Exploring and settling the
Old West was a tough job. The pioneers of
the West had to be resourceful and creative
to survive as they settled the Western frontier. They faced long, harsh
journeys with no guarantee their supplies would last
to their final destination, so they got creative
in a culinary sense. Pioneer cuisine may seem
strange to us today, but the settlers had
no choice but to use what they had to survive
and improvise as needed. Today, we're looking at the
menu of strange foods pioneers ate in the Old West. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us
know in the comments below what other food-related history
you'd like to hear about. Ho-ho-ho. Cookie's done some cooking. Come and get it. Everyone loves gelatin desserts. Right? You put my stuff in jello again! The pioneers certainly did. Unfortunately, no one would
invent jello until 1897, so they improvised by
making calf's foot jelly. It was an inexpensive dessert
that was easy to prepare. The recipe is simple. Just mix some eggs, lemon,
sugar, and spices together. Oh, and don't forget to
boil several calves' feet to create the gelatin. Once the gelatin cools, mix it
into the egg and sugar blend, and you've got yourself
a genuine Old West treat. Some Old West cooks
took things up a notch by adding white wine,
seasonings, and egg whites to the recipe. One Virginia recipe
book even suggests crushing the egg shells and
adding them to the mixture. The most in-depth
recipe, however, came from Home
Cookery, a collection of Tried Receipts, Both
Foreign and Domestic, by Mrs. J. Chadwick in 1853. Boil four feet in one
gallon of water till reduced to two quarts. Strain and let stand overnight. Take off the fat and add to
the jelly one pint of wine, the juice of four lemons,
and the whites of eight eggs. Stir it well together and
sweeten to your taste. Let it boil for half an hour. Then, skim and put into
a flannel bag to drain. Should it run
through in a stream, it must be returned
again and again until it will pass the
bag only in quick drops. Mm. Just like me mum used to make. The sweet version of calves'
foot jelly was popular in the Old West, but savory
versions of the dish, called p'tcha, existed long
before the frontier days. The dessert doesn't come up
much in modern discussion, but p'tcha is still available
as a made-to-order dish at New York's Second Avenue Deli and at
least one kosher deli in Miami. [MUSIC PLAYING] Starting your day
with a fresh cup of the most delicate
dark roast wasn't always possible on the
American frontier. Real coffee was a bit
scarce in the Old West, so quick-thinking pioneers
found many substitutes when they couldn't
have the real thing. Everything from
chicory roots to acorns could be ground up and used
to make a coffee substitute. Pioneers derived one of the more
creative coffee alternatives from sweet potatoes. Pioneers would peel, cook,
mash, and dry the sweet potatoes before forming
them into patties. They'd mix the patties with
rye flour, dry them in an oven, and finally grind
them into a powder. Sweet potatoes weren't an
ideal substitute for coffee, but the drink had a few fans. One December 1861 recipe from
Georgia's The Albany Patriot suggests mixing the powder
with a small amount of coffee. Peel your potatoes, and
slice them rather thin. Dry them in the
air or on a stove. Then, cut into
pieces small enough to go into the coffee mill. Then grind it. Two tablespoons full of ground
coffee and three or four ground potatoes will make eight
or nine cups of coffee-- clear, pure, and well-tasted. Maybe the best part of
waking up in the Old West was sweet potato in your cup. [MUSIC PLAYING] Most of us often dine on roast
beef or roast chicken today, but would probably never
consider taking a bite out of Pepe Le Pew,
Despite his perversion of wanting you to do so. But the pioneers didn't have
much choice in the matter. Many pioneers survived on eating
what they could find, trap, or hunt out in the wilderness. Skunks live in several
habitats across the US, Canada, and Mexico, so it was
only a matter of time before the stinky critters
found themselves in hot water-- literally. Skunks provide a surprisingly
decent amount of meat, though not as much
as a sheep or pig. One old pioneer recipe
book includes instructions for roast skunk,
noting cooks should remove the scent glands before
roasting, which is smart. And skunk, if you don't know,
