What Did Pioneers Eat on the Oregon Trail? Dried Apple Pie Recipe — Savor Tooth Tiger (2024)

FAQs

What kind of food did the pioneers eat on the Oregon Trail? ›

The endless walking and hard work made even the most delicate appetites ravenous. Hundreds of pounds of dried goods and cured meats were packed into the wagons, including flour, hardtack, bacon, rice, coffee, sugar, beans, and fruit.

Dried apples were incredibly common on covered wagons. They were revived with boiling water, drained, added to sugar and placed in pie crust to bake in a Dutch oven over hot coals. As you can imagine, there weren't many recipes on the trail except for passed down family recipes or maybe access to a cookbook or 2.

Each man took a rifle or shotgun and some added a pistol. A good hunting knife was essential. Farm implements such as a plow, shovel, scythe, rake, hoe; plus carpentry tools - saw, broad axe, mallet, plane.

Not only were buffalo, deer, and wild turkey there for the taking, pioneers also gathered greens such as purslane, dandelion, and pigweed—as well as wild fruits, berries, and nuts. They replaced sugar with wild honey or maple syrup, and when they had no tea, they made drinks out of sage, sassafras, and mint.

They ate nuts, dandelions, wild strawberries, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, lamb's quarter and many other wild plants. Very early pioneers didn't always know what foods they'd find. Called thrift fritters, they might come back from a foraging trip with a few wild carrots, nettles, and wild onion.

So, after the harvest cucumbers, peppers, beans, peas, and carrots were often pickled. Apples, peaches, and pears were some of the early fruits that were preserved through the pickling method as well. Canning was used if glass jars were available. The process then was much like the process today.

The light meal homesteaders' children carried to school was called “lunch.” They ate lots of sandwiches, but what kind of sandwiches? They might have had cornbread and syrup, or bread and lard, maybe with a little sugar, or bread and bacon. It was a special treat to have a sandwich with meat in it.

Apart from bearing the lofty distinction as the world's oldest dessert, ashure retains important spiritual significance today across Anatolia, the lands comprising the majority of modern-day Turkey.

Pioneers would dig into the side of a hill, and place some foods like root vegetables, underground. Root vegetables are foods where people eat the part that grows under the ground such as potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions.

The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,000-mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, that was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mid-1800s to emigrate west.

What did people on the Oregon Trail do for fun? ›

Some pioneers would sing, play guitar, or tell stories while sitting around a fire or enjoying their evening mean. A particular enjoyable activity involved seeing new sights and landmarks.

In addition to coffee or tea, breakfast included something warm, such as cornmeal mush, cornmeal cakes (“Johnny Cakes”) or a bowl of rice. There was usually fresh baked bread or biscuits. To bake the bread, the dough was placed in a dutch oven.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, sourdough bread became a staple food for the pioneers and settlers of the American West. The sourdough starter was easy to transport and could be used to make bread on the trail, without the need for commercial yeast.

After a time people started hunting for deer, turkey, ducks and geese. They also were able to fish for cod and flounder and catch lobster and clams. Farmers grew corn, wheat, rice, barley, oats, squash, pumpkins and beans. They had apple and peach trees and blueberry bushes.

Historically, Native peoples used dried huckleberries to provide nourishment throughout the winter, mixing them with meats into “pemmican”—a combination of ground meat, fat and dried berries. Huckleberry plants, including the leaves, stems, flowers, and roots can be used for medicinal purposes.

The meals varied only by incorporating coarsely ground meal cakes, stewed dried apples, preserved small fruits and berries, and potatoes and other root vegetables. But game, fish and wildfowl were abundant in most places, and home gardens, dairy cattle and domestic fowl soon led to a more rounded and appetizing menu.

The usual ration per person was 200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of bacon, 80 pounds of lard, 20 pounds of sugar and ten pounds each of coffee and salt. Bacon was packed in barrels of bran to insulate it. Eggs were also carried, packed in cornmeal – as the eggs were eaten the meal could be turned into cornbread.

Jerky, pemmican, hardtack, and parched corn are ways to put game, livestock, wild berries, and garden produce by in times of plenty. Easily made, transported, and stored, they became frontier staples for travelers, hunters, and warriors. They are still excellent trail foods and emergency rations.