disease than if with less meat but with vegetables." It did not occur to the
masters to draw any conclusions from this empirical observation for their own benefit."
"Corn and pork were Southern staples of diets for both master and slave. The master might have
delicate puddings and hot breads, rich with eggs and cream, and thin slices of choice smoked ham,
while his slaves at mush and chitlins; but it was still corn and pork. The rations issued in "The
Quarters" were likely to be light on meat, with hominy or swet potatoes added to the ration of
cornmeal. On some plantations work was assigned by task. Workers who finished early might
have the rest of the day to fish or hunt, to work in their own vegetable gardens, or to tend their
own livestock, varying, when possibly, the monotonous rations. From the big house rations plus
what the slaves could grow, hunt, or catch for themselves, grew the beginnings of the cuisine we
today call "soul food"."
"The cultivation of their own crops by slaves during the free time that they task system afforded
them made a strong impression on white observers. Johann Bolzius cxplained that "they are given
as much land as they can handle" and that "they plant for themselves also on Sundays." Hans
Trachsler, a German visitor to Carolina, noted the slaves' system of self-provisioning by
explaining how "these people arew worth a high price because they are much more able to do the
work and much cheaper to keep in food and drink than the Europeans."...Reflecting their
extensive backcountry interaction with Native Americans, slaves leavened with West African diet
with a number of Native American methods of food acquisition...Janet Schaw, a visitor to
Carolina, noted that "Negroes are the only people that seem to pay any attention to the various
uses that the wild vegetables may be put to." Slaves routinely shot and ate opossum, deer, rabbits,
and raccoon...Carolina slaves further supplemented their diet with ample amounts of fish...In
addition to corn, rice, beans, and pumpkins, archaeological excavations have unearthed evidence
of peach pits, walnuts, and grape seeds...For all the abundance of grains, vegetables, and fruit that
slaves grew in their "little piece[s] of land," domestic animals were virtually nonexistent. For meat,
they depended on their masters, and their masters proved to be less than reliable--if not
completely negligent--suppliers. One slave overseer mentions that slaves "never had any meat
except at Christmas." Excavations show almost no proof of domestic beef or pork. "If a master
wishes," Bolzius explained, "He gives them a little meat when he slaughters," but otherwise "their
food is nothing but Indian corn, beans, pounded rice, potatoes, pumpkins."
Recommended Web sites
Recommended reading
Related topic? Soul food.
How can you learn about "Cowboy Recipes" that were served by chuckwagons in the 19th
Century American West? There are several books, Web sites, reenactor groups, and museums you
can tap for authentic (and adapted) recipes as well as cooking techniques (Dutch Oven, for
example). There is even an annual chuck wagon gathering where you can sample the fare for
yourself. Are you writing a report for school? Working on a Boy Scout merit badge? Collecting
details for a historic novel? Establishing a foodways program in a living history museum? The
amount of information you need depends upon your project. The following sources will get you
started:
Charles Goodnight & Oliver Loving (from Texas) are credited with *inventing* the chuckwagon in 1866
in order to accomodate the gustatory needs of American cowboys: "The nature of the cook's job
required that he get up several hours earlier than the cowhands, so he worked longer hours with
less sleep. When the outfit was on the move, he had to be at the next appointed camp and have a
hot meal ready on time."
BOOKS--your local public librarian can help you find these:
How did chuckwagon cooks make their beans?
"According to J. Frank Dobie in Up the Trail From Texas, the chuck wagon, the travelling
commissary from which the trail-driving cowboys and horse wranglers were fed, appeared to be a
good many years after the fist post-Civil War drives....The chuck wagon itself evolved from the
cart, sometimes driven by oxen, which carried the personal gear of the crew and the trail boss, and
a few pots of beans cooked on the overnight stops...On the drives, the cook hurried the
chuck wagon forward past the slow-moving cattle to set up at the next planned stopping place
and have food ready for the drivers when they arrived. He needed a good head start to give him
time to bake the omnipresent red Mexican beans ("prairie strawberries," the cowboys called
them)."
"The first wagons on the trail did not have built-in chuck boxes, but they had plenty of room for
iron pots containing cooked beans. Beans for supper had to be cooked the preceding night."
