Howdy, Seems to me that last year I posted a bunch of trailside recipes.Don't know where they are now - might have appended them to this posting. So, let's continue with some thoughts from George STEWART's "The California Trail." At the start of an emigrant's trip, groceries probably took up most of the wagon's space. One trail author warned: "Take plenty of bread stuff; this is the staff of life when everything else runs short." He recommended 200 lbs. per adult - mostly flour. The smart trailside cook took along plenty of yeast, and baked bread in a DutchOven (neato, but heavy:-) whenever possible - otherwise, the DO-made hot biscuits substituted excellently. Crackers or hardtack were another breadstuff. For a variety, corn meal was used - especially by the emigrants from the Southern States. Of course, the cooking difficulty influenced food selection. For example, in the desert and along the Platte River fuel was scarce. Also, Stewart points out: " [I]n the high country water boils at a low termperature. Rice, therefore, was taken only in small quantities. The same was true of beans. These foods could be cooked only when the train laid over for a day at some place where fuel was abundant." A second staple was bacon, which also included side-pork. But bacon was pretty tough to keep, especially in the heat when the fat melted and left little that was edible - much became rancid. But bacon remained popular mainly because the emigrant was used to having it at home. It was cheap; and readily available. Some essentail supplements to breadstuffs and bacon were salt, sugar, coffee, and dried fruit. The caring cook also included tea, maple sugar, vinegar, pickles and smoked beef. Even though drinking on the trail was rare, most wagons had a bottle of whiskey stowed somewhere for: medicine, snake- bites &c.:-) While many canned goods such as beef, sardines, fruits, and cheese were available, they were expensive. Anyway, only a few emigrants were accustomed to such semi-luxuries. Supplementing their diets was sorta catch as catch can - a day to day process for the emigrants. In the early years, the emigrants were in buffalo country for a month or so - resulting in a number of buffalo steak dinners. Antelope were numerous; but they were small and hard to approach - not very good to eat either:-) Occasionally, they bagged deer, mountain sheep, bear and, some times waterfowl. If all else failed, the unpalatable jack-rabbit was available. The emigrants ate fish. On the prairie, the streams yielded good-eating catfish. In the mountains trout were prevalent. While they mostly angled(cf., Dame Juliana BERNERS' "Fysshynge wyth an Angle"(1496):-))), they sometimes seined - often improvising with wagon-top covers. Much of the country supplied various kinds of berries and wild onions; some plants, like lamb's-tongue, were cooked as greens. The slightly educated emigrant had little knowledge of dietetics -guess, they just ate what comes naturally:-) Aside from the few, hearbreaking instances of near-starvations, the emigrant had little dietary trouble in the early years. So far as I know, no diary mentions scurvy. A monotonous diet was their biggest complaint. One author noted that one of the first things the emigrant asked for on arrival in California was pickles:-). While few were rich, these people were not poverty-stricken and content with a 'hog and hominy" existence. As Stewart writes: "Many of the wifes prided themselves on Setting a Good Table. One man, invited to supper at the tent of a friend near Fort Laramie, recorded that he sat down to hot biscuits, fresh butter, honey, rich milk, cream, venison steak, and tea & coffee. AND there were green peas gathered that day from the wild vines along the trail." Who knows? If you don't run me off, there might be a Part 4:-)), Bob Norris in Dallas <BNorris166aol.com>