is best served with carrots. You likely won't find a roast
skunk on a restaurant menu today, but that
hasn't stopped folks from trying it more recently. According to a 1959 issue
of Boy's Life magazine, the meat is light
and well-flavored, and tastes better than
raccoon or possum. Well, I guess William Howard
Taft just disliked our video. [MUSIC PLAYING] Pioneers had no
shortage of ingenuity when it came to making
desserts, especially lemon pie. Despite a few attempts at
growing them in California during the mid-1700s, lemons
weren't common in the West until the mid to
late 19th century. To get around their
scarcity, pioneers once again made substitutions
in their recipes. They took advantage of
the leaves of the sheep sorrel, a small flowering
plant to the same family as buckwheat. Sheep sorrel was
native to the area, so it was much easier to
find than actual lemons. Cooks would shred the leaves
and bake them into a pie, giving the pastry a
tart, delicious flavor. Sure, it's not lemon meringue,
but it'll do in a pinch. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's nothing quite like
the cool, refreshing taste of tartness. Fresh produce like apples
weren't always readily available in the Old West. Pioneers sometimes compensated
by using apple cider vinegar to flavor desserts. Primarily used for medicine
or cleaning during the period, apple cider vinegar
occasionally came in handy for flavoring a pie. The tart apple or citrus
flavor of vinegar pie was close enough
to an actual pie to satisfy travelers
on the wagon trail. Vinegar pie is still prepared
in modern kitchens today. Martha Stewart even has a
recipe for this fine pioneer pie that involves plenty of
flour, vinegar, sugar, spices, and butter, instead of the lard
the pioneers probably used. [MUSIC PLAYING] After a day of hard work
exploring the Western frontier, there's nothing better
than a fine bowl of your favorite stew. Despite its quirky name,
son of a [BLEEP] stew is a testament to the pioneer
attitude of wasting nothing. It was also an
efficient way of using parts of the young steer that
couldn't be easily preserved. SOB stew was a mix of lean
beef, calf liver and heart, bone marrow, sweetbreads,
and brain, all chopped up into small
pieces and boiled. Then, the pioneers
seasoned it with a blend of salt and pepper and hot
sauce to add some flavor. It was a practical cowboy
dish in a time when every morsel counted,
but it's probably not a recipe you'd want to find
in a modern meal kit today. [MUSIC PLAYING] Just like coffee
and fresh produce, traditional flour wasn't
always available to pioneers. Instead, they turned to
ingredients like corn and acorns to make bread. The idea of using ground acorns
as flour wasn't anything new, but they were
abundant in the West and made an
excellent substitute. Producing the flour
required roasting the acorns to remove
their natural bitterness, then grinding them
into a fine meal. Pioneers could use the acorn
flour with other ingredients to make bread or just about
any additional baked goods requiring flour. [MUSIC PLAYING] Everyone had a different method
of catching and preparing food in the Old West. Eating on the Wild Side,
a wild game cookbook, collected several
appetizing recipes born from these methods. One such culinary delight
was bear head cheese. Despite a somewhat
misleading name, head cheese is not
actually cheese. Instead, it's a
meticulously prepared dish made from leftover meat
from the head and face region of an animal. The meat is soaked in
brine overnight, rinsed, and boiled down. Next, it's chopped and
seasoned before being cooled in a pan or mold. Some head cheese
recipes used a type of savory gelatin, called aspic. After that, it's merely a
matter of slicing and eating. The size of a bear meant it
provided a significant amount of meat for pioneer families. Making head cheese
helped them preserve every good part of
the animal and have extra food for a long journey. And if you find yourself with
a hankering for head cheese-- or brawn, as our British
friends call it-- today, just head down to your
local grocery store. [MUSIC PLAYING] Following the honorable
tradition of head cheese, prairie or mountain oysters
are an infamous dish in the American West. More commonly known as Rocky
Mountain oysters or cowboy caviar, people make
the dish using-- Testicles? Tell them why
yours are so tasty! Well, the trick is, you've got
