60 Authentic Frontier Recipes
Pioneers didn’t have much, but what they did have they made the best of. At first, the settlers favored the customary foods and recipes from their native countries.
But cooking over a wood fire in the hearth of a log cabin fireplace, with limited ingredients, challenged them to develop new approaches to old recipes. Their survival often depended on the advice of indigenous peoples, who knew how to use the bounty of the land.
Pioneer women who had to decide what few precious things to carry across the plains surely made one choice in common—their own individual collection of “receipts,” as recipes were then called. For them, these were reminders of a security left behind and a hope for the abundance of the future. In the interim, they simply did what they had to do to keep their families alive.
For the most part meals were informal and the food hearty. Nothing was wasted. Dried bread was made into bread pudding; a bone was turned into soup and extra milk was made into pudding or cheese. Often there was a shortage of some ingredient. As you will see from the recipes, many are based on very basic ingredients and several on how to make a meal with only a few ingredients. Recipes would not only be for food but also for perfume, home remedies, wine and soap making.
Many early memories of pioneer food concerned the frugality with which the Saints lived: “We lived on cornbread and molasses for the first winter.” “We could not get enough flour for bread … so we could only make it into a thin gruel which we called killy.” “Many times … lunch was dry bread … dipped in water and sprinkled with salt.” “These times we had nothing to waste; we had to make things last as long as we could.
JERKY GRAVY
Jerky, ground or chopped fine
Little Fat or Grease
Flour
Salt & pepper
Milk
Fry the jerky until done.
Remove meat from grease, and add flour.
Add milk, and salt & pepper. Cook gravy. Add meat to gravy.
The amount of each ingredient depends on how much gravy you want.
LEMON PIE
One cup of hot water
One tablespoonful of corn-starch
One cup of white sugar
One tablespoonful of butter
Juice and grated rind of one lemon
Cook for a few minutes; add one egg; bake with a top and bottom crust.
This makes one pie.
PORK CAKE
Half a pound of salt pork chopped fine
two cups of molasses
half pound raisins chopped well
two eggs
two teaspoonful’s each:
clove, allspice and mace,
half a tablespoonful of saleratus or soda,
and flour enough to make a stiff batter.
The oven must not be too hot.
COOKED CABBAGE SALAD
1 Pint or more of chopped cooked cabbage
Add: 1 Egg well beaten
¼ Cup vinegar
1 Tsp butter
Dash of salt and pepper
Sweeten to suit taste. Simmer a few minutes and add ½ cup of thick fresh cream. Serve immediately.
WINTER RED FLANNEL HASH
A great way to use leftover corned beef is to add a few new ingredients and create Red Flannel Hash. Who knows who came up with the beets, but it really is colorful, and sticks to the ribs.
1 ½ Cups chopped corned beef
1 ½ Cups chopped cooked beets
1 Medium onion, chopped
4 Cups chopped cooked potatoes
Chop ingredients separately, then mix together.
Heat all ingredients in a well- greased skillet,
slowly, loosen around the edges, and shake to prevent scorching.
After a nice crust forms on bottom, turn out on a warmed plate and serve.
If it seems a little dry add a little beef broth.
Try with a couple poached eggs, for a hearty meal.
Spiced Corn Beef
To 10 pounds of beef…
take 2 cups salt
2 cups molasses
2 tablespoonful’s saltpeter
1 tablespoonful ground pepper
1 tablespoonful cloves
Rub well into the beef.
Turn every day, and rub the mixture in.
Will be ready for use in 10 days.
1876 Cottage Cheese
Allow milk to form clabber.
Skim off cream once clabbered.
Set clabbered milk on very low heat and cut in 1 inch squares.
Place colander into clabber.
Dip off whey that rises into the colander.
When clabber becomes firm, rinse with cold water.
Squeeze liquid out and press into ball.
Crumble into bowl.
Mix curds with thick cream.
Mormon Johnnycake
Here is a form of cornbread used not only by the Mormon immigrants,
as the name indicates, but quite often by most of the immigrants traveling west.
Because of the inclusion of buttermilk, a source of fresh milk was a necessity.
2-cups of yellow cornmeal
½-cup of flour
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients and mix in
2-cups of buttermilk and 2-tablespoons molasses.
Pour into a greased 9” pan and bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
To get a lighter johnnycake include two beaten eggs
and 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Soda Biscuits
Take 1lb flour, and mix it with enough milk to make a stiff dough;
dissolve 1tsp carbonate of soda in a little milk;
add to dough with a teaspoon of salt.
Work it well together and roll out thin;
cut into round biscuits, and bake them in a moderate oven.
The yolk of an egg is sometimes added.
Vinegar Lemonade
Mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a 12-ounce glass of water.
Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar to taste.
Note: The pioneers used vinegar for numerous reasons.
One reason was to add vitamin C to their diet.
Fried Apples
Fry 4 slices of bacon in a Dutch oven. Remove bacon.
