What did the mountain men eat?

[exMember]

I thought this was a pretty good read...

https://bearlakerendezvous.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/the-mountain-man-diet/

 

[patocazador]

"Portions of the intestine of Buffalo were filled with wild onions and other herbs and spices, tied off and roasted until sizzling. Called Boudins these “sausages” were considered a delicacy and were always a favorite"

Cajun boudin is one of my favorites. It usually also contains rice and hot pepper and is some kind of good!

 

[exMember]

sounds good! Nothing better than sausage cooked over an open fire.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Surprisingly my diet is close to what they ate, except for the moccasins. I can eat the same thing all the time, and never season anything. My breakfast has been a huge bowl of oatmeal for the last 40 years every morning. I don't even think about it anymore. I get up, make oatmeal, and eat it.

The high meat diet also fits in with my diet. I even fooled around with making pemmican. It needs a lot of berries to taste good. A lot.

 

[exMember]

You put green apples in it Pete? I buy the instant oatmeals with the apples in it, its the only way I can eat it without gagging on flavorless oatmeal lol.

 

[Muley Hunter]

I use all different kinds of fruit in the oatmeal. Berries, raisins, bananas etc. I used the kind that takes 30 min to cook. A bit better for you. It's not processed like the quick stuff.

 

[Swamp1]

I still grow and grind my own corn. As long as it is well dried it can last indefinitely for years in huge glass canisters. Once ground you should use it within 30 days or so.  Grits or cornbread for breakfast with venison sausage and duck eggs.  Broiled mashed potato patties with onions and paprika. All grown right here.
Grew my own wheat here last year to and kept the berries in 5 gallon pails. Gonna start makin home grown biscuits as well  sourdough pancakes with it soon.
Livin what I've been preachin. Shoot it or grow it.

 

[patocazador]

What do duck eggs taste like? I have heard that they are rather 'strong'-tasting, whatever that means.

 

[Swamp1]

I prefer to call them "rich" tasting. A little dry, taste about the same as chickens eggs if you add a splash of water to them as you scramble them.
 For baking they are superior. Huge, deep colored yolks.

 

[Muley Hunter]

A strong, or gamey taste usually means it taste like crap.

 

[Swamp1]

" Imagine a daily diet of bacon, salt pork, smoked ham, dried or corned beef, smoked, salted, and dried fish, and the occasional fresh game."
 Hmmmm. Sounds like my diet. But I drive a truck. I just cant see the mountain men hauling all that pork and beef around with them, with or without a mule.  I would have to say game would have been way up on the list, and haul around what you did not finish the day before. Beef and pork round out the bottom of the list if I were out there.
 6 months of beef and pork smells like bear bait to me. Of course, if it brings the bear into range..........

 

[AZshooter]

Go stand out in an open field a few miles out of the city.  Bring your knapsack with firemaking tools, gun supplies and some basic utensils.  Now wander around the edge of a wooded break.  See anything you want to eat, or shoot to eat?  What you see of berries, mushrooms, edible greens, the occasional rabbit, groundhog, or birds will be your mountain man diet.  You'll be moving on quite regularly, so all that meat you jerked from the wandering dairy cow, or escaped cop's horse had better fit into your pack. 

Of course if you have your packhorse along (not all mountain men were rich enough to do better than go afoot), you just might have a sack of flour or some dried beans to cook with.

Bon appetit!

 

[Buck Conner1]

I thought this was a pretty good read...

Hey when I have a little more time this fall after hunting I will provide you guys with my old list of period correct edibles that I spent many many hours of research on before opening "Clark & Sons Mercantile Ltd" in 1995. By 2002 many of the customers and writers like Mark Baker, Wes Houser and several others had moved on to other subject matter, only Charley Richy was still interested in my articles for the "Backwoodsman". I'll even share with you where I found correct edibles, culitivate and foraged in my research. A fun venture that took off like hot cakes back then.

 

[exMember]

:Red tup: I look forward to it.

When did some of your articles come out in the backwoodsman? I have some from the 80s i bought years ago off ebay.

 

[Buck Conner1]

I'll have to go look up the dates.

I would provide 'Backwoodsman' articles and in turn Charley would run ads for 'Clark & Sons Mercantile'. Biggest problem with him was; you sold an article to another source and Charley would see it and put in his magazine. Months later the magazine you sold the original to contacts you with "what are you doing this is our article"? Then you have to send Charley a copy of the letter from them and he has to do something for them to make it right. Takes several letters to get the problem taken care of to make everyone happy. Then you end up providing another article for free to keep the editor happy that had the first article stolen.

I finally stopped writing for Charley after the second time when he printed an article about caring for cast iron cookware out of C&SM catalog that a friend had written and gave to me for the new catalog. I ended up giving this gentleman a $60 Goose Bay Workshops custom drinking cup because 'Backwoodsman' wouldn't address the problem. This one broke the camels back.

We went down to Charley's place in southern Colorado, what a setup for such a low budget magazine. He was pulling in back in the 80s for paid advertising around $200,000. He printed the magazine on newspaper weight paper (cheap, cheap, cheap). The printing press was so old if a part broke he would have to have someone make a new piece as parts were unavailable. Charley was such a nice guy people would bend over backwards to help him with his problems.