"Cookie worked long hours. Rising before the crew, he had the breakfast fire blazing and coffee
on by 3 or 4 in the morning. As soon as the meal was cleared, he packed and rode on ahead to
make evening camp and had supper ready when bone-weary cowboys straggled in."
"By mid-afternoon it was not unusual for the cook driving the chuck wagon to push on ahead to
the night's campsite."
Period bean recipe
How about a cowboy picnic?
If you are not able to cook outdoors, that's okay. This also presents
an excellent learning opportunity. Cowboy meals were lessons in "making do" and adaptability.
Chuckwagon cooks used Dutch ovens and open fires; you use a crockpot plugged into a
classroom socket. The methods are different but the reasons are exactly the same...because the
cook HAD to! The results? Tasty, nutritious, belly-filling food.
You know best what your students like to eat. Work with that. If someone is kosher, skip the
pork. If someone is allergic to cinnamon (or any other spice), skip that. If they are daring? Add
chiles. If some of your students refuse the beans? Fine! According to primary accounts, many
cowboys hated them too. These students will appreciate (most of all) the lesson of eat it or starve.
COWBOY PICNICS
Grades K-4:
Grades 5-8:
Grades 9-12:
"In 1865, a Chicago restauranteur was still able to offer wild boar's steak, boned wild turkey, patties of quail, aged bear's
paws in burgundy sauce, ragout de coon, and squirrel pie. While frontiersmen heartily approved of this fare, foreigners often complanied
that, in the absence of ice, the meat generally was in an advanced stage of decomposition, its taste disguised with hot sauces
and pepper. Customers suffered...Englishmen and Frenchmen bemoaned the lack of fresh food. Coffee, to the foreigners' disgust, was often
a brew made of brown bread, acorns, dandelion roots, barley, and snuff...From 1860 on, food in the out-of-the-way places became
somewhat standardized. For breakfast a tin cup and plate were filled with coffee, "sowbelly," bread, and syrup. Lunch, and dinner
again, consisted of bread and steak, the steaks being generally overcooked and hard as stone...Lamb fries and Rocky Mountain
oysters...slightly shirred in the pan, or roasted in the ashes of a campfire until they "popped," were considered a
delicacy. Rattlesnake meat was fancied by some and said to taste like the white meat of chicken. Dried, pale beans known as
Arizona strawberries were the only vegetable besides corn and squash in certain areas of the Southwest...Some people said that western
saloon food was confined to the "Basic Four B's'--sourdough biscuits, beans, beef, and bacon ("overland trout" in cowboyese).
Wild onions were sometimes served as a side dish "against scurvy." The chief complaint of travelers was the scarcity of
vegetables...Coffee was the universal drink...
"Westerners ate to fill the belly, not for pleasure. Food was Food. One california traveler cheerfully commented: 'We are now
ready to replenish the inner man. The bar is convenient for those who wish to imbibe. Breakfast is announced. We seat ourselves at
the table. Before us is a reasonable quantity of beans, pork, and flapjacks served up in tin plates. Pea tea, which the landlord calls
coffee with a bold emphasis, is handed to us. We help yourselves to such other things as may be in reach. Neither spices, sauces,
nor seasonings are necessary to accomodate them to the palate. Our appetites need not nursing. The richest condiments are the
poorest provisions.'...
Table manners were atrocious by European standards. Food was wolfed down with a speed that astounded the
foreigner. At saloons that were also stagecoach stations, with only a limited time avaialble for a stopover, it was every man for himself.
A run was made for the table set out smorgasbord fashion, guests elbowing and trampling each other, devouring everything in
sight in record time...Things were no different on the northwest coast: 'They breakfast in the middle of the night, dine when they
aught to be breakfasting and take supper when they should be dining; and the "feed" is most distasteful--all noise,dirt, grease,
mess, slop, confusion, and disorder; chunks of meat of all kinds and no flavor, placed in plates, and "sot" on the table;
and before you have time to look at your meat, a piece of very flat pie, with a doughy crust, and dried fruit inside is placed
under your nose, on the same plate with your meat. Men pick their teeth with forks and jackknives, gobble down gallons of
water, and "slide." This is the style in Oregon...