Peel and slice 6 to 8 Granny Smith apples.
Put apples in Dutch oven with bacon grease,
cover and cook down the apples, but not to mush.
Serve topped with butter or cream and crumbled bacon.
They’re great for breakfast or desert!
Dutch Oven Trout
As soon as possible after catching your trout,
clean them and wipe the inside and outside of the trout
with a cloth wet with vinegar water.
Don’t put the trout in the water.
Roll the trout in a mixture of flour,
dry powdered milk,
cornmeal,
salt and pepper.
Heat deep fat in a Dutch oven and fry until crisp and golden brown.
Stuffing For A Turkey
Mix thoroughly a quart of stale bread, very finely grated;
the grated rind of a lemon;
quarter of an ounce of minced parsley and thyme,
one-part thyme, two parts parsley;
and pepper and salt to season.
Add to these one unbeaten egg and half a cup of butter;
mix all well together and moisten with hot water or milk.
Other herbs than parsley or thyme may be used if preferred, and a little onion, finely minced, added if desired.
The proportions given here may be increased when more is required.
Oregon TrailBreakfast
Cornmeal Mush
1 Cup cornmeal
4 Cups boiling water
1 Tablespoon lard
1 Teaspoon salt
Dried currents
Put currents into water and bring to boil. Sprinkle cornmeal into boiling water stirring constantly, adding lard and salt. Cook for about 3 minutes. Pour in bowls and top with milk, butter and molasses.
Corn Dodgers
2 Cups yellow cornmeal
2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Cups milk
1 Teaspoon baking powder
Preheat Dutch oven to 400 degrees F.
Cook cornmeal in a saucepan with butter, salt, sugar and milk until the mixture comes to a boil. Turn off heat, cover, and let stand 5 minutes. Add baking powder. Spoon the mix onto the Dutch oven in heaping tablespoon-size balls, then bake for 10 to 15 minutes. They are done when slightly brown around the edges.
Black Pudding
Here’s an old ranch recipe courtesy of WinkieCrigler, founder and curator of The Little House Museum in Greer, Arizona.
6 Eggs
1 Cup Sweet Milk
2 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Soda
1 Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Cup Molasses
Mix well. Pour into 1-pound can and steam for 2 to 3 hours by placing in kettle of boiling water. Keep covered.
This is to be served with a vinegar sauce:
1 Cup Sugar
1 Tbsp. Butter
1 Tbsp. Flour
2 Tbsp. Vinegar
½ Tsp Nutmeg
Put in enough boiling water for amount of sauce wanted.
Add two slightly beaten eggs and cook stirring constantly to the desired consistency.
How To Fry Quick Doughnuts
The following recipe for doughnuts came from the March 17, 1885 Daily Missoulian. Obviously, anyone making these doughnuts will want to find a substitute for fat as a cooking oil.
Put a frying kettle half full of fat over the fire to heat. Shift together one pound of flour, one teaspoonful each of salt and bicarbonate of soda, and half a saltspoon full of grated nutmeg.
Beat half a pound of butter to a cream and add them to the flour. Beat the yokes of two eggs to a cream, add them to the first-named ingredients, beat the whites to a stiff froth and reserve them.
Mix into the flour and sugar enough sour milk to make a soft dough and then quickly add the whites of the eggs. Roll out the paste at once, shape and fry.
Corn Muffins for Breakfast
Pour one quart of boiling milk over one pint of fine cornmeal. While the mixture is still hot, add one tablespoonful of butter and a little salt, stirring the batter thoroughly.
Let is stand until cool, then add a small cup of wheat flour and two well-beaten eggs.
When mixed sufficiently, put the batter into well-greased shallow tins (or, better yet, into gem pans) and bake in a brick oven for one-half hour, or until richly browned. Serve hot.
Kid Pie
If the kid (goat) is too fat to roast, cut it into pieces and make pies. Make a sauce of cut up perejil (parsley) and put in the pies with a little sweet oil and place it in the oven.
A little before you take it out of the oven beat some eggs with vinegar or orange juice and put into the pie through the holes made in the crust for the steam to escape.
Then return pies to oven for enough time to repeat The Lord’s Prayer three times, then take the pies out and put them before the master of the house, cut it and give it to him.
Potato Pie
Boil one-quarter pound potatoes until soft, then peel them and rub them through a sieve. Add one quart of milk, three teaspoonful’s of melted butter, four beaten eggs, and sugar and nutmeg to taste. Bake as you would a custard pie.
Brown Gravy
The following is a farm recipe for gravy from the late 1880’s.
This gravy may be made in larger quantities, then kept in a stone jar and used as wanted.
Take 2 pounds of beef, and two small slices of lean bacon. Cut the meat into small pieces. Put into a stew-pan a piece of butter the size of an egg, and set over the fire.
