The Poor Explorer's Feast: Lewis and Clark Expedition

What is a feast to a poor Explorer? Is it  snacking on pemmican throughout the day? Is   it a ship's biscuit soaked in beef broth? or is  it settling down by a campfire after a Long Day's   travel with some meat roasting over the fire? Explorers in the 18th and early 19th century   have a tremendously difficult job they're  going out into the unknown they don't know   what kind of Transportation they'll find  they're going to meet diverse people they   have no idea even how to talk to them and  they don't know how they're going to feed   themselves. Their travels will take them away from  civilization for months at a time possibly years.  Today I want a win for these poor explorers  we are going to make them a feast.  To understand the poor Explorer the best place to  go is the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 right   after the end of the Revolutionary War the United  States is formed the Constitution is written   and now we're thinking about moving West. In 1803 Jeff Jefferson signs the Louisiana   Purchase unfortunately we have no idea  what is in this Louisiana Territory and   so he forms an exploration expedition  to go out to discover what's there.  Most importantly can we find a water route that  takes us to the Pacific Ocean? The other goals   are to discover the people who live there their  customs and the kind of resources that we'll find   in that territory. Jefferson needed a trustworthy  leader to go on this trip and he chose Meriwether   Lewis a man who had been his secretary previously  Lewis did not want to lead this Expedition alone   and so he convinced William Clark to go along  with him someone he knew from the military.  They leave from St Louis in May of 1804 going up  the Missouri River there's an amazing quantity   of information available about the lewis and  Clark expedition because of the journals that   they left behind. But we want to concentrate on  their food. What kind of food did they leave St   Louis with what kind of food did they expect  to find on the way how are they going to feed   themselves in some of these difficult situations  and what were they going to eat on the way back?  In St Louis they seem to acquire some of the  standard military rations of the time period   they had along with them cornmeal and whole  corn they also had barrels of flour and salt   pork ship's biscuits they did have a little  bit of coffee some tea they had peas and a   little bit of sugar along with about let's  see what does it say um 700 lb of lard.  Another important provision that went along that  they procured before St Louis was portable soup.   Meriwether Lewis knew as he was planning the  expedition in 1803 that he needed a special   kind of provision for starvation situations and  so his mind comes to Portable soup which is common   in the 18th century. They used especially on  board ship he doesn't know where he's going to   get enough portable soup and so he writes to a  general about getting portable soup and he does   manage to acquire almost 200 lbs of portable soup  to take on this travels. And last but not least   seven barrels of strong wine and yes that does  get some people in trouble. Lewis is experienced   enough to know that there's no way he's going  to be able to take enough food along with him   on this expedition to feed all the people both  going out to the coast and then coming back and   so they are going to need to live off the land.  Part of the Expedition is not just military people   but hunters and these Hunters are there to kill  animals along the way and on this entire 2-year   expedition they kill more than a 1000 deer 375  elk 227 bison they also kill and eat Antelope   sheep bear beaver otters multiple ducks and  geese turkey plover they even eat a wolf at   least once. There are times that they um have to  survive on other things so they do eat horse and   many times they do purchase dogs from the Native  Americans to eat also. Meriwether Lewis in his   journal he writes we eat an immensity of meat it  requires four deer or an elk and a deer or one   Buffalo to supply us plentifully for 24 hours. As we read in the journals we find they do a   lot of trading with Native Americans for  food so they'll end up with things like   corn bean and squash the three sisters they  also will trade for things like dried meat   pemmican and dried fish. One of the components  of our Feast will be a classic fall succotash   with the corn the beans and the squash. The succotash is so simple we're just   going to put our corn beans and squash into our  cooking vessel and boil them for about an hour.  Another food item that is very popular  for explorers and Lewis and Clark had it   and that is pemmican they were introduced  to the concept of pemmican by some of the   Native American tribes during parts of their  trip they stopped to make pemmican just so   that they would have food later on here's a  reading from the journal "July 3rd 1805 some   of the hunters were sent out to kill Buffalo  in order to make pemmican to take with us".  