Sift the flour into a large bread pan or bowl; make a hole in the middle of it and pour in the yeast in the ratio of a half a teacupful of yeast to two quarts of flour; stir the yeast lightly; then pour in your "wetting," either milk or water, as you choose. If you use water, dissolve in it a bit of butter the size of an egg; if you use milk, no butter is necessary, but the milk must be scalded and cooled before it is added. Stir the "wetting" very lightly, but do not mix all the flour into it; then cover the pan with a thick blanket or towel and set it in a warm place to rise (this is called "putting the bread in sponge"). When the sponge is light, add a teaspoonful of salt and mix all the flour in the pan with the sponge, kneading it well; then let it stand two hours or more until it has risen quite light. Knead it again until the dough is elastic, then form into loaves, place in baking tins, and allow to rise until the bulk is doubled. Bake in a quick oven from forty-five to sixty minutes (the temperature is right when a tablespoonful of flour browns in five minutes).
Mid- nineteenth-century scientists were sharply divided over the comparative nutritional value of yeast bread and bread raised with saleratus--potassium bicarbonate or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Proponents of yeast bread, while admitting that stale yeast or overfermentation produced a sour, unpalatable product, contended that "saleratus and soda in our bread have more to do with the thin bones, rotten teeth and flabby looks of our children--large and small--than many would imagine." Supporters of the opposite position, on the other hand, argued that "a large proportion of the bread in some communities, is scarcely more than an active form of yeast, thrown into the stomach only to produce fermentation and a host of disorders. And then we witness, of course, the blue vapors, which under different aspects, are as ruinous to the welfare and peace of a family as are those of a distillery." In all seriousness this group recommended making bread with weak muriatic (hydrochloric) acid and baking soda.
Wild Rabbit
After cleaning the rabbit, wash it in cold water and hang up to freeze in order to loosen the meat fibers. Soak for a short time in salt water before cooking, to draw out the blood. Cut into pieces, washing each in cold water. Then put pieces in a stew pan filled with water in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Bring to a simmer, remove from the heat, and pour off the water. Put pieces back in the pan, add more water, and stew until the meat is loosened from the bone but not shredded. Then drain, add a little bacon fat, and fry the pieces brown; or bake them for about half an hour. Wild rabbit is best in the fall and winter months.
Beginning in the 1840s, the Platte River route became a major highway for travelers to Oregon and California. One of the first large groups of emigrants to follow that road were the Mormons who spent the winter of 1846-47 at Winter Quarters, now part of north Omaha, in their exodus to the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon women were notable for their resourcefulness, according to a contemporary observer.
They could hardly be called housewives in etymological strictness; but it was plain that they had once been such, and most distinguished ones. Their art availed them in their changed affairs. With almost their entire culinary material limited to the milk of their cows, some store of meal or flour, and a very few condiments, they brought their thousand and one receipts into play with a success that outdid for their families the miracle of the Hebrew widow's cruse. They learned to make butter on a march by the dashing of the wagon, and so nicely to calculate the working of barm in the jolting heats that, as soon after the halt as an oven could be dug in the hillside and heated, their well-kneaded loaf was ready for baking, and produced good leavened bread for supper.
Yeast bread was made by the sponge method, and the "harm"--yeast or starter--might or might not contain commercial yeast powders or compressed yeast.
Beginning in the 1840s, the Platte River route became a major highway for travelers to Oregon and California. One of the first large groups of emigrants to follow that road were the Mormons who spent the winter of 1846-47 at Winter Quarters, now part of north Omaha, in their exodus to the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon women were notable for their resourcefulness, according to a contemporary observer.
They could hardly be called housewives in etymological strictness; but it was plain that they had once been such, and most distinguished ones. Their art availed them in their changed affairs. With almost their entire culinary material limited to the milk of their cows, some store of meal or flour, and a very few condiments, they brought their thousand and one receipts into play with a success that outdid for their families the miracle of the Hebrew widow's cruse. They learned to make butter on a march by the dashing of the wagon, and so nicely to calculate the working of barm in the jolting heats that, as soon after the halt as an oven could be dug in the hillside and heated, their well-kneaded loaf was ready for baking, and produced good leavened bread for supper.
Yeast bread was made by the sponge method, and the "harm"--yeast or starter--might or might not contain commercial yeast powders or compressed yeast.
Pemmican
Combine equal parts of buffalo suet; dried fruit such as cherries, berries, and plums; and dried venison or other game. Add salt if available, and pound the mixture in a bowl or a hollow rock; then form into bricks. Dry in the sun, or near the fire in rainy weather. Pemmican may be eaten as is, by biting off chunks, or bricks may be simmered in water to make a thick soup or stew.
Like the Indians, early white explorers, traders, and missionaries lived largely off the land, carrying only as much of the basic items like flour, sugar, and coffee as their packs could accommodate. Even these were not in their present convenient form. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, refined white sugar was scarce and expensive on the frontier; and when it was available, it was supplied in the form of loaves, or cubes. Brown sugar, much coarser than that we see today, was used extensively, as well as molasses. The flour, unbleached and perhaps unbolted, was subject to an unpleasant rawness (some recipes of the period instruct the cook to dry the flour in front of the fire before using it). Only green coffee was sold, and it had to be roasted and ground before brewing. Salt pork was a frontier staple because it kept almost indefinitely and was easily prepared: after soaking a few hours or over night in fresh water to remove the salt, it was generally fried.
