In my new release, Grace-Brides of New Hope, Grace Donegan is the town baker who creates delectable dried cherry tarts, pies, cakes. and cookies for the cafe and the Prairie Queen Hotel in New Hope, Kansas.
While doing research, I read dozens of articles about pioneer women who had to decide what few precious things to carry across the plains. One choice they all had in common was their collection of "receipts", as recipes were then called. For them, these were reminders of a security left behind and a hope for the abundance of the future. In the interim, they simply did what they had to do to keep their families alive.
For the most part, meals were informal and the food hearty. Nothing was wasted. Dried bread was made into bread pudding; a bone was turned into soup and extra milk was made into pudding or cheese.
Early trappers, explorers, miners, and homesteaders all had to be creative when it came to cooking on the frontier. Substitutions of all kinds were made so that the food would not only taste good but that it would taste familiar. It was certainly worth the effort since we're still using some of these recipes even today.
Here are a few examples of dishes these resourceful, hardy people created with limited or unusual ingredients.
Sourdough Starter
Sourdough biscuits were a-little-bit-of-heaven-on-earth delicacy whether on the trail, on a homestead, or in a prairie town cafe. Once a cook got a good sourdough starter he or she cherished it like a prized possession.
The starter was made by cutting up 2 medium-sized potatoes into cubes and boiling them in water until tender. The cook would remove the potatoes and measure out two cups of the liquid. (The potatoes would be used for the evening meal). The cook would then mix the potato water, flour, and sugar into a smooth paste and set the mixture in a warm place until it doubled in size.
Vinegar Pie
This custard-like pie would have been made when there was no fresh fruit or dairy to be had. Settlers had to make do with ingredients that didn't spoil.
The acidity in the vinegar actually gives the pie a flavor that is reminiscent of lemon. This dessert is one variety of pie Grace Donegan makes to sell at the cafe for Thanksgiving. It doesn't taste like vinegar at all. It's sweet and tasty and brings to mind citrus more than vinegar. Plus, like a chess pie, it gets a little bit of a crust on top when baked.
Sheep Sorrel Pie
Since citrus fruit was hard to come by on the prairie and lemon pie was an extremely popular dessert, sheep sorrel leaves had a lemony, tang/tart flavor making it a perfect substitution. The pioneers used the herb to flavor their pies and is supposedly very close in taste to lemon pie. But homesteaders state that it does take a fair bit of sheep sorrel to get the flavor.
Johnnycakes
Like corn pancakes, Johnnycakes or hoecakes were a staple for anyone who needed to fill some bellies but had no wheat flour. Corn, being a new world food, made its way in all kinds of dishes. Topped with maple syrup or molasses, this makes a fine meal for breakfast, dinner, or supper.
Cobblers
Missing the traditional puddings from England but lacking the ingredients to make them, settlers created cobblers. A simple dish that combined fruit and bread or biscuit dough, cobblers have since become an American staple. This dessert would have been cooked over a fire in a cast-iron Dutch oven and lard would have been used in place of butter.
Juneberry Pie (a.k.a. "Saskatoon berry")
Native to North America, particularly the upper Midwest, North and South Dakota, and the northern prairie region of Canada, juneberries had a flavor reminiscent of dark cherries or raisins, and a milder taste than blueberries. The ripe juneberry fruit is dark purple, with several tiny soft seeds, and very closely resembles a highbush blueberry.
Cookies
When the Europeans arrived in the United States, they brought their cookie recipes with them. Soon, they adapted the old recipes to fit their new country. American butter cookies are a close relative to the English tea cake and the Scottish shortbread.
In the Southern colonies, every housewife knew how to bake tea cakes that had no extra flavoring except butter and sometimes a couple of drops of rose water.
The first American cookies that showed up in a cookbook had creative names like Jumbles, Plunkets, and Cry Babies which gave no clue as to what was inside that cookie. As the expansion of the country grew, new ingredients started showing up in cookie recipes. The arrival of the railroad meant fruits and nuts like coconuts and oranges became available to homesteaders. Even cereal became a popular ingredient in cookie recipes after the Kellogg brothers invented cornflakes in the late 1800s.
In the Brides of New Hope series, cookies are a favorite treat for Eli MacKenzie, Grayson Barrett, and Tripp Walker.
As a native New Englander, Eli enjoyed Joe Froggers, a molasses cookie, while Grayson was partial to sugar biscuits, a treat his English-born mother often baked, and Tripp was fond of lebkuchen, a spice cookie reminding him of his German roots back home in New Braunfels, Texas.
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| Joe Froggers |
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| Sugar Biscuits |
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| Lebkuchen |
Posey Brides of New Hope Book Two
Grace Brides of New Hope Book Three
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Interesting post, Jo-Ann. I can't imagine making desserts on the trail.
ReplyDeleteCaroline, neither can I! But obviously they did and used substitutions to make it palatable. I guess when you have a sweet tooth, you have to feed it!!!
ReplyDeleteCaroline, while doing the research for this I found an interesting article that pioneers, especially miners had a real sweet tooth, and often concocted their own recipes using berries, sorghum, and stale bread to make a pudding of sorts. It would make a great story!
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