Food on the Frontier

"Without Peas and Things Put Into It": Food on the Frontier

By Christopher W. Czajka for PBS - Frontier House: Frontier Life

Allen's Feed Store, Ochelata, Washington County, Oklahoma. All photos, click to enlarge.

"We proudly carry UNADULTERATED and FRESH GROUND COFFEE without peas and things put into it." -- Grocer's advertisement, 1872.

As the twenty-first century begins, the United States is a country that is unabashedly obsessed with food. Food -- both the pleasures and the perils of it -- surrounds us. We are constantly reminded to watch what we eat, to take in the correct amounts of vitamins and minerals, to eat plenty of fresh foods and vegetables, and to stay away from fat, salt, sugar ... the list goes on and on. Rather than watching their cholesterol and counting their calories, settlers on the 19th-century frontier were faced with a much more primary concern: making certain that they had anything to eat at all. Keeping hungry mouths fed on the frontier was a nonstop cycle of hunting and gathering, salting and smoking, canning and drying, scrimping and saving. Though our mouths may water at the thought of daily servings of fresh-baked bread and homegrown vegetables, sickness, malnutrition, and starvation were very real possibilities for homesteaders. Finding and preparing food on the frontier was a ceaseless, daily task that took the majority of a settler's time.

A child slicing Swiss chard leaves preparatory to drying them on the stove or sun drier. Great caution must be exercised in the use of any form of slicer, for it will cut fingers as mercilessly as it does vegetables.

The bulk of homesteaders' diets were harvested from their claim or gathered from the wilderness that surrounded them. "Store-bought" items consisted of those few items which could not be grown, shot, picked, or made on the farm. Aside from being too pricey for any regular "grocery shopping" (as all goods had to be imported from "the East" or elsewhere), stores and shops on the frontier were a far cry from the popular image of the well-stocked, cozy "mercantile." Prior to the early 20th century, there were no laws governing tampering with food products; storekeepers on the frontier quickly discovered that it was profitable to "stretch" their inventories. It was not uncommon for a pound of flour purchased in a general store to be half plaster. Cornmeal was "plumped" with sawdust. Coffee might contain dyed navy beans, dry-roasted peas, or even small pebbles. Luckily for the homesteaders, they often lived a prohibitive distance from the nearest store, and "trips to town" were few and far between. Jennie C. Forsythe, who settled in Sweet Grass County, Montana, in the 1880s, remembered that "The nearest trading point was Bozeman (that was also the nearest doctor). Father would make two trips a year and do all our trading at that time. If he didn't get something then, we did without it or made due with what we had."

One basic food source for almost every frontier family was the vegetable garden, or "kitchen garden." Many families planted two gardens a year: one in the spring, which would supply greens, peas, and radishes, and one in the summer, which would provide heartier vegetables such as pumpkins, beans, potatoes, and squash. Settlers brought seeds with them to their new homes, bought them once they arrived on the frontier, or wrote to relatives "back East" asking for a hasty shipment. Creating bountiful gardens required constant vigilance against gophers, deer, bears, crows, and a host of other "invaders." A successful garden was critical to homesteaders' ability to feed themselves and their families; a single heavy storm or an unexpected frost could, in fact, destroy half a year's supplies.

The slicing machine at work. Showing how it cuts potatoes into thin slices and, by putting these slices through again, cuts them into narrow strips, or “shoestrings.”

In addition to the fruits and vegetables grown in their gardens, settlers also quickly grew to recognize edible plants growing wild near their homes. In southern Montana, where the Frontier House participants settled, watercress grew wild along the rivers, and great thickets of chokecherries and huckleberries supplied homesteaders with fruit. Even berry-picking could be an adventure on the frontier, since berry patches were frequented by bears. Settlers quickly learned to pick in pairs, with one settler assigned to "lookout duty."

The majority of vegetables grown in the garden or fruits picked from the wild were immediately preserved for the long winter months, since scurvy was a constant threat and settlers did their best to keep a well-balanced diet. Catharine Beecher, sister of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a sort of 19th-century version of Martha Stewart, wrote in 1873,

"A thrifty and generous provider will see to it that her store-closet is furnished with such a variety of articles that successive changes can be made in diet for a good length of time."

Three long, narrow trays made of fly screen and laths and hung up in a cheap sling of laths and fence wire to the hood of a kitchen stove. It is out of the way of the cook's head and utilizes waste heat, and the vegetables put this distance from the top of the stove do not get too hot.