There were definitely times during the Lewis and  Clark expedition when there was not very much food   and certainly a situation with George Shannon very  very early on in the Expedition George Shannon was   sent off to find some lost horses and he himself  gets lost on his search for these horses he is   gone for 12 days and he has his gun and his powder  and everything along with him but he shoots away   all of his bullets and he doesn't have anything to  eat he ends up making a substitute bullet out of   a piece of stick and he kills one rabbit that's  all he can kill on his trip so he survives for   12 days on one rabbit and some wild grapes that  he finds. In the journal it reads his bullets   he shot away and he was without anything to eat  for about 12 days except a few grapes he shot a   rabbit with sticks he cut and put in his gun. During the final week of June in 1805 the   Expedition is doing a lot of hard work they  have to portage their boats and these are   very heavy wooden boats for a very long distance  uh someone even passes out with heat stroke and   at this point Meriwether Lewis decides it's  time to give these people a break he wants   to give them their equivalent of a feast and so  he he himself takes time to cook a special dish.  He cooks a soup that has dried beef in it and he  makes these special suet dumplings let me give   you this reading it says "to myself I assign  the duty of cook I boiled a large quantity of   excellent dried buffalo meat and made each man  a large suet dumpling by way of a treat". Now   this was the perfect time to make a dumpling like  this normally you don't necessarily have suet but   at the time they had been hunting and they had  some buffalo suet to work with. Now this is kind   of funny to think about they've got as much meat  as they ever want but what is a special treat to   them? Something that back home you would have  each and every day they're going to be using a   small quantity of their very precious flour  to make these dumplings. We're going to mix   up our flour with chopped up suet and we're  going to make that into a fairly small but   slightly firm pudding now this is sort of like a  Christmas pudding in the time period they would   have added raisins for a Christmas pudding these  are just going to be a small plain pudding and   they don't need to have a bag to boil them  in because we're going to make them fairly   small you can just drop them right into the  soup and they will cook along with the meat.  On a long-term mission like this it's very  important to put supplies back so there were   times when Lewis and Clark would cash some  supplies along the way so that when they came   back they'd be able to find supplies if they  were running low. Earlier I mentioned portable   soup they carried along 193 lbs of this and it's  made by taking multiple cuts of usually something   like beef something with a lot of bones in it  boiling it down for 12 hours 24 hours and then   letting it dehydrate and that wasn't easy to do  in the 19th century you just sort of have to let   it dry out in a cool setting and it will slowly  turn into a hard rubbery mass and with age it   gets harder and harder this is over a 10-year-old  batch of portable soup so it's almost like a rock   but you add a little bit of this to warm water  and it will reconstitute into a nice thick broth.  This wasn't just a food source or if it was a  food source it was almost considered medicinal   so this is something that you would feed  sick people and they did that very thing   on the expedition there was a time when they  had to interact with a Native American Chief   who was sick and they fed him portable soup. Toward the very end of their expedition when   they are almost home they are out of food and  they do have to rely on wild provisions where   they find them they find a whole batch  of ripe pawpaw fruit and they survive   on even that that for a couple of days. One of the most amazing things about this   Expedition is over this 2 years they only lost  one person and that was fairly early on in the   trip what was likely a burst appendix really  didn't have anything to do with the terrain   of the difficulty of that particular trip. And it's quite likely that this survival   rate was due to the the planning that Meriwether  Lewis did and the adaptability of the people on   this expedition they had to change what were  eating along the way they had to change the   way they were traveling they had to work with the  Native Americans this was really an amazing feat.  In some ways this expedition was incredibly  successful they did this exploration and   they came back with a lot of information they had  many different interactions with Native Americans   they all seemed to be fairly good interactions  and a lot of good relationships made that way.  They made scientific discoveries about what  kind of animals and plants were there they   learned about the terrain they came back they  survived this trip so for all those successes   they failed in their main goal and that was  to find this Waterway from the Mississippi   all the way out to the Pacific Ocean and  because that main part failed really for   years this expedition was basically forgotten.  Even Jefferson who commissioned really didn't   talk about the Expedition once they came home  and it wasn't really important to Americans   until we get to the 1960s so it really has only  been the last 50 or 60 years that people have   cared about what happened with Lewis and Clark.  On a completely personal level as someone who   researches history you couldn't have a better  situation the journals are very very detailed   from day to day and we know exactly what these  people were doing the hardships the kinds of   things they had to eat and drink all this helps  us understand the day to day life of a person in   the very very early part of the 19th century and  especially in a difficult situation like this.  This is the poor explorers  feast and it is very good.

Channel: Townsends

Views: 395,899

Keywords: townsends, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, 18th century, 19th century, jon townsend, 18th century cooking

Id: 70x3urGBljU

Length: 12min 20sec (740 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023