TIP#200: WHAT'S FOR SUPPER? In the age of fast food restaurants, microwaves and frozen dinners, it is hard to realize what the pioneer life was like around the dinner table in pioneer times! Even though it will make me, and many of the readers, appear to be ancient, there are some of us who were born before any of the above-listed. And, going back even further; there was a much simpler life before that! I didn't say easier, just simpler perhaps? Kentuckians, as all of our early pioneers, followed a long tradition of hunting their own game, preparing it, preserving it and eating it. Mothers worked the gardens to grow their own vegetables; families milked their own cows, gathered their own eggs with nary a fast trip down to the corner market in horse and buggy to satisfy the age-old question "What's for supper, Mom?" Town markets did start up in the early 1800's where the farmer could bring in goods and produce for sale, but "in the beginning" if you couldn't grow it, milk it, harvest it, you didn't eat it! If we remember our history classes, a lot of our eating traditions date back, in America, to the Native Americans. They were already quite the pros in growing corn, pumpkins, beans, squash and herbs. The settler, once discovering these sources of food, soon learned how to add it into their diets. One product - corn - became the staple because of the many ways it could be eaten - it could be roasted, baked, parched and pickled. It was the main ingredient for bread and was sadly found to be a main ingredient in whiskey! It is no surprise that in the early land laws, a pioneer was supposed to go live upon a piece of land and show that he had improved it to show that he lived there and planned on making it his permanent residence - and the improvement might be simple 2-3 corn plants! Corn meal became the staple of most pioneer homes. With corn meal the pioneer cook could create such delicacies as ash cake, corn pone, corn bread, griddle cakes - a feast for the weary pioneers! Johnny-cakes were a favorite and were made in a skillet . It was baked over an open fire on one side and then flipped over to cook the other side. Ash cakes were another favorite staple. This was made by wrapping the dough in fresh corn shucks or vegetable leaves and placing the whole thing right on the hearth. This was covered with ashes and cooked until done. But alas, the pioneer mother had little in the way of fancy cooking utensils! Spiders were common; not the creepy crawly kind, but skillets which stood on long legs. They had griddles, stew pots, wooden utensils and if lucky, some pewter plates. Often the father carved out the eating utensils himself as it was extremely difficult for the settler to buy or transport to the wilderness called Kentucky, the fancy plates, glasses and silverware we think are so common place. Until the pioneer was a monied individual, they made it themselves. The diet of the early Kentuckian settler included what could be grown in their gardens, gardens hacked and hoed and dug out of the sometimes rocky soil. Some of the most popular vegetables were turnips, cowpeas and sweet potatoes. Herbs were grown - not for spicing up a bland diet - but for medicinal purposes. Ham, now known as delicious "country hams" were an early staple and still is a favorite. Early hogs in Kentucky were not the cute little "Porky Pig" varieties, but wild fearsome creatures! Cattle were kept by some of the early farmers and chickens, geese and ducks. The husband supplemented the meat supply with wild game which flourished all over the state. The farmer's gun was his most valuable asset! Another blessing for the early settler was the abundance of salt in the area. Kentucky has many salt springs, and the salt was boiled down right at the place where it was found to turn it into the salt crystals we are familiar with. It was not an easy job, it could be dangerous, to prepare salt. But it was something that the settlers needed not only for flavoring but for preserving the meat. Once the settler had a good supply of salt, they preserved their hams and bacon and beef. With the addition of butter, cream and eggs from the cattle and chickens, our pioneer settlers had a fairly good diet. Nothing was wasted either. Hocks and bacon fat were added to the vegetable dishes for flavor. Later tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, peas and cucumbers were added to the diet. And nothing was more fun than the children going out to harvest the abundance of fruits which grew in Kentucky - cherries, peaches, apples, pears, plums and strawberries. The wife dried many of the fruits for eating in the long, cold Kentucky winters. When the influx of settlers from Europe began moving into Kentucky, they introduced favorite foods from their native lands. Soon the Scotch, Irish, English and German foods worked their way into the diets, especially in the larger cities. Different ways of preparing the foods were learned - roasting, frying, pickling. Soon some of our forebearers were enjoying sauerkraut, soups and other of the "finer" foods. How did the pioneer woman manage to turn out good meals with so little in the way of utensils? They improvised! Fires were definitely a problem (in a wooden cabin) due to the utensil the lady of the house cooked with. It was a long time before cooking pots were glazed, so the substance inside the pot came through the pores on the outside. It that being cooked was fatty, the fat and grease got over everything and often caught fire itself. Skillet cooking was done on the hearth with the woman constantly bending, stirring and checking before the open fire. I imagine many of pioneer lady got singed once in a while! Sometimes sparks from the open fire caught things on fire, including children's clothing as they played nearby. But, all in all, the pioneer diet was most likely the most healthy of all. No artificial preservatives, no heavy doses of sugar …. we could take a lesson couldn't we? © Copyright 17 November 1998, Sandra K. Gorin, All rights reserved, sgorin@glasgow-ky.com Sandi Gorin - A Kentucky Colonel 205 Clements Ave., Glasgow, KY 42141 (502) 651-9114 PUBLISHING: http://www.members.tripod.com/~GorinS/index.html BARREN CO OBITS, WILLS, DEEDS & BIBLE RECORDS: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/BarrenObits KYRESEARCHING TIPS: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/Tips KYBIOGRAPHIES: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/Bios