~ Frontier Fact ~

Though ice-boxes were available beginning in the 1830s, most settlers did not have regular access to ice. To chill foods such as butter, homesteaders placed them in earthen crocks in springs or wells. ~

By far, the most common method of preserving fruits and some types of vegetables was to dry them. Fruit was set under cheesecloth in the sun (one homesteader insisted that the cabin roof was an ideal place to dry fruit), until it became shriveled and hard. This dried fruit was then hung in a cellar or storeroom until needed. Months later, when the fruit was eaten, it was soaked in water, and then stewed with sugar, to make it palatable. Even so, stewed fruit was often leathery and tasteless. The 1858 introduction of the Mason jar, with its rubber ring and wire clamp, did little to decrease the amount of time dedicated to preserving settlers' scanty supplies of fruits and vegetables.

Drying and stewing fruit was a picnic compared to the elaborate rituals involved in the preparation and preservation of meat. If settlers lived near a sizable town or city, they relied on a meat market. Homesteaders who had been on their homesteads for a period of time might have a few chickens, but it took a substantial period of time to build up a sizable flock. Most homesteaders obtained their fresh meat by hunting. In an area such as Montana, homesteaders would have had access to deer, pheasant, wild turkey, rabbits, bears, and a variety of fish. However, once game was killed, it almost immediately had to be prepared or preserved. In summer months, meat would go bad in an afternoon.

If meat was to be kept for a few days, settlers par-boiled or par-roasted it, and finished cooking it immediately before eating. If it started to go bad, women's magazines suggested to "try rubbing a little salt on it, to restore its nourishing qualities."

A tray of dried Swiss chard taken from the hanging stove drier. These, when soaked in water, swell and make excellent greens for soups and stews many months after drying.

Settlers had other means of preserving meats for longer periods of time. To pickle meat, homesteaders essentially salted it to the point that it would no longer rot. Catharine Beecher offered the following procedure in her Homekeeper and Healthkeeper's Companion:

"To preserve one hundred pounds of beef, you will need four quarts of rock salt, pounded fine; four ounces of saltpeter, pounded fine; and four pounds of brown sugar. Mix these well. Put a layer of meat in the bottom of a barrel, with a thin layer of the mixture under it. Pack the meat into the barrel in layers, and between each layer put proportions of the mixture, allowing a little more to the top layer. Then, pour in brine till the barrel is full ... if the brine ever looks bloody, or smells badly, it must be scalded, and more salt put to it, and poured over the meat."

Brine was saltwater that was traditionally "strong enough to float an egg." Preserved in this way, homesteaders could keep meats for weeks and months at a time. However, like the other staple of pioneer diet, salt pork, "salted down" meat had to be laboriously rinsed, scrubbed, and soaked before consumption. One of the few positive aspects of winter on the frontier was that meat could be hung outside and frozen, or, as Catharine Beecher noted, "packed carefully with snow in a barrel." Settlers with access to wood also cured their meats in smokehouses, a process that involved feeding a smoky fire under the meat for days -- and weeks -- at a time.

~ Frontier Fact ~

One popular "coffee substitute" recipe advised settlers to roast molasses-soaked bran in the oven until it was charred black. The bran could then be ground like coffee beans, and the resultant brew was "a very tasty drink for a number of months." ~

An expensive sun drier made of one window sash, a few laths, and some metal fly screen. By removing one pane of glass a simple ventilator can be made of lath and screen and fitted into place, or, if electricity is available, the drying can be accelerated by keeping a gentle current of air blowing over the fruits or vegetables. Protection from showers is obtained by such a drier and especially delicate fruits can be handled in small quantities under it; larger amounts require more space.

Preparing the foods that they had laboriously raised, dried, hunted, or smoked was another time-consuming aspect of food preparation. For many frontier families, the fireplace was the primary means of cooking. Fireplace cooking necessitated the use of a complicated system of hooks and brackets over the flames, from which pots and kettles were hung. Settlers also made great use of "dutch ovens," half-cylinders of tin which sat in front of the fire and cooked meats. Though cookstoves were increasingly available, and offered such startling conveniences as broilers, ovens, and hot water heaters, they still had to be continuously supplied with fuel and banked at night. Cookstoves also tended to belch ashes into the air, and fill the home with a variety of noxious fumes.

Slicing beets. The trays are filled with Swiss chard and sliced beets. Both trays and drier itself are made of lath and wire netting.

