As America grew and expanded
throughout the 19th century, the 1848 discovery
of gold in California led to the first major Gold
Rush in American history. By 1849, thousands
of prospectors, who had come to be known
as 49ers, came to the area in hopes of striking it rich. But life in the region was
harsh and resources were scarce. But the gold miners were
nothing, if not resourceful. And managed to not only pack
well for their excursions, but create some unique
cuisine along the way. Today we're sampling
the eclectic foods prospectors ate to survive
during the gold rush. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel . And let us know in the
comments below what kind of historical foods you
would like to hear about. Now let's blast open
that menu consarnit. The cry of "there's gold
in them there hills" echoed loudly in the minds
and spirits of America's 19th century prospectors. Between 1848 and 1864,
over 300,000 people flocked to the Sierra
Nevada mountains during the California Gold Rush. A small town near the foothills,
known as Old Dry Diggins, had recently been
renamed Hangtown after a series of hangings
in the town square. The town was later
rechristened Placerville. Hangtown fry originated when a
miner struck gold near the town at the height of the gold rush. Afterward he went straight
to the nearest saloon, the El Dorado Hotel , and asked
for the most expensive meal they had. The cook made him
a fancy omelet, complete with bacon and oysters. That's like going to Denny's
after winning the lottery and getting a shrimp side
with your Moons Over my Hammy. The miner apparently
loved the dish, and it became a popular recipe
known as the Hangtown fry. The dish grew more
popular, finding its way onto the menus of restaurants
across the country. It even found a place
on New York's membership only Breakfast Club at Club 21. And was once featured
on the first class menu of American Airlines. It's easy to make, too. All you need is an egg, some
bread crumbs, oil, bacon, and milk. Oh, and three medium
sized oysters, of course. Speaking of seafood-- [MUSIC PLAYING] A few decades after the
California Gold Rush ended, the Yukon Gold Rush
brought 100,000 prospectors to the great frozen North
in search of precious metal. Even in the frozen
White North, seafood wasn't always available. But even when it was,
prospectors used salmon to make hearty soups and stews. The hardiness of a stew
provided a filling meal that lasted for a few days. Recipes vary but one recipe from
Jay Moynahan's The Good Time Girls' Guide to
Gold Rush Cuisine provides a modern take
on this gold rush meal, with a dish called
Dutch cakes salmon stew. In addition to salmon, the stew
calls for milk, butter, flour, salt and some pepper. Exactly the type of
fare a Yukon miner would have eaten at the time. The modern recipe calls
for canned or fresh salmon. But Yukon miners would have
gone with a fresh catch, as they trudged across the
tundra in search of gold. For prospectors during
the California Gold Rush, manufactured yeast
wasn't easy to come by. So they had to get creative
when it came to baking bread. For all you pandemic bakers,
this'll sound familiar. Enter the sourdough starter. Everyone's favorite
pandemic hobby had its origins in San
Francisco during the Gold Rush, when miners discovered a way
to make their bread softer and fluffier. According to writer Ed
Wood, a true sourdough is nothing more than flour
and water with wild yeast to make it rise and special
bacteria to provide the flavor. But miners during the gold rush
had a trick up their sleeve. They mix flour and water
together then added some sugar then they
kept that mixture warm, to allow it to ferment. Sometimes miners
kept their starters warm by cuddling
with them at night and keeping them
close to their bodies. Once fermented, prospectors
use these starters to make sourdough bread. Sometimes, potatoes
and poppy seeds were added to give the bread
extra flavor and crunch. Sounds like
something Whole Foods would sell for $15 a loaf. Sourdough bread became a
San Francisco standard, where it's still popular today. [MUSIC PLAYING] During the Gold Rush, it wasn't
uncommon to find turtle meat on the menu in some
gold mining towns. Importers saw this
sudden influx of settlers into California as a chance
to capitalize on importing tortoises and turtles for food. From sea turtles to the
giant Galapagos tortoise, these unlikely reptiles
found their way onto the plates and menus
of California settlers throughout the Gold Rush. It started small, with about
122 tortoises being imported to San Francisco in 1849. But blossomed into
a burgeoning trade. At one point a ship brought
500 of the unfortunate reptiles to the city to be used as food. Turtle steak, soup, pies,
