Food on the American Frontier

The American West was the Promised Land, the land of plenty, the near-mythical dreamland of hungry and ambitious people. Large numbers of settlers came to the West from the cities of the East as well as from Europe.

In the 1790s, Ohio was the frontier. By a century later, the Dakotas were essentially the last unsettled lands, and just being plowed for farmland. The 19th century saw development of agriculture, mining, and other industry in the West. Settlers and workers arrived on the frontier by wagon via the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe trail, various routes to the California Gold Rush, and the Mormon trail to Utah. They made their voyages from the East by wagon train or even on foot. They took ships around Cape Horn; to New Orleans, up the Mississippi, and then on west; or to Panama across the isthmus and then up the Pacific coast. They built and then traveled on the ever-increasing rail network. Military wagon trains brought troops to Western forts and outposts. The settlers' relationship with the native Americans varied: at the beginning the Indians were frequently helpful, but as their lands were taken over, they became hostile and warlike.

In Feast or Famine: Food and Drink in American Westward Expansion, historian Reginald Horsman examines what these travelers ate. He describes how they got their food, what they brought with them as provisions for their long journeys, the cooking equipment they used, and how they prepared meals. He documents highly appreciated dishes of game, vegetables, and pies, and describes desperate hunger rations. He includes the likes and dislikes of many of the settlers — such as a woman who hated venison, or many people who tried roasted bear meat or beaver tail with varying reactions. He provides the specifics of how many pounds of flour, salt pork, and coffee would be needed for a 6 month wagon trip across the continent, and notes the changing standards for US military rations, which weren’t always provided to the troops. Above all, once they settled most of these pioneers found a land that yielded amazing bounty from wheat fields, orchards, and pastures for domestic animals.

Many settlers experienced hunger, sometimes near or actual starvation along the way, and homesteaders were often both isolated and food-deprived during at least the first season before they established their fields and farms. One family was reduced to feeding one potato per day to each child during the winter, and eventually to only half a potato. Sometimes in desperation, the wagon train voyagers slaughtered and ate their pack horses, their teams of oxen, or even their dogs. Some members of the famous Donner Party, trapped by heavy snow in the Sierras, ate the flesh of their fellow travelers. Less dramatically, scurvy was a common affliction of people crossing the desert on the 6-month wagon train trip; although they knew the possibility, they often couldn't provision adequately. Only in parts of the country did they find wild fruit to gather, which would prevent scurvy as well as being very satisfying after a daily diet of hardtack and salt pork.

The incredible variety of wild plants and game animals mentioned in the text was especially fascinating. Some meats -- such as wolf -- were eaten only in desperation. Recipes were changed when key ingredients were lacking. Here are just a few quotes from the many accounts cited in the book:

"Early in January, three hunters [from the Lewis and Clark expedition], after killing nothing for days, killed and ate a wolf. They 'relished it pretty well, but found it rather tough.' Early in February, a hunting party led by Clark brought in forty deer, sixteen elks, and three buffalo, and later in the month Lewis came in with two sleighs loaded with meat from a kill of thirty-six deer and fourteen elks. Some of the animals were so thin that they were largely unfit for use." (p. 60)

"When mountain man Jedediah Smith went on a famous exploratory trip from the Great Salt Lake to Los Angeles and back, he and the two men who returned with him depended on horse meat for their survival. ... They ate some fresh meat when they made the kills but spread the rest out in the sun to dry so that they could take it with them. ... David Meriwether described making wolf soup. On a journey from Santa Fe, Meriwether and his party had nothing to eat for three days. Finally, they shot an old wolf and boiled it in the camp kettle. They drank the resulting soup but found the meat too tough to eat until it had boiled all night." (p. 84)

"Before they had enough milk and eggs, they had to improvise. Mrs. Biddle remembered two recipes that had been handed down from a woman who had been on the frontier at midcentury. 'Custard' was made without eggs or milk by using six tablespoons of cornstarch in enough water to thicken it when cooked. It was flavored with essence of lemon and sugar. 'Apple pie' was made without apples by using soda crackers that were soaked in water, warmed until soft, and flavored with essence of lemon, sugar, and 'a great deal of nutmeg.'" (p. 263)

Of course I connected the lives of the settlers to the strange and unfamiliar situation that we are all currently living in today. How is our hunger different from their hunger? Is there a connection of the early farmers trying to make a living and farmers now who have lost their markets?

Feast or Famine is a hard book to like, but I found it mesmerizing at times. Relying on settlers’ diaries, letters home, and published memoirs, the author goes into detail: sometimes excruciating detail. But I can’t really recommend it to anyone else -- it's just not sufficiently interesting. The main problem is this: the author doesn't exactly present the big picture of life on the frontier. Readers have to connect for themselves the threads in masses of detail.

One theme that did repeat throughout the book: the change from very abundant wild game in the West at the start of the 19th century to almost none by the end. When the Ohio settlers arrived in the 1790s, buffalo herds still roamed the areas where they cleared land for farming. Lewis and Clark's expedition -- documented in great detail -- employed hunters to supplement the food they carried with a wide variety of game: elk, bison, antelope, ducks, prairie chickens, and many others. By the end of the mass migration west, settlers and wagon trains were finding game scarcer and much harder to shoot or trap. At times, hostile Indians made hunting too risky. Mainly, the animals and birds became more wary, or species were becoming extinct.

In short, there's a lot of fascinating material in this book, and a lot to learn from the adventures and misadventures of our predecessors.

This review copyright © 2020 by mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.