"Sudden wealth from gold and silver brought sudden change. It came earliest in California. Bayard Taylor reported in 1850 "it was
no unusual thing to see a company of these men, who had never before thought of luxury beyond a good beefsteak and glass of whiskey,
drinking their champagne at ten dollars a bottle, and eating their tongue and sardines, or warming in the smoky campfire their
tin cannisters of turtle soup and lobster salad."...Teddy Blue, a Montana cowboy during the 1880s when the cattle trade
flourished, wrote: 'talking about food, do you know what was the first thing a cowpuncher ordered to eat when he got to town?
Oysters and celery. And eggs. Those things were what he didn't get and what he was crazy for.'...It was not only oysters that,
with the coming of the railroads, suddenly became avaialble in Sheridan, Wyoming, in Miles City, Montana, or Virginia City,
Nevada. Gambling and concert saloons as well as hotel bars offered their well-heeled customers fancy fare printed on equally
fancy menus, often in broken French...
"In Wyatt Earp's and Doc Holliday's Tombstone, the Occidental Saloon served a Sunday dinner to tickle "Doc's" fashionable palate:
And we will have it or perish.
No such thing as a "Free lunch?" Wrong!
"After Prohibiton had killed the saloons, old timers waxed lyrical describing the free lunches of the grand old palaces, or rather the gourmet buffet dinners of tiny,
savoury meatballs, French Gruyere cheese, hickory-cured ham, and other dainties...The narrow, twenty-foot-long tables in these
establishments had indeed been covered with spotless white linen and plates of delicacies to please the most discerning tastes...
Others served cold cuts...yellow cheeese, beans...stalks of celery...above all, the free lunch featured salted food--pretzels, rye
bread, smoked herring, salted peanuts, peppery sausages, sauerkraut, kippers, rollmops (in German beergardens), potato chips,
dill pickles, and sardellen...The theory behind all this, and it was a good theory, was that a couple of shot glasses, or
steins, produced appetite that the salty goodies, in turn, produced a mighty thirst. The chain-reaciton process of drinking
and nibbling, nibbling and drinking could to on for hours during which the customers spent a lot on booze. Free lunches varied,
of course; in places where the barkeep was German, there might be slices of blutwurst, zervelatwurst, and landjaegers to tempt the
patrons. Italian saloon owners might werve calzone and pepperoni, though seldom west of the Mississippi. Two places in Chicago gave
away thick, creamy pies to old customers. In the Southwest the faithful helped themselves from a bowl of chili con carne,
or nibbled on nachos--small, salty squares of crisp tortillas covered wtih frijoles and melted cheese...Some bars had their
daily free lunch specialties--franks on Monday, roast beef on Saturday, baked fish on Friday, and so on. Some saloons were more
generous than others. Many advertised, 'A fried oyster, a clam, or a hard-boiled egg with every drink'...The word "lunch" should not
be take literally. It blended imperceptibly into free breakfast and free dinner...The same salted goods waited patiently on their
fly-speckled plates morning, noon, and night. The free lunch posed problems for many bartenders. The institution rested on the
honor system. Supposedly no creature walking on two legs would be so low as to approach the free lunch table without having
first consumed, and paid for, at least two drinks. But there were many human skunks--sad to say, great numbers of them--who were
not honorable."
What was served in Virginia City, Nevada saloons?
Recommended reading: Boomtown Saloons/Kelly J. Dixon & Bacon, Beans, and Galantines/Joseph R. Conlin
About Railroad dining & Harvey Houses.
The Victorian era in was a time of wealthy opulence and dire poverty, modern
social reform, bustling industrial revolution, and great scientific advancement. New foods were
introduced at an amazing rate. The birth of modern nutrition science, and it's female counterpart,
domestic science, came in the last quarter of the century. In the United States this era was also
rocked by war, pushed by westward expansion and impacted by waves of immigration.
The sources you need to tap to research this culinary era depend upon the country (England?
United States? Canada? Australia?) of your focus. You can use the Food Timeline to identify new products, popular
recipes, and online primary documents.
ENGLAND
Books
Cookbooks for the poorer and working classes
Cookbooks with history and modernized recipes
Menus
Sample bill of fare for middle-class home meals, Philadelphia 1853:
In the days before home freezers and rapid transit, suggested family menus were grouped by
season and presented for each day. Breakfast would have been served between 8-9AM. Dinner
would have been the main meal of the day, served sometime between noon and three. Tea would
have been a light meal (at that time this meal was often called supper) before retiring.
Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
Friday.
Saturday.
Sunday.
SOUPS
*NOTE: All of these vegetables are period correct, buth some of them would have been
hard to come by in the winter months. Although available, tomatoes were still "suspect"[the
nightshade connection] in the early 1800s. Potatoes and aubergine (eggplants) followed the same
pattern. By 1853 these foods were common.
About culinary research & about copyright.
...BEST source for accurate historic background; includes food lists & cooking methods
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell
Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 241-2)
Randolph B. Marcy's A Handbook for Overland Expeditions was considered by many as
THE manual for westward migration. Originally published in 1859, it contained practical advice
on everything from route selection and wagon packing to emergency medicine (rattlesnake bites)
and dealing with Native Americans. Marcy [1812-1887] was a captain of the U.S. Army. Prior to
the Civil War he served in the West, forging new trails and escorting wagon trains. That made him
an expert in stores and provisions. In his own words:
"Pemmican.....1.25 lbs
"This allowance of a little over two pounds of the most nutritious food was found barely sufficient
to subsist the men in that cold climate. The pemmican, which constitutes almost the entire diet of
the Fur Company's men in the Northwest, is prepared as follows: The buffalo meat is cut into thin
flakes, and hung up to dry in the sun or before a slow fire; it is then pounded between two stone
and reduced to a powder; this powder is placed in a bag of the animal's hide, with the hair on the
outside; melted grease is then poured into it, and the bag sewn up. It can be eaten raw, and many
prefer it so. Mixed with a little four and boiled, it is a very wholesome and exceedingly nutritious
food, and will keep fresh for a long time.
Biscuit.....0.25 lbs
Edward's preserved potatoes....0.10 lbs
Flour.....0.33 lbs
Tea.....0.03 lb
Sugar.....0.14 lb
Grease or alcohol, for cooking.....0.25 lb
---A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions, Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U.S. Army,
[Harper & Brothers:New York] 1859 (p. 30-37)
[NOTE: This book has been republished as The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland
Expeditions [Corner House:Williamstown MA] 1968. Your librarian will be happy to help
you obtain a copy.]
---foods & dining in western mining towns
---provisions, cooking methods, and diary exerpts. Excellent bibliography.
Bacon, 12 1/2-15 cents/lb
Salt beef, 8 1/2-9 cents/lb
Fresh beef, 4 1/2-5 cents/lb
Flour, 4 /14 cents (superfine)-5 cents (extra fine)/lb
Hardbread, 9-10 cents/lb
Beans, 10 1/2cents/quart
Rice, 8-10 cents/lb
Coffee, 12 1/2 (Rio) to 18 (Java) cents/lb
Sugar, 7 1/2-8 cents for "Louisiana brown"/lb
Vinegar, 6 1/4 cents/quart"
---The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, October 1947
(p. 170)
---modernized recipes with history notes
---Eating in America: A History, Waverley Root & Richard de Rochemont [William Morrow:New York] 1976 (p. 176-7)
---American Heritage Cookbook and illustrated History of American Eating & Drinking, [American Heritage Publishing Co.:
New York] 1964 (p. 57)
8 lbs potatoes.
1 bottle whiskey.
1 bottle pepper sauce.
1 bottle whiskey.
1 box tea.
9 lbs onions.
2 bottles whiskey.
1 ham.
11 lbs crackers.
1 bottle whiskey.
1/2 doz. sardines.
2 bottles brandy, (4th proof.)
6 lbs sugar.
1 bottle brandy, (4th proof.)
1 bottle pepper.
5 gallons whiskey.
4 bottles whiskey. (old Bourbon)
1 small keg whiskey.
1 bottle of cocktails , (designed for a "starter.")