and even baked goods, were popular meals at the time. But some folks preferred the
organ meats the Most Captain Thomas Crapo-- yeah, that's his real name-- loved turtle organ
meats so much, he wrote about it
in his diary, saying it was far superior to any
kind of meat I ever ate. Eventually tortoise
meat fell out of favor. But the damage was already done. Galapagos Island tortoise
population significantly declined because of this. And many of the tortoise
species exploited for their meat are still recovering today. Good job Crapo. [MUSIC PLAYING] During the Klondike Gold
Rush, inventive miners used wildflowers and herbs to
flavor otherwise bland foods. Syrup, soup, mashes,
and spices, all benefited from
adding a few herbs. One such substance Klondike
explorers love squaw honey, a syrup made from wild
clover and other flowers. As a 6 foot high weed growing
in the wild, wild clover was easy to spot in
the warmer months, making it a good
choice for cooking. There weren't any
bees in Alaska, so harvesting real honey
was out of the question. But the flowers
contained sweet nectar that approximated the
flavor of the sticky treat. But other plants offered
unique flavors as well. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Gold Rush wasn't just a time
of people settling the West. It also ushered in some of our
modern industrial practices. Commercially preserved
foods were starting to be distributed
around that time, despite preservation methods
existing for centuries before. Dried apples or salted
beef, for instance, were common provisions
for settlers at the time. So it made sense to apply
these methods to other foods. In the Yukon, miners used
preserving techniques to make a type of food the
native Alaskans already enjoyed, kelp relish. Relish, a cooked and pickled
mix of vegetables and herbs, could be made from a lot
of different ingredients. Making relish involved
combining saltwater, onion, lemon, pickling spice, brown
sugar, vinegar, and kelp together, until it
was well blended. Then it could be eaten all at
once or stored for later use. Reports from the period
and more modern recipes point to it being
a delicious dish. But you probably wouldn't
want to put it on a hot dog. In Alaska, they used kelp,
a large type of seaweed that grew along the Coast. Harvesting the stuff
fresh wasn't always easy. So preserving it
provided the freedom to travel longer distances
with a ready supply of relish. [MUSIC PLAYING] Throughout the Yukon
Gold Rush, plants were the ingredient
that kept on giving. A large shrub called Devil's
Club was a tough, thorny, plant that grew
all along the Yukon and down to the
California Coast. It was tall, dense, and a
pain in the butt to harvest. But it worked great
as a spice, assuming you pick the leaves
when they were young and under two inches long. With a nickname like
Alaskan ginseng, you'd think it'd be
energizing and refreshing. To some extent it was. In her cookbook, Gold Rush Grub. From Turpentine
Stew to Hoochinoo, Ann Chandonnet described
the plant's unique flavor variations. It could be nibbled raw. The buds taste like intensely
herbal celery leaves. Cooked, they are reminiscent
of the edible bases of artichoke leaves. Hey, at least it's better
than eating thistles. If celery flavored plants
weren't your thing, there was always nettle soup. Nettles or one of the first
plants to show signs of growth after snow melt. So cooking
then became common practice throughout the Gold Rush. Native Americans use the
tough and fibrous stems of the plant to weave baskets
and make fishing nets. But the leaves made
a pretty good soup, tasting like spinach
or cabbage when cooked. Nettles served as
a good alternative to otherwise unavailable greens. And the soup could be
thickened with starch or mixed with spices to
give it a bit of a kick. But these original
plant based meals were only the tip of
the culinary iceberg. Settlers came from
all over the world to seek their fortune
in the Gold Rush. Many of them brought their
traditional recipes with them. Take the case of
the Cornish pasty. With a recipe hailing
from Cornwall, England, the Cornish pasty is
essentially a savory meat pie. They contain meat
and potatoes that are wrapped in a pastry
shell prior to being cooked. Once cooked, the edges
of the pasty are crimped and it resembles
an apple turnover. In a traditional
pasty, the filling is usually minced
meat and vegetables, that are cooked prior to
being placed in the shell. The dish is still
quite popular today in the town of Grass
Valley, California, where it's a prominent fixture
at restaurants and eateries all over the city. Speaking of meat pies-- [MUSIC PLAYING] If you were looking for meat
during the Yukon Gold Rush, the most likely
