Page 28 - 2015_Cabin Days curriculum booklet

PIONEER COOKING

Whenever you or I get low on food, we can always go to the grocery
store to refill our empty refrigerators and cupboards. The pioneer men
and women did not have that option. There were no grocer y stores out
on the frontier. The early settlers had to hunt game to survive. If they
shot big game, they would have had meat such as bear, moose, deer, and
elk to eat. If they trapped small game, they would have eaten such meat
as beaver, raccoon, squirrel, skunk, and rabbit. Pheasants, geese, ducks,
pigeons, and quail made tasty dishes. Often, the pioneers would have a
meal of fish. And turtle soup was good to eat, too.

Because the pioneers came from afar, they brought f ew supplies
with them. Much of the food w as cooked over an open-hearth fireplace
with a few utensils, perhaps made of wood or gourds, a heavy skillet, a
pot for boiling, an iron griddle, and a tea kettle (Pioneer Recipes 4)(Pioneer
Cookbook).

The early pioneers subsisted off of meat and wild berries. But once
they had settled down, they began to grow crops with the help of Native
Americans. The staple crop was corn because it could grow in the
poorest of soils. From it could be made bread and cakes. Some of the
crops grown were squash, sweet potatoes, turnips, cabbage, pumpkins,
and onions. When the pioneers had a surplus of crops, they bartered for
domestic animals such as cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep.

"They drank apple cider, blackberr y cordial, corncob wine,
persimmon brandy, sassafras and ginseng tea. For sweetening they used
sorghum molasses made from the sorghum they grew, wild honey, and

maple syrup collected and boiled down in late winter" (Pioneer Recipes 5) .

Here is a pioneer recipe for CORN PONE:
4 cups cornmeal
1and 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups hot water

Mix cornmeal and salt and add water.
Stir rapidly until well mixed.
Pat into half inch thick cakes.
These can be fried in a skillet or baked before a fire.