The success of cooking in either fireplaces or stoves was largely based on intuition, guesswork, and luck. One popular guide advised, "You know your oven is ready for baking when you can hold your hand in it for twenty seconds but no longer," while another suggested the following scientific method:

"To test the oven put a half a sheet of writing paper [in it]; if it catches fire the oven is too hot; open the dampers and wait ten minutes, then put in another piece of paper; if it blackens it is still too hot. Ten minutes later put in a third piece; if it gets dark brown, then the oven is right for a small pastry. This is 'Dark brown paper heat.' Light brown paper heat is suitable for vol-au-vents or fruit pies. Dark yellow paper heat for large pieces of pastry or meat pies, bread, etc. To obtain these various degrees of heat try the paper every ten minutes till the heat required for the purpose is attained."

The hanging stove drier swung over the kitchen stove after the meal has been prepared. It utilizes heat which otherwise would be wasted. When the stove is required for cooking purposes, the drier can be swung back out of the way by means of the wooden bracket made of lath and attached to the wall by a bent nail and piece of fence wire. An electric fan can be trained on the drier to hasten the drying process. It can be kept running at night when the kitchen stove is cold.

Recipes were equally sketchy. Though cookbooks existed, most dishes were handed down orally from mother to daughter. Rather than careful measurements of ingredients, foods were prepared with "a pinch" of this and "a fistful" of that. Many frontierwomen would have been dumbfounded if asked to write down their favorite recipes.

Lack of supplies and lack of cash led many pioneers to dream up "alternative versions" of favorite dishes, as well as to substitute, improvise, and invent while cooking. Molasses stood in for sugar. Vinegar could be used to imitate lemons. Boiled, mashed beans mixed with plenty of nutmeg and allspice made a lovely pumpkin pie. Catharine Beecher revealed that "two tablespoonfuls of snow, stewed in quickly [to the batter] is equal to one egg in puddings or pan cakes." Another frontier cook determined that you could stew up "orange marmalade" by boiling carrots in a sugary syrup flavored with ginger.

The water tank drier. This has a false bottom and under it water, which is kept hot by the contact of the drier with the back of the stove. In it are leaves of the Chinese cabbage, which are easily and quickly dried on this type of drier. Unless watched, delicate leaves will scorch.

~

While contemporary stomachs might turn at the quality of the salty, fatty dishes served in frontier houses, it must be kept in mind that most homesteaders were engaged in relentless daily physical labor. The conditions they lived with on a daily basis -- including the tasks associated with preparing their food -- burned far more calories than the average twenty-minute workout. A nice green salad with tofu wouldn't serve you too well if you were sleeping in a room where it was 20 degrees below zero. Frontier food on the tended to be simple, heavy, and "rib-sticking." Nebraska homesteader Myrtle Oxford Hersh observed, "We had food which met the needs of growing bodies, and we did not have to keep a bottle of vitamins from A to Z to keep us in good health."

Once dried, the vegetables can be stored in paper bags or cartons. One form of these cartons made of paraffin paper is closed by means of a special instrument, which is heated and spreads the cap into place, thus hermetically sealing the carton.

~ ~ ~

Works Consulted:

Beecher, Catharine. MISS BEECHER'S HOUSEKEEPER AND HEALTHKEEPER. New York: Harper, 1873.

Beecher, Catharine, and Stowe, Harriet Beecher. THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER'S MANUAL: EMBRACING A NEW REVISED EDITION OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S HOME. New York: J.B. Ford and Co, 1873.

Brown, Dee. THE GENTLE TAMERS. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.

Lynes, Russell. THE DOMESTICATED AMERICANS. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

PIONEER MEMORIES. By the Pioneer Society of Sweet Grass County, Montana, 1960. From the collection of the Montana Historical Society.

Strasser, Susan. NEVER DONE: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN HOUSEWORK. New York: Pantheon, 1982.

Tyree, Marion Cabell. HOUSEKEEPING IN OLD VIRGINIA. Louisville: John P. Morton and Co., 1879.

Walker, Barbara M. THE LITTLE HOUSE COOKBOOK: FRONTIER FOODS FROM LAURA INGALLS WILDER'S CLASSIC STORIES. New York, Harper Collins, 1979.

Williams, Jacqueline B. THE WAY WE ATE: PACIFIC NORTHWEST COOKING, 1843-1900. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press.