The Poor Hunter's Feast

What is a feast to a poor Hunter? Is it an  entire buffalo? is it a loaf of bread? or   is it a full belly and a successful hunt? One  of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in   the 18th century was that of the professional  Hunter. He had to endure an environment that   was against him he had to survive off of his  surroundings he had to be able to fix any of   his equipment at any point he might become  injured, get sick, run out of supplies,   he might even die. Today I want a victory for  this poor Hunter we are going to make him a feast.   There's an amazing time period between 1760 and  about 1775 where there are lots of longhunters,   professional Hunters out in the deep frontier and  they are collecting they're harvesting deer and   beaver hides. Specifically for export to Europe,  the industry was certainly around a hundred years   before this but all through that time period it  was done by Native Americans. It wasn't until we   get to about 1760 where there is a generation of  people that have grown up in North America that   have the skills to go out into the frontier to do  this kind of hunting it is not easy to do in fact   it is full of difficulties. Now we certainly  have hunting today and most of the hunting is   going on as a recreation or possibly some people  use it to fill their freezer with food. That is   certainly going on in the 18th century plenty  of people are using Wild game to put food on   the table but the professional Hunters we're  talking about here are not necessarily going   for food they're going for the hides of the  animals. And they are spending not weeks or a   day out in the woods but months in fact an entire  year out in the woods trying to harvest as many   deer and beaver hides as possible. This hunting  is going on east of the Mississippi there are   lots of different kinds of game in the woods you  can probably think of the king of the forest in   that time period even east of the Mississippi  was the Buffalo the Bison. There are lots of   Bison not as many as there would be west of the  Mississippi where there are giant herds tens of   thousands of Buffalo for the professional  Hunter you might think this would be the   most sought-after animal but it turns out that  the hides were not very valuable. Buffalo can be   very very difficult to kill you couldn't use the  hides for sale you might use the hides for other   purposes you might use them for creating  coverings for your deer hide that you are   selling but you're not generally going out and  hunting lots of Buffalo unless you're starving.  And of course the frontier is filled with other  kinds of wild game bear and elk again both very   useful but they aren't the cash crop they're  not the one you're really going after so that   you can take something back from the frontier  to the Civilized areas and make a lot of money. We do have situations where people are  processing bison maybe even salting it   and sending it to Fort Pitt but if it's  going to go out east and it's meat well   venison's probably much better but again the  cash crop is the hide. Hundreds of thousands   of hides are being shipped off every year to  Europe for processing. This is the most most   valuable product these Hunters can come back to  civilization with. Probably the most famous Long   Hunter name is Daniel Boone. The kind of person  who grew up in this area and had the kinds of   skills that it took to survive for months  and months at a time and live off the land. The main dish today is tongue it's a very  interesting cut of meat there are times   in our 18th century context where if you're  going to take any particular piece of meat   off an animals then you're going to take the  very best the tongue being the very best cut   of meat off of the Buffalo it's a win for  the Long Hunter it's a little interesting   to prepare at least in this kind of primitive  cooking situation we need to sear the tongue   to get the skin to come off of it many  times if we're cooking a tongue today   we will poach it or boil it and then be  able to take the skin off the outer side.  It's not so easy here by the campfire we're  just going to put it really close to the fire   and get it to dry a little bit so we can peel  it off and then we're just going to put it on   a wooden stake and roast it over the fire. This  was written in 1779 first Scorch the tongue a   little then peel off the outside coating then  stick it on a spit made of spice bush with the   lower end in the ground if no spice bushes at  hand a sassafras branch works just as well.  So what did one of these Hunting Expeditions look  like? It was lasting again months not weeks not   days months or even a year possibly even longer.  If you're going to be bringing lots of things out   of the frontier you have to have some way to carry  that someone's going to have a minimum of three or   four pack horses possibly many more because you  want to come out with as many hides as possible   it's the only way for your trip to be profitable  at all and these Expeditions aren't just a single   person you're going into a very very dangerous  environment there are times when you have to   defend yourself and so you really can't do that  with one person so they're going out in larger   groups three and four maybe a half a dozen or a  dozen men. You've got a camp or a camp at least   for a while you might have to move for one spot to  the other as you're hunting you're going to have a   half shelter like this and you're again killing  a lot of deer or beaver those animals have to   be butchered their skin has to be taken off and  then has to be processed you can't just take a   raw hide with you. You have to sort of half tan  them so that you can pack them up and ship them   out and they have to last for months. You know the  ones you kill at the beginning have to last until   you're ready to come out of the frontier. So it  is a very dirty nasty hard job it is all day long   you're going out hunting you're bringing back the  animals you're processing and starting out again   the next day. There's a clash of cultures going  on here with the Hunters coming off of the coast   and then we've got Native Americans and the  Native Americans here they're not a monolith   you have different tribes and sometimes they're  at war with each other at the same time they're   basically at war with these long Hunters. So  it is an incredibly dangerous spot to be but   it's not just people that you have to worry  about you have to worry about bears you have   to worry about mountain lions you have to worry  about Buffalo they're very dangerous animals to   interact with as well as something like elk you're  so deep in this forest that you're weeks away from   resupply of just about anything if your equipment  breaks you have to be able to fix it and the most   important thing to these Hunters was their gun.  That's a complicated piece of equipment in our   18th century situation and you've got nothing but  a campfire and maybe a very small hammer and a   little hand Vise to fix anything that might break. Another delicacy for these long Hunters is bone   marrow and it's sort of the opposite of tongue.  Tongue is a very easy thing to harvest from an   animal the bone marrow can be very difficult to  harvest from the animal so you got to carve all   the meat away to get to the bones and you  have to have a very large bone to get any   decent marrow out of it but the bones that  were roasted the marrow would soften up and   they could scoop it out and spread it on bread or  Johnny cakes for that very very special flavor. I was trying to think of a comparison that we  would have today a job that we could do today   that would be anything similar to what was  happening with these 18th century Hunters.   Maybe you've seen the show Deadliest Catch  you're out there on the seas for months at   a time or maybe the job of somebody on an oil rig  again away from civilization for months at a time   no real connection. These people usually have all  their supplies along with them the Hunters on the   other hand they were living on the environment  for all that time. There are many times on the   channel where we've talked about people in  the 18th century using every little bit of   something so not letting anything go to waste.  The hunters here are in a situation that many   times is just the opposite. They are in a land  of bounty there are times when there is way more   meat than anyone could possibly eat and they'll  just take little bits of an animal the very very   best parts and the rest they will just leave  to rot and yet 3 or 4 days later they're out   of anything to eat and they are starving. This  feast or famine situation is not with just these   18th century long Hunters it's happening with  the Native Americans who are doing the same   kind of hunting when the hides are the cash crop  it doesn't matter whether they're Native Americans   or these 18th century hunters the meat part  is not important and so it just goes to waste. Johnny cakes would be another win for  our longhunter. Ground corn, maize,   that's something that they can bring along with  them to the frontier they might not want to use   very much at a time because you can only bring  so much. But that's that last little little   flavor of home that you can bring along with you  it's very easy to cook and it has that amazing   flavor that you're missing once you're out on  this Frontier for months and months at a time.  This would be a line of work for a very special  kind of person somebody who was able to live   off the land for months at a time. Someone who's  able to hunt and harvest animals by the hundreds,   if need be. Someone who is able to fix their  own equipment somebody who's able to fight   off bears and mountain lions and buffalo. He  was somebody who could handle the pressure of   living in this kind of environment this is  the poor Hunters feast and it is very good.

Channel: Townsends

Views: 450,635

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

Id: 9ynxzl4yfpg

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023