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Welcome my children to the lodge of SINGING WOLF.
Among these pages i shall teach you the life of the people as the Great Father has taught us.Set and listen my children.
This page is dedicated to cooking and what the Mountain Man or Woman might have to eat.
Please try some of these recepies as they are quite good cooked over a open fire.
Traditional camping meats were bacon,salt pork,smoked ham,dried or corned beef,smoked,salt,or dried fish,and the game available.Breadstuff were:biscuits,flapjacks,Banncock or fry bread,corn bread,and hard tack.Common vegetables were:beans,hominy,rice and peas.
Canned goods were available in the middel 18 hundred's.Every trading post of any size had a dairy heard,and milk,butter,cheese were usually avaliable.Powdered milk was used in recepies after the CivilWar.
So as you can see there were lots of things to pick from.
As to ways of cooking this too was varried from open fire to using a dutch oven,a bean hole,baking in ashes,or cooking on a stick.
Hint for a substitute for baking powder:use white wood ashes from the fire and mix with flower in the same quanity as baking soda.
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Here we see a fire ring set up for cooking.A big pot of coffee,several dutch ovens and the utensials to cook with. Here is a covered waggon,it is called a chuck waggon for it supplied the chuck or food for the people.This waggon might follow the men to a centrial place and the men would go out from there to trap.
***********************RECEPIE's*********************
Biscuits***
3 pints of flour
3 heaping t.baking powder
1 heaping t.salt
2 heaping t.grease(LARD)
Scant pint water
Add baking powder to flour and stir in,then stir in salt.Add grease and stir untill lumps are GONE.Stir in water and mix into a dough.Make into biscuits,and bake in a dutch oven for 15 minutes.
CORN BATTER CAKES******
1 cup of corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 t.baking powder
2 t. sugar or huney(molasses may be used)
1 t.salt
Mix all together,adding cold water gradually while stiring.Batter should be thick.Fry like pancakes.
Deep fried steak*******
Slice any kind of meat paper thin and drop into a kettle of very hot grease (OIL may be used)for 1/2 minute.
Gravy******
And excellent gravy
can be made from the meat drippings.Added to water and salt.Flour can be
added,and choped fried onions are a nice addation.
Fried Rabbit**********
Parbroil carcuss 15 minutes.Cut off legs at upper joint,and back in 3 pieces.Roll in flour and fry in greased skillet.
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JAMBALAYA************
Cut up small game in joints and stew.After 20 minuets,add pork,ham,or bacon,1 cup of rice,onions,tomators if avaliable.simmer about 1/2 hour or untill the rice is tender.
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CHOWDER********
Brown 5 sliced onions in grease in a kettel.Add 5 pounds fish and 5 pounds sliced potatoes.Cover with water and cook till done.
RICE WITH ONIONS************
Fry chopped onions and place in a pot with rice and water.Cook rice as usual.Tis is a tasty dish and the aroma is also inviting.
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VENISON SOUP*************
Cook 4-5 pounds of deer ribs in a bucket of water untill only half of the stock remains.Add one can of tomatoes,1/2 cup of rice and cook for about an hour or untill rice is done.Salt to taste.
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Beaver Tail************
Impale beaver tail on a sharp stick and broil over hot coals for a few minuets.The rough scally hide will blister and come off in sheets,leaving the tail clean and white.It may now be boiled or rosted.While we realize this was a delicacy it is realy very greasy and gristly.The fatty content was probably the reasion for its popularity.
There were plenty of starving time and frequently game was scarce.Deep snow,bad weather,hostile indians,and other calamities caused a miss meal.Winter,snow,and mountains provided the worst chance for starvation.
MEAT BISCUIT*************
4 cups flour
1 T. salt
Broth(juice from meat including fat)
Mix flour and salt.Add enough brouth to make a stiff paste.Press out in thin sheet(about 1/4 inch thick)score into 2 1/2" squares,bake slowly.
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A survival drink was paunch.Men dying of thirst would,if lucky,shoot a buffalo,remove its stomach,and drink the contents.
Cabbage*************
Wilt cabbage in grease and fry untill tender.
Some items were traded for with the friendly Native Americans:
Cabbage,peas,corn, green beans,pumpkin,hominy....As well as meat.
Pumpkin Hominy**************
Pounded dried pumpkin,added to boiling hominy and cook two hours.Eat hot with milk and sugar.
Rosting Ears**************
Dig a trench a foot wide and as long as needed,say 2 feet.Build a fire in the trench and let it burn to a good bead of live coals.Put a stone at each end of the trench and lay a stout green stick them.Then lay the ears,with husks still covering them,like rafters,from the stick to the ground.Turn the ears 2 or 3 times,and rosast them for an hour or so.Any leftover can be cut from the cob and dried.
Occasionally fresh corn was eaten raw,but that was only in emergencies.
FRIED GREEN BEANS**************
Boil whole green beans untill tender.Drain and fry in lard,grease,or oil.
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Frog Legs*********
Skin the legs and boil them on pointed sticks or fry in greased skillet.
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Small Animals**********
Animals like groundhog,raccon,and opossum were always cleaned,parboiled with salt and peper,then baked,fried,or rosted.
Woodchuck Chuck Groundhog or Woodchuck 1 green pepper 1 red pepper 2 cloves of garlic 1 lg. Onion 2 carrots 3 potatoes Hand full of pigweed Preparation: Clean and fillet meat, cut into 1" chunks put into 3 quart pot, 3/4 full of water,Add peppers, potatoes, pigweed, garlic, carrots, onion.Salt and pepper to taste. Note: If you don’t upchuck from the woodchuck then it was good chuck Servings: Three - Four
Bear Meat**********
Cut bear meat in strips and dry before fire.Pound the meat till it crumbles.Boil to a thick soup and serve with grits or cornbread.
Baked Apples*********
Bury apples in embers abd let cook untill tender---up to an hour.
Beverages************
Maple sap fresh from the tap was a forvorite drink.
Dried berries,maple sugar and water boiled together was also drank.
Corn Coffee*********
Place dried corn on the cob over the fire and rost it untill the kernels turn brown.Put the ear in enough water to cover it and boil for half hour.Drink the liquid.
Honey Water*********
The woodland tribes dissolved a tablespoon of honey in a cup of warm water and used this as a drink with meals.
Sassafras Tea*************
The roots of this common plant makes an excellent beverage.Prepared sassafras is avalable in most stores.Pour boiling water over chips and allow to steep for 5 minuets.
Rose Hip Tea************
The Plains tribes often made a medicinal chock full of vitamin C from dried rose hips.
Well my children i hope you have found a dish to try and enjoy.it is my hope that i have offered you something of use here in.
A camp might be set up something like this.
Click on the running Buffalo to go to another page