to clip them off way up high. Bull calf testicles that
are skinned and deep fried. In the Old West,
cowboys and ranchers experimented with
different meat cuts in their search for
inexpensive food. They eventually discovered
cooking and eating that particular part of the
bull tasted pretty good. Cowboys considered
them a delicacy, and they often peeled, battered,
and fried them on the spot. Today, Rocky
Mountain oysters are available at festivals,
restaurants, and bars, often served as appetizers. [MUSIC PLAYING] Are you looking for an
inexpensive alternative to beef broth? Why not make some beef tea? Recipes for the liquid
dated back to the 1700s, but beef tea proved
beneficial for the pioneers. They made the tea by boiling
thin strips of salted beef, then straining it
and serving it warm. It served a practical
purpose as a supplement for weak constitutions. Pioneers sometimes used beef
tea to increase appetites and as a remedy for illness. Ah, beef tea-- it's just
what the doctor ordered. The process for making the tea
wasn't limited to beef, either. Lamb, chicken, and
vegetables could make an adequate substitute
when beef wasn't available. [MUSIC PLAYING] Like many other animals the
pioneers hunted or trapped for food, jackrabbits
were an integral part of the pioneer diet. They were plentiful and
easy to catch, making them a quick, hearty meal. Jackrabbit meat was lean
and could be roasted like any other meat, making it a
valuable food source in the Old West. But like any fast food,
subsisting on rabbit meat alone caused a problem
for early settlers-- rabbit poisoning. Now known as a type
of protein poisoning, the condition is caused
by eating a high protein diet with no other nutrients. It mimics extreme
hunger symptoms, despite the adequate
number of calories provided by consuming jackrabbit meat. Jackrabbit meat was
too lean, causing the condition in some
settlers during the period. It didn't deter them from
eating other critters, though, and rabbit meat is still
prevalent in some parts of the world today. [MUSIC PLAYING] Before modern
refrigeration techniques made it possible to
take it on the road, fresh meat was a
hard-earned prize for settlers in the Old West. It would spoil on wagon
trips, forcing settlers to hunt when they could. Deer and buffalo weren't
always abundant in some areas, but squirrels often were. Squirrels became an
acceptable fresh meat option for those days when
buffalo just wasn't practical. Hunters clipped the bark off
a branch beneath the squirrel, causing them to
fall from the tree. Then, the hunters attempted
to shoot the squirrels without damaging the
small amounts of meat on their frames. All right. You guys want these
fried or stewed? Fried. Fried. [MUSIC PLAYING] Even cowboys like to have a
quick snack once in a while. Frizzled beef made for
the perfect hearty snack and occasional dinner. It was easy to make, too,
consisting of dried meat cooked in milk, butter, and flour and
served over toast, and because of its ingredients, the dish
was reasonably more nutritious than some of the
period's other fare. Better yet, the ingredients
were easy to transport, as the only perishable
ingredient in the recipe is the milk. Modern recipes might add
some sauteed onions or peas to the recipe and serve it
over a baked potato instead. Frizzled beef can also
be made with chipped beef and served with gravy. Our friends in the military
may know frizzled beef by a different name, SOS
or [BLEEP] on a shingle. Bread and biscuits were just as
much a staple of pioneer meals as they are today. Ovens weren't typically
available on the trail, so settlers cooked these classic
carbohydrates in a frying pan. The result was frying
pan bread, or bannock, which is different from
the bread we eat today. Frying pan bread
is a versatile dish with a simple recipe
calling for flour, baking powder, salt, and water. The pioneers used
wholemeal flour, resulting in more dense
and filling bread. That was probably a good thing,
as their food had to satiate them for the long haul. So what do you think? What Wild West food
sounds like the tastiest? Let us know in the comments
below, and while you're at it, check out some of these other
videos from our Weird History.
i don't see how calf's foot jelly is weird... where do they think the gelatin in jell-o comes from? it's like saying making pasta at home is weird
Great video.