WIDE VARIETY OF FOODS WEREN'T AVAILABLE TO EARLY SETTLERS
WIDE VARIETY OF FOODS WEREN'T
AVAILABLE TO EARLY SETTLERS ©

by Holly Timm
[originally published 1 July 1987
Harlan Daily Enterprise Penny Pincher]
The wide variety and selection of foods we know today did not exist in the 19th century. Food of any sort took a considerable amount of time to grow, store and prepare and with all the other work essential to daily survival the less time spent on a fancy meal, the better.

Fresh, salted or smoked pork, chicken and wild game were the principle meat dishes of the time. Pigs were slaughtered in the fall as soon as the mornings were cold. The more perishable portions would be cooked and eaten immediately, but the bulk of the meat would be salted or smoked for later use.

In order to prepare a chicken stew, the chicken first had to be caught, killed, cleaned and plucked. The fire, kept burning year round, had to be stirred up and the kettle hung over it. Groundhogs, opossum, raccoons, wild turkeys and the like were common throughout the 19th century. Early in the century deer and buffalo were also hunted locally as a mainstay of the early settlers' diet.

Breads or corncakes of various sorts were cooked in a skillet or a baker in the same fire. A baker was a cast iron box which could be set in the fire or place on coals on the hearth. Sometimes additional coals would be heaped on the lid of the baker for faster, hotter baking.

Turnips, potatoes, squashes, cabbages, beets, potatoes and apples were stored for the winter in root cellars, holes dug into the ground, sometimes under the cabin floor which protected the vegetables from freezing weather and from drying out.

For most of the 1800's, very little canning as we know it today was done. Greens such as poke sallet were eaten only in season. Beans and corn were dried for later use. Much of the dried corn would be ground into meal as most of the pioneer's beads were made from cornmeal. Even piecrusts were usually from cornmeal.

The primitive storage conditions often gave foods an off-flavor and a popular side dish at meals was pickles of all sorts. Walnuts, mushrooms, and all sorts of other things were pickled as well as the onions and cucumbers that are still popular today. The vegetables and brine would be place in a stone crock with a layer of congealed fat on top to seal it and a piece of leather stretched across as a lid.

The nearest spring or cold running stream would serve not only as a source of water but also as refrigeration. Many settlers built a small shed structure over the spring or runoff in such a manner that the cold water would keep everything placed in it cold. Many but not all families had a cow and churning butter was a daily chore. The milk and the butter would then be stored in the spring- house.

Particularly early in the 19th century, metal and china dishes were hard to come by and most people ate from trenchers, a sort of shallow bowl carved from wood. Poorer or less industrious families would eat from one common large trencher or directly from the cooking pot.

Molasses, honey and syrup or sugars made from maple sap were the most common forms of sweetening. Blackberries and other fruits were eaten in season and along with apples, often appeared in the form of pies or cobblers.

From the earliest days of the American colonies until about the middle of the 19th century, the most common beverages were alcoholic. Rum was favored in the north with beer and many varieties of wine as well as whiskey being more popular in the southern colonies. Even children regularly drank rum or whiskey cut with water which was known as grog.

Unlike more modern times, it was not at all unusual for someone to have to sleep off a few too many drinks in mid afternoon and nothing was thought of seeing even the most important or prominent of people staggering along the road. By the end of the century though coffee had come into heavy use as a beverage and alcoholic beverage consumption become less usual.

back to the index


Purely Decorative Image

visitor