I can't remember if I've posted this before (apologies if I have), but its well worth looking at
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html
'Cowboy' food
- Thread starter rik_uk3
- Start date
Am I the only one thinking of the 'baked beans' scene from Blazing Saddles?
Though more seriously, interesting link.
Though more seriously, interesting link.
Thats a good link Mate, I ve been using it in looking at foods used by the mountain men i ve put it up with a few other links, on the Suffolk Boone challenge
There are some mistakes though. Breakfast would have been served much, much earlier than "between 8-9am unless very wealthy. Working class (there was no middle class then) would be up by 5am and finished with breakfast and at work by 7 or 8am in town (or at work by daylight if working on a farm or ranch) Even without the benefit of electric lighting.
The article does mention that the menus would have varied by region but the sample menus don't really show it.
And the evening meal is still often referred to as supper although not as frequently as it was just a 30 years ago.
The article does mention that the menus would have varied by region but the sample menus don't really show it.
And the evening meal is still often referred to as supper although not as frequently as it was just a 30 years ago.
They ate like kings!:
Saturday dinner: soup, roast veal, steaks, oyster pie, vegetables.
Nice!
The actual time line does conflict with most of the other things that I have read, in some ways its the same as most others information, from what I understand that would of been the wealthy and not the common man as such.....
Oysters were common in Victorian cooking, often added to beef stews, not a wealthy mans food I think. Do you get fresh water oysters in America?
No Rik, no freshwater oysters here. We do (or did) have loads of freshwater mussels though. But they never were eaten other than by the Indians; and even that use dropped off in the 1800s
In the last 50 years or so we've lost 20 species of freshwater mussels in the upper Mississippi valley alone. The usual logical suspects are cited for causes: habitat destruction, water poluituion, etc. And oddly one of the reasons listed was overharvesting. I say odd because I'm not aware of any commercial use for them?
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LOL. TBH I don't know as I never saw a British one. The ones I saw as a kid were varied from about the size of a thumbnail up to twice the size of the sea mussels served in restaurants. Not being an expert, I have no idea how much of that variance was due to differing species and how much was due to age.
I only knew of one person ever trying to eat them and he got sick. It's taught that they were a staple of the Indians at one time though.
I only knew of one person ever trying to eat them and he got sick. It's taught that they were a staple of the Indians at one time though.
xylaria
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
You can get freshwater pearls from mussels. Mussles are really prone to picking up farm animal e- coli, that would stop people eating them.
Tins were not invented until the 1810's to 1820's ish, but that was for the British army, they were not really commercially available until much later even then very expensive, and the first ones were sealed with lead and have been believed to have caused lead poisoning..
They were actually invented for Napoleon's army. And that time frame would have well been early enough for the cowboys; the great cattle drives weren't until the 1860s, '70s, and '80s. I can't vouch for any canned goods they might or might not have used though.
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Yeah I belive it was a french man that invented them, but brought his idea over to the British... think the idea of how it worked was used with glass jars before that..
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I don't know who actually used them first, but the whole effort was in response to a requirement Napoleon had issued.
I did quite a bit of searching for information, to do with the Boone challenge and the food stuffs that we could use on it, the method of preservation in containers cam about in the late 1790's, in response to a competition by the french government, I cant remember the name of the guy, but he patented it in England, with the help of an English man...but used tin cans, instead of glass jars.
This if my memory serves me right the first large cannery was not until the 1900's in the America, may be late 1890' even
This if my memory serves me right the first large cannery was not until the 1900's in the America, may be late 1890' even
Not really Santaman.
European settlers in what is now New York City found the greatest abundance of oysters they'd ever known - many a foot long. But how to keep them fresh for trading inland, in the days before railways?
An oyster will stay alive and fresh, out of the water, for some weeks provided it keeps its shell tight shut. But it makes its living opening and closing its shell to filter the nutrients out of the water, so shutting up is unnatural to it.
New York oyster dealers found that oysters could be trained. They would place their chosen oysters in the oyster beds, day by day, gradually closer to the shore - so that the animals were exposed to low tide for a little longer each day. The oysters learned that they had to take in a good load of water while the tide was retreating, and then keep clammed up throughout the time they were out of the water.
This way they got in the habit of sealing their shells for long periods. Of course, the very last time they did this, they would open up to discover that they weren't on the shore at all, but disappearing down a greedy persons gullet.
The French had a less fussy method of oyster-training. To keep the creatures fresh for the journey from le seaside to Paris, they would spread them out in the water and then tap them, one by one, every day, with an iron rod - the oysters, unsurprisingly, reacted to this by defensively sealing up. The result was the same - the bivalves got used to ever-longer closed up periods.
A 19th century American wit noted that a French oyster was trained to keep its mouth shut when it enters society.
It's been a long time since I last read about any of this but that account sounds pretty much accurate to my poor old memory.
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