way to get it was by hunting the moose of
the Great White North. Moose lived in large
numbers throughout the Great Alaskan
wilderness at the time, making them prime game for the
prospectors who went out there. Eating the meat was
a different story. While some made it
normally, others made savory moose meat pies. One recipe used cubes of
moose steak as its base. Another called for the layering
of ground moose meat, potatoes, celery, and onions
in a pan, to make a sort of moose meat casserole. Moose meat has a unique
texture and flavor, making it a special treat for
hungry prospectors in the Yukon territory. [MUSIC PLAYING] Searching the Hills for
gold wasn't the only thing folks were doing during
California's Gold Rush. They picked up another food
related practice, egg poaching. Chicken eggs were
scarce in California, costing up to $1 per egg. Stores put up eggs wanted
signs in their windows. An 1857 ad in the
Sonoma County Journal read, wanted, butter
and eggs, for which the highest price will be paid. To say San Franciscans
wanted eggs would be an understatement. The Farallon Islands, just off
the coast of San Francisco, were home to large
seabird populations that became a prime target
for hungry businessmen looking to make a profit off
the birds valuable eggs. A San Francisco pharmacist, Doc
Robinson, sailed to the islands with his brother-in-law
to poach the eggs. There they faced difficult
terrain and slick rocks that were hard to climb. You know, because of all the
bird guano covering them. Despite losing half of their
haul on the return trip, they still pocketed $3,000 from
selling the eggs they actually managed to bring back. Robinson swore to never return. But that didn't
stop other poachers from waging an all out
war with each other, over retrieving eggs
from the island. The eggs of a small
penguin-like bird called the myrrh were
highly sought after, due to being twice the
size of a chicken egg. These eggs almost
single-handedly led to a three decade
long fight over the egging rights to the islands. Six men sailed to the
islands and staked a claim of possession under
the name Pacific Egg Company in 1851. This angered everyone else. And the egg wars became
increasingly violent, until the government stepped
in to give Pacific Egg Company rights to the island. And that went over about as
well as you might expect. Fights over the eggs continued
to decimate bird populations and wreak havoc on
the environment. Eventually, chicken farmers
came along and effectively ended the 30 year long struggle
over the Farallon Islands. And the murre population
is thriving today. [MUSIC PLAYING] English monkey is another
name for the common Welch dish, Welsh rabbit. The story goes that the name
Welsh rabbit was originally intended as an insult from
the English to the Welsh. When the Welsh settlers
headed to the US to participate in
the Gold Rush, they struck back at the English
by calling the dish English monkey. Take that Great Britain. Neither Welsh rabbit
nor English monkey contains any rabbits or monkeys. Instead it's a kind of cheese
sauce with breadcrumbs, cheese, milk, and eggs. The sauce gets poured over
crackers or thick slices of toast. And you eat it with
a knife and fork. Classy. Past the Gray Poupon, please. The dish doesn't take
long to make either. According to an 1897 cookbook
called Practical Vegetarian Cookery, just soak cup
full of breadcrumbs in milk for 10 minutes, melt some butter
over it, and add some cheese. Stir in an egg, salt, and some
soda, then serve on wafers. The cheesy and somewhat pasty
consistency notwithstanding, the dish is a popular pub
food in Great Britain. And is enjoyed best with a
pint of your favorite beer. [MUSIC PLAYING] For two years in the mid 1800s,
Colorado had its own Gold Rush. The Pikes Peak Gold Rush
brought a cadre of miners to the Mountain State. What they didn't
account for, though, were the harsh, high altitude
conditions, and the extremely frigid winters. Colorado winters are the worst. But if there's one thing
Colorado mountains are known for, it's the bighorn sheep. And if there's one
thing prospectors in the area were known
for, it was being hungry. You can probably see
where this is going. Prospectors hunted
the bighorn sheep, stockpiled them, and sold the
meat and furs at trading posts. There was a high demand
for the muscular animals and their meat was
roasted over fires. This ended up with the
sheep being hunted almost to the point of extinction. That, along with
habitat destruction, further reduced their numbers,
to the point that hunting them today is highly regulated. So what do you think? Which one of these prospector
foods sounds delicious to you? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from Our Weird History.