From Hutchings' California Magazine, 1860'"
---ibid (p. 59)
---Bacon, Beans, and Galantines: Food and Foodways on the Western Mining Frontier, Joseph R. Conlin [University of Nevada Press:Reno]
1986 (p. 90-95)
---Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915, Kevin Starr [Oxford University Press:New York] 1973
(p. 175)
---Bacon, Beans, and Galantines (p. 138-148)
[NOTE: this was a popular & economical dining room]
Boiled mutton with oyster sauce, 10 cents
Roast beef with lima beans, 10 cents
Pig's feet, soused or in batter, 10 cents
Beefsteak and onions, with fried potatoes, 10 cents
Stewed mutton with bread, butter and potatoes, 5 cents
Buckwheat cakes with honey, 5 cents
Clam chowder, 5 cents
Cup of chocolate (hot chocolate), 5 cents
Chicken pot pie, 20 cents
Porterhouse steak, 25 cents,br>
Baked apples, 5 cents
Stewed prunes, 5 cents
Mammoth glass of Mason Celebrated Beer, 5 cents
Roast turkey and currant jelly, 25 cents
Hot oatmeal mush, 10 cents."
---Bacon, Beans, and Galantines, (p. 141)
[NOTE: this was an upscale dining facility.]
Ox tail soup, 1.00
Baked trout, white and anchovy sauce, 1.50
Roast beef, Stuffled lamb or mutton, 1.00
Pork & apple sauce, 1.25
Curried sausages, 1.00
Stewed Kidney, Sauce de Champagne, 1.25
Beef stewed with onions, 1.25
Tenderloin lamb, green peas, 1.25
Baked sweet potatotes, boiled Irish (white) potataoes, cabbage, squash, .50 (each)
Bread pudding, mince pie, apple pie, cheese, stewed prunes, .75 (each)
Brandy peach pastry, rum omelette, jelly omelette, 2.00 (each)
Wine (bottle): champagne, 5.00; Pale sherry, 3.00; Old Madeira, 4.00; Claret, 2.00; Champagne
cider, 2.00; Ale, 2.00
---Bacon, Beans, and Galantines (p. 180-186)
---Bacon, Beans, and Galantines (p. 187-192)
Confederate Receipt Book
[1863]
Cookery as it Should Be,
Mrs. Goodfellow [Philadelphia:1865]
Bill of Fare, Lincoln's 2nd
Inauguration Ball [1865]
Civil war corn
bread
Civil War Interactive
Cookbook (good for re-enactors;
offers selected modernized recipes and cooking notes)
See also: Cowboy cooking
Much of what we know about slave foodways comes from archeological evidence, primary
accounts (journals, letters, travel notes), and literature. Many traditional foods and recipes were
brought from West Africa. People cook what they know. Additional foods and cooking methods
were adopted from European and Native American cuisines. The amount and type of foods
consumed by slaves depended upon many factors. Master's practices, age, job, ingenuity, and
season all played vital roles.
---African Crops and Slave Cuisine,
Joseph E. Holloway, Ph.D.,California State University Northridge
---Henrietta Marie slave ship (primary source material)
---Alexander Falconbridge's account of the slave
trade (primary source material, 1788)
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont [William
Morrow and Company:New York] 1976 (p. 145)
---Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cook Book [Meredith Corporation:New York]
1975 (p. 145)
[NOTE: this book contains several popular period recipes adapted for modern kitchens]
---A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America, James E.
McWilliams [Columbia University Press:New York] 2005 (p. 158-162)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. Your librarian
will be happy to help you obtain a copy.]
(includes modernized recipes)
About jerky.
Mid-19th century bean dishes were made with dried beans, often pinto. These required hours of
soaking before they could be cooked. How did the chuckwagon cooks have these ready and
waiting for hungry cowboys at meal time?
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont [Morrow:New
York] 1976 (pps. 199-200)
---Up the Trail, J. Frank Dobie [Random House:New York] 1955 (p. 98)
This [children's] book has an entire chapter on "The Cook and His Chuck Wagon"
---Sunset Magazine, May 1993 (p.75)
---Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries, David Dary [Univerersity of
Kansas:Lawrence KS] 1989 (p. 191)
"Pork and Beans
--Take two quarts of dried white beans, (the small ones are best,) pick out any imperfections, and
put them to soak in cold water, more than to cover them, let them remain one night; the next day,
about two hours before dinner time, throw off the water; have a pound of nicely corned pork, a
rib piece is best; put the beans in an iron dinner-pot; score the rind or skin of the pork, in squares
or diamonds, and lay it on the beans, put in hot (not boiling) water to them, add a small dried red
pepper, or a saltspoon-ful of cayenne; cover the pot close, and set it over a gentle fire for one
hour; then take a tin basin, or earthen pudding-pan, rub the inside over with a bit of butter, and
nearly fill it with the boiled beans, lay the pork in the centre, pressing it down a little; put small
bits of butter over the beans, dredge a little flour oer them, and the pork, and set it in a
moderately hot oven, for nearly one hour..."