When Fort Atkinson was established in 1820 near present Fort Calhoun as the westernmost outpost of the United States, the regulation daily ration called for three-fourths of a pound of pork or bacon, or one and one-fourth pounds of fresh or salted beef; eighteen ounces of bread or flour, or twelve ounces of hard bread, or one and one-fourth pounds of cornmeal; and one gill of whiskey per man. Two quarts of salt, four quarts of vinegar, and twelve quarts of peas or beans were allotted with every hundred rations. The War Department, apparently influenced by current medical theories, directed that meats were to be "boiled with a view to soup, sometimes roasted or baked, never fried," but from all evidence these eccentric instructions were generally ignored.
Although Fort Atkinson was abandoned after only seven years, agriculturally it was a great success. The abundant crops of corn, beets, cabbages, radishes, parsnips, carrots, and other vegetables, planted in an attempt to see if the post could be made self-sufficient, provoked one military inspector in the mid-1820s to complain irately that "the present system is destroying military spirit and making officers the base overseers of a troop of awkward ploughmen." Along with the hogs and cattle which were also raised at the fort, these provisions were augmented by wild game and wild berries and fruits in season.
Like the Indians, early white explorers, traders, and missionaries lived largely off the land, carrying only as much of the basic items like flour, sugar, and coffee as their packs could accommodate. Even these were not in their present convenient form. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, refined white sugar was scarce and expensive on the frontier; and when it was available, it was supplied in the form of loaves, or cubes. Brown sugar, much coarser than that we see today, was used extensively, as well as molasses. The flour, unbleached and perhaps unbolted, was subject to an unpleasant rawness (some recipes of the period instruct the cook to dry the flour in front of the fire before using it). Only green coffee was sold, and it had to be roasted and ground before brewing. Salt pork was a frontier staple because it kept almost indefinitely and was easily prepared: after soaking a few hours or over night in fresh water to remove the salt, it was generally fried.
When Fort Atkinson was established in 1820 near present Fort Calhoun as the westernmost outpost of the United States, the regulation daily ration called for three-fourths of a pound of pork or bacon, or one and one-fourth pounds of fresh or salted beef; eighteen ounces of bread or flour, or twelve ounces of hard bread, or one and one-fourth pounds of cornmeal; and one gill of whiskey per man. Two quarts of salt, four quarts of vinegar, and twelve quarts of peas or beans were allotted with every hundred rations. The War Department, apparently influenced by current medical theories, directed that meats were to be "boiled with a view to soup, sometimes roasted or baked, never fried," but from all evidence these eccentric instructions were generally ignored.
Although Fort Atkinson was abandoned after only seven years, agriculturally it was a great success. The abundant crops of corn, beets, cabbages, radishes, parsnips, carrots, and other vegetables, planted in an attempt to see if the post could be made self-sufficient, provoked one military inspector in the mid-1820s to complain irately that "the present system is destroying military spirit and making officers the base overseers of a troop of awkward ploughmen." Along with the hogs and cattle which were also raised at the fort, these provisions were augmented by wild game and wild berries and fruits in season.
Oven Temperatures
Very slow: 225-250°
Slow: 275-300°
Moderately slow: 325°
Moderate: 350°
Moderately hot: 375°
Hot: 400-425°
Very hot: 450°
Slow: 275-300°
Moderately slow: 325°
Moderate: 350°
Moderately hot: 375°
Hot: 400-425°
Very hot: 450°
Table of Equivalents
Weights and Measures
A speck equals one-quarter saltspoon.
Four saltspoons equal one teaspoon.
Three teaspoons equal one tablespoon.
Sixteen level tablespoons equal one cup (teacup or coffeecup).
One cup equals eight ounces.
Four tablespoons equal one wineglass.
Two wineglasses equal one gill.
Two gills equal one cup.
Two cups equal one pint.
Two pints equal one quart.
One quart of flour makes one pound.
One pint of sugar makes one pound.
One heaping tablespoonful of flour or sugar makes one ounce.
One pint of soft butter makes one pound.
One pint of finely chopped meat, packed, makes one pound.
Ten average-sized eggs make one pound.
A speck equals one-quarter saltspoon.
Four saltspoons equal one teaspoon.
Three teaspoons equal one tablespoon.
Sixteen level tablespoons equal one cup (teacup or coffeecup).
One cup equals eight ounces.
Four tablespoons equal one wineglass.
Two wineglasses equal one gill.
Two gills equal one cup.
Two cups equal one pint.
Two pints equal one quart.
One quart of flour makes one pound.
One pint of sugar makes one pound.
One heaping tablespoonful of flour or sugar makes one ounce.
One pint of soft butter makes one pound.
One pint of finely chopped meat, packed, makes one pound.
Ten average-sized eggs make one pound.
Spiced Blackberries
One pound of sugar, one pint of vinegar, one teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon, one teaspoonful of allspice, one teaspoonful of cloves, one teaspoonful of nutmeg.
Boil all together gently fifteen minutes, then add four quarts of blackberries, and scald (not boil) ten minutes more. The spice can be omitted if preferred. These are excellent for children in case of summer complaint, and where blackberries are abundant every family should have a plentiful supply.
Boil all together gently fifteen minutes, then add four quarts of blackberries, and scald (not boil) ten minutes more. The spice can be omitted if preferred. These are excellent for children in case of summer complaint, and where blackberries are abundant every family should have a plentiful supply.
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