He had old knives all over the place, you would see his ads wanting to buy, sell or trade for other old knives he didn't have, fun times. He was so darn nice everyone loved his magazine and him too.

I don't know how his son is doing now that they moved from Colorado way back when and ended up in Texas. The magazine is now being produced by a firm back east and the articles are cleaned up for spelling, etc. Last time I talked to him (years ago) they had so many articles he was picking and choosing what they wanted to publish which was a good thing for the quality of the magazine and the reader. If you ever get a chance to meet him (if still alive) or his family do so, good people.

I'll look up some dates for you on a few of my articles.

.

 

[Buck Conner1]

Here's a few of articles that appeared in the Backwoodsmen magazine.

• Jan/Feb Volume 33 No 2 2010 - pg 24, article; 'The Airgun in History' reference to early air rifles...
  
• March/April Volume 20 No 2 1999 - pg 26, reference to Clark & Son Mercantile - talking about trade guns and reference to one of my books.
  
• May/June Volume 20 No 3 1999 - pg 55, article; 'Wild Edibles of the Stoney Mountains', part <a href='/tags/1' rel='nofollow' title='See all tagged subjects with: #1'>#1</a>.
  
• July/Aug Volume 20 No 4 1999 - pg 55, article; 'Wild Edibles of the Stoney Mountains', part <a href='/tags/2' rel='nofollow' title='See all tagged subjects with: #2'>#2</a>.
  
• Nov/Dec Volume 20 No 6 1999 - pg 48, reference to Clark & Son Mercantile - talking about the lead bars from original molds I mentioned on this site.
  
• Nov/Dec Volume 20 No 6 1999 - pg 51, article; '1260 Miles One Way' canoe trip from Fort Morgan CO to Fort deChartre, IL.
  
• Sept/Oct Volume 20 No 5 1999 - pg 33, reference to Clark & Son Mercantile's wares.
  
• Jan/Feb Volume 19 No 1 1998 - pg 4, (This is the article he copied from Clark & Son catalog mentioned), 'The Care and Feeding of Cast Iron' by Brook & Barbara Elliot.
  
• Mar/April Volume 19 No 2 1998 - pg 4, letter to the editor about the passing of Charles E. Hanson, Jr. ... pg 23, article; 'Food Products of the North American Indians'...
  
• July/August Volume 19 No 4 1998 - pg 41, article; 'Success in the North American Fur Trade', part <a href='/tags/1' rel='nofollow' title='See all tagged subjects with: #1'>#1</a>.  This is taken from one of my books about the North West Trade Gun, a research study listed in the US Library of Congress in 2005.
  
• Sept/Oct Volume 19 No 5 1998 - pg 6, reply to Charley's ramblings on muzzleloaders... pg 54 'Success in the North American Fur Trade', part <a href='/tags/2' rel='nofollow' title='See all tagged subjects with: #2'>#2</a>.

That will give you a little work to do in going through your old magazines.

There are many more articles that appeared in magazines, journals and newspapers over the years. AMM 'Tomahawk & Long Rifle', Amm 'Moccasin Mail', Coalition of Historical Trekkers 'On the Trail', 'Muzzleloader Magazine', 'Smoke & Fire News', plus a dozen others I can't bring to mind at this time, boring if to long.

I'm sure many of the readers here have done much more than me in researching what our forefathers experienced in days gone bye. I am not bragging, I'm pretty self centered and have been always lucky to do what I wanted which usually didn't go over well with the spouses. Some stayed others left over time, so be it. Like Frankie sang "I did it my way".. I have been called an asshole and I know it... :lol:

 

[Buck Conner1]

Here's an easy camp bread.

   Is this one of the recipes you were talking about - BANNOCK?
   This one makes up a batch of bannocks for 24 persons.
   Ingredients:

• 6-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 teaspoons salt
  
• 1/4 cup baking powder
  
• 1/2 cup
  
• 1 teaspoon butter melted 3 cups
  
• 2 tablespoons water

Directions:

• 1 Measure flour, salt, and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir to mix. Pour melted butter and water over flour mixture. Stir with fork to make a ball.
  
• 2 Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface, and knead gently about 10 times. Pat into a flat circle 3/4 to 1 inch thick.
  
• 3 Cook in a greased frying pan over medium heat, allowing about 15 minutes for each side. Use two lifters for easy turning.

The word 'bannock' referred originally to a round unleavened piece of dough, usually about the size of a meat plate, which was baked on the girdle and used by the oven-less Scots.

 

[Buck Conner1]

You should setup a page for:
Header: Period Edibles - Culitvated & Foraged
sub sections for:
             Cooking of Bulk Grains & Beans
             Cooking Using Measured Amounts & Good Comparisons
             Correct Breads
             Correct Sweets
             Correct Period Drinks
             Correct Recipes (able to show dates of useage)
             Correct Period Edibles (show dates of useage with who eat them)
             Cross Reference - Seeds & Grains Used Then & Now 
             Period Correct Cookware (show dates of useage). 
I have have enough on these subjects that have years of research that could be shared before I pass on.

 

[Buck Conner1]

I have provided such a list to our community 'be prepared' committee, church groups and BSA troops - 'food is food and how to prepare it along with how to organize a good meal are still the same whether its 1715 or 2015'.

 

[Sonny Rich]

My buddy Chuck Streeper was a real mountain man for years,Google his name read up.