---Mrs. Crowen's American Lady's Cook Book [New York] 1847 (p. 115)
Students studying the old west will probably enjoy sampling some of the foods cowboys ate. The
level of achievable authenticity depends upon school policy and other practical issues. Can you
dig a pit on school grounds and cook on an open fire outside? Using a real dutch oven to make
your stew and a spider (frying pan with legs) to fry up corn dodgers would be very cool. If not,
canned goods heated in the school cafeteria, in a classroom crockpot or prepared at home and
brought to class are just fine.
Students need to know about Charles Goodnight's invention of the chuckwagon. Many cowboys
served in the war and were already accustomed to crude outdoor cooking. A good meal was one
that filled the belly. Canned goods proliferated during the Civil War and were frequently used by
cowboy cooks.
SUGGESTED MENU: A simple chili (canned beans, canned tomatoes & spices), pork &
beans (Van De Camps is period-correct), beef stew (canned or fresh)with buttermilk biscuits and
apple pie for dessert is fine. Whiskey and coffee are obviously not appropriate beverages, but you
could substitute root beer, birch beer or sarsparilla (period-correct and non-alcoholic). Buy them
in bottles at your local supermarket (bottles are period-correct, cans are not). If you prefer a hot
beverage you can use cocoa. Mix with water.
Students are ready for more details about the life of the cowboy and want to know why certain
foods eaten (beans because they were plentiful, economical, nutritious, filling, and traveled
well)and how they were cooked (dried beans were soaked all day in a bucket hanging from the
back of the wagon and cooked midday for dinner) and how they were served (pewter plates &
mugs). They will be interested in learning about the life of the "cookie" or chuckwagon
cook.
SUGGESTED MENU: Pork & beans (made from real dried beans and chunks of salt
pork), chili
(made from real dried beans, canned tomatoes and spices), beef stew, corn dodgers (quick fried
corn cakes), biscuits, beef jerky (store-bought), apple pie. Same beverages as
above.
Students can study this project from scientific, health/nurtrition and cultural perspectives.
SUGGESTED MENU: Chili, pork/beans (made as above), beef stew (made fresh with
potatoes,
carrots & onions), corn bread or dodgers (homemade on a hot griddle), home fries with onions,
sourdough bread (this takes time and also provides another science lesson), apple pie, lemon pie,
beef jerky (want to make your own?) and same beverages as above.
Need an expert?
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage
Museum in Oklahoma City, OK has an extensive research center which owns several primary
documents on cowboy cooking. This organization also sponsors the Western Chuck Wagon
Association's annual chuck wagon gathering (Memorial Day weekend).
Chicken Giblet and Consumme, with Egg
Fish
Columbia River Salmon, au Beurre Noir
Relieves
Filet a Boeuf, a la Financier
Leg of Lamb, Sauce, Oysters
Cold Meats
Loin of Beef, Loin of Ham, Loin of Pork, Westphalia Ham, Corned Beef, Imported Lunches
Boiled Meats
Leg of Mutton, Ribs of Beef, Corned Beef and Cabbage, Russian River Bacon
Entrees
Pinons a Poulett, aux Champignons
Cream Fricasse of Chicken, Asparagus Points,br>
Lapine Domestique, a la Matire d'Hote
Casserole d'Ritz aux Oeufs, a la Chinoise
Ducks of Mutton, Braze, with Chipoluta Ragout
California Fresh Peach, a la Conde
Roasts
Loin of Beef, Loin of Mutton, Leg of Pork
Apple Sauce, Suckling Pig, with Jelly, Chicken Stuffed Veal
Pastry
Peach, Apple, Plum, and Custard Pies
English Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce, Lemon Flavor
This dinner will be served for 50 cents."