Cut two large onions in thin slices. Put them in the butter and fry a light brown, then add the meat. Season with whole peppers.
Salt to taste. Add three cloves, and pour over one cupful of water.
Let it boil fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring it occasionally.
Then add two quarts of water, and simmer very gently for two hours.
Now strain, and when cold, remove all the fat.
To thicken this gravy, put in a stew pan a lump of butter a little larger than an egg, add two teaspoonful’s of flour, and stir until a light brown.
When cold, add it to the strained gravy, and boil up quickly. Serve very hot with the meats.
Slapjack
Take flour, little sugar and water,
mix with or without a little yeast, the latter better if at hand,
mix into paste and fry the same as fritters in clean fat.
Buffalo Jerky
Slice buffalo meat along the grain into strips 1/8-inch-thick, 1/2-inch-wide
and 2 to 3 inches long.
Hang them on a rack in a pan and bake at 200
degrees until dry.
To prepare outside, suspend them over a fire or drape
them on bushes to dry in the sun.
Coffee Roast
Cowboys loved their coffee.
Here’s a recipe where coffee is actually used in cooking a roast.
Cut slits in a 3 to 5-pound brisket. Insert garlic and onion into the slits.
Pour one cup of vinegar over the meat, and work it into the slits.
Marinate for 24 to 48 hours – refrigerated, of course.
Place in a Dutch oven.
Pour 2 cups of strong coffee and 2 cups water over the meat.
Simmer for 4 to 6 hours.
If necessary, add water during the cooking.
Boy in Bag
2 cups raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts (black walnuts are fine)
1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup chopped suet
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 ½ cups milk
1 cup chopped dried fruit of any kind.
Chop suet into small pieces no pieces being larger than a bean.
Combine with raisins, nuts, brown sugar, and chopped dried fruit.
Then mix flour, spices, and salt with baking powder.
Add gradually to fruit mixture with milk, beating well.
Put in flour sack or tie in large square of cloth. Put in kettle of boiling water and boil 3 hours, always keeping enough boiling water, and put on cloth to drain.
After about ½ hour, untie cloth and turn pudding onto dish. Let chill.
Slice and serve with hard sauce.
This pudding will keep well and is similar to plum pudding.
This can be made in camp with molasses instead of brown sugar. Or can be made with white sugar instead of either brown sugar or molasses.
This was a great favorite with chuck wagon cooks.
Tomato Catsup
One gallon skinned tomatoes
three heaping tablespoonful’s of salt
some black pepper
two of allspice
three of ground mustard
half dozen pods of red pepper
Stew all slowly together in a quart of vinegar for three hours.
Strain liquid, and simmer down to half gallon. Bottle hot and cork tight.
Thanksgiving Pudding
Pound 20 crackers fine, add 5 cups milk and let swell.
Beat well 14 eggs
pint sugar
cup molasses
2 small nutmegs
2 TSP ground clove
3 ground cinnamon
2 TSP salt
½ TSP soda.
Add to crackers.
Finally add pint of raisins. Makes two puddings.
Brown Bread
Into 3 ½ cups of boiling water mix:
1 teaspoon each soda, salt and molasses.
Mix in enough graham flour to make a stiff batter.
When the mixture cools down, stir in one pint of light sponge,
made from a cake of compressed yeast.
Put into buttered bread tins, and set in a warm place until very light.
Then bake in a rather quick oven.
This will make two medium sized loaves.
Baked Apple Pudding
3 Large apples, grated
1 cup sugar
1 cube butter
½ cup nuts
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
Beat egg, sugar and butter.
Add apples and mix well.
Add dry ingredients.
Bake 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees.
Serve with cream or a white sauce.
Chicken Recipe(or any other game bird!)
This is a very simple recipe for chicken (when they had them)
or any other game bird, used often by the frontier settlers.
Start with 3 to 4 pounds of foul.
¼ tsp sage
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp basil
¼ tsp coriander
Wash the bird or birds, and pat dry.
Sprinkle cavity with mixed seasoning, except basil.
Place in Dutch oven and sprinkle with basil.
Cover and bake for 4 to 6 hours until tender.
Sourdough Cornbread
Here is a recipe to use some of thesourdough starterwe shared with you previously.
1 cup starter.
Enough cornmeal to make a beatable batter
1 ½ cups milk
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs beaten
¼ cup warm melted butter, or fat
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon soda
Mix starter, cornmeal, milk, eggs and stir thoroughly in large bowl.
Stir in melted butter, salt and soda.
Pour into a 10-inch greased frying pan or Dutch oven,
and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Vinegar Pie
There were two different kinds of vinegar pie, one without eggs cooked as a cobbler in a Dutch oven, and the one below which is a custard pie.
A most important concern for a cook on the trail was to have items, especially for dessert, that do not require perishable items, and can have substitute ingredients. When the cook wanted to make the pie below, and ran out of sugar, he would substitute molasses, honey or syrup.