---Saloons of the Old West, Richard Erdoes [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1979 (p. 110-114)
---Saloons of the Old West, Richard Erdoes [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1979 (p. 116-118)
Mrs. Beeton's Book of
Household Management, Isabella Beeton is considered by many food historians to be the
defining work on middle-class Victorian cuisine. This book is online, full-text, courtesy of the
University of
Adelaide. Includes recipes, menus and notes on cooking methods.
A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, Charles Elme Francatelli [1861]
Shilling Cookery for the People, Alexis Soyer [1860]
[NOTE: Facsimile editions of these books these have been reprinted recently by Pryor
Publications, your librarian can help you find copies.]
British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History, Colin Spencer
---Chapter 10: Victorian Food
A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain, Maggie Black
---"Victorian Britain," (p. 264-301)--includes recipes
The Charles Dickens Cookbook, Brenda Marshall
The Victorian Cook Book, Michelle Berridale-Johnson
Food shopping
Directions
for Cookery, Leslie [1840]
"Bill of Fare. Winter.
Selected recipes listed in this book:
Breakfast. Corn bread, cold bread, stew, boiled eggs.
Dinner. Soup, cold joint, calves' head, vegetables.
Dessert. Puddings, &c.
Tea. Cold bread, milk toast, stewed fruit.
Breakast. Hot cakes,cold bread, sausages, fried potates.
Dinner. Soup, roast turkey, cranberry sauce, boiled ham, vegetables.
Dessert. Pie &c.
Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, stewed oysters.
Breakfast. Hot bread, cold bread, chops, omelet.
Dinner. Boiled mutton, stewed liver, vegetables.
Dessert. Pudding, &c.
Tea. Hot light bread, cold bread, fish, stewed fruit.
Breakfast. Hot cakes, cold bread, sausages, fried potatoes.
Dinner. Soup, poultry, cutlets, vegetables.
Dessert. Custards and stewed fruit.
Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, frizzled beef, stewed fruits, or soused calves' feet.
Breakfast. Hot bread, cold bread, chops, omelet.
Dinner. Soup, fish, roast mutton and currant jelly, vegetables.
Dessert. Pudding, &c.
Tea. Hot light bread, cold bread, stewed fruit.
Breakfast., Hot bread, a nice hash, fried potatoes.
Dinner. Soup, roast veal, steaks, oyster pie, vegetables.
Dessert. Custards.
Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, stewed oysters.
Breakfast. Cold bread, croquets, omelet.
Dinner. Roast pig, apple sauce, steaks, vegetables.
Dessert. Pie, jelly.
Tea. Cold bread, stewed fruit, light cake."
---Cookery As It Should Be: A New Manual of the Dining Room and Kitchen, by A
Practical Housekeeper and Pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow [Philadelphia:Willis P. Hazard] 1853 (p.
310)
pepper pot, pea, clam (broth and with cream), oyster, beef, veal or mutton broth (with
vegetables)
BREADS
corn bread, potato bread, muffins (wheat, fruit), rusk, sally lunn
MEAT, FOWL & FISH
roasts (beef, mutton, pork), ham, turkey, venison, goose, duck, cod, halibut, shad, mackerel
MADE DISHES
meat & vegetables pies, stew, hash, veal cutlets, rare bit, beef alamode
VEGETABLES*
succotach, boiled onions (with cream sauce), spinach (with hard boiled egg slices on top),
potatoes (boiled, fricasseed), corn pudding, peas (with butter), boiled cauliflower, stewed
carrots.
DESSERT
fruit pies, cheesecake, puddings (these were the steamed British type, as in plum pudding),
custards & creams (lemon, orange), spice cakes, sugar cookies, ice cream. NO
CHOCOLATE.
BEVERAGES
hot chocolate, coffee, tea, fruit wines and cordials, ale, shrub, Madeira, rum.
About these notes: Food history can be a complicated topic. These notes are not meant
to be a
comprehensive treatment of the subject, but a summary of salient points supported with culinary
evidence. If you
need more information we suggest you start by asking your librarian to help you find the books
and articles cited in these notes. Article databases are good for locating current recipes, consumer
trends, and new products.
Have questions? Ask!
Research conducted by Lynne
Olver, editor The Food
Timeline. About this site.