Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the Early 1800s [Paperback]

Leandra Zim Holland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2003

What did the Lewis and Clark Expedition live on? Fresh bison on the High Plains, dried salmon in Columbia River country, dog and horse when necessary, vegetables offered by Indian hosts, portable soup, and salt pork carried from Philadelphia.

Leandra Holland’s narrative about what the expedition members ate on their journey makes this book a rich treat as well as a solid reference for historians, researchers, and re-enactors.

Extensive illustrations and a sprinkling of authentic recipes help to trace the expedition’s daily life, their food preparation, and their preservation and storage methods.

A detailed index, separate recipe and menu index, and item-by-item appendices of food groups further assist food lovers and Lewis and Clark buffs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A remarkable soup to nuts answer ... Devour this book and keep it handy as an excellent reference guide. -- Stephanie Ambrose Tubbs, author.

The kind of work on Lewis and Clark foods and nutrition that has been needed for a long time. -- Joe Mussulman, PhD, Editor: Lewis-Clark.org

You have a gem embodied in this book...great piece of research ... It will add valuable information ... unavailable anywhere else -- Robert Moore, Historian, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial ("the Arch"), St. Louis

About the Author

Leandra Zim Holland is recognized as an accomplished writer on the subject of food, food and travel, and food history. She has researched the early food history of the Yellowstone Area and has become a nationally recognized expert on the food and social history of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

After a B.A. from UCLA, her graduate studies were in Library Science and Russian History at USC and UC-San Diego. She has lived in California, Connecticut, Florida, Arizona, and Montana, with a three-year stint in Australia. Her diverse residences and travel in more than 55 countries have stimulated her curiosity in the mixture of food and culture in many varying locales. Her summer address in Montana has been just north of Yellowstone.

Leandra's work included restaurant reviews, cultural, and historic food articles, and two featured cover articles in the Journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, We Proceeded On. Her authoritative research gained her the title of "the Food Lady" in regard to Lewis & Clark issues. and culminated in the December, 2003, publication of her authoritative book on the subject, Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of th Early 1800s.

In connection with the book, she arranged and prepared authentic Lewis & Clark historic dinners along the trail. When Time Magazine was developing their July 8, 2002, special issue on Lewis and Clark, they turned to Leandra to plan and execute a re-creation of a Lewis & Clark cookout, stream-side on the Gallatin River.

In addition to writing, she has been a frequent speaker and an ATM-Gold recipient of Toastmasters International. Over the past few years she delivered more than a dozen major addresses on aspects of the food and social history of the Lewis & Clark years including featured addresses to the National Association of Interpreters, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation's annual meeting, and the National Park Service's Lewis and Clark Symposium in St. Louis.

As her book was going to press, on October 4, 2003, Leandra died tragically from injuries received in a vehicle accident. Her husband, Chuck – a supporter of her work for forty years – is continuing her work.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Old Yellowstone Publishing (December 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159152010X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591520108
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,286,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Big, beautiful book, June 14, 2007

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the Early 1800s (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book: large format, well-illustrated in both black and white and color, and a veritable feast of information on what the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition ate and how they cooked it.

The book begins with several chapters about 1800 technology for hunting, cooking, preserving food, nutritional illnesses, and L and C's organization of the messes to keep their 32 men fed daily. It then proceeds onward to describe the expedition, always in terms of what the men ate from day to day and how it was cooked. There were the good times when they feasted on buffalo [...] and the bad times when they had little at all. There is much here about Indian foods, recipes (which usually include bear fat -- also useful for repelling mosquitos), salmon fishing, salt, and the infirmities the men of the expedition suffered as a result of their diet, excesses, and shortages of food.

A third section goes into the foods, meals, and menus of the expedition. It lists the animals killed by the members of the expedition, especially by George Drouillard, a half-breed Indian hunter: 1048 deer, 259 buffalo, 193 Indian dogs, and everything else including one lonely fox. They liked beaver tail and buffalo [...]-- and didn't like pronghorn. All together they ate six pounds of meat per day per man. Menus of their feasts with Indian tribes are included: Teton Sioux, September 26, 1804, "Cooked dog -- the Sioux like theirs raw -- Pemmican, ground potato (good)."

The detail in this book is astonishing; a million little facts about food along the way enliven the text -- a brief passage asks whether L and C ate candles in desperation and another describes the "Pawpaw malady" that mysteriously caused illness among their men. If you are interested in Lewis and Clark, food, cooking, Indians, edible plants, hunting or the early West this is a superb book.

Smallchief

5.0 out of 5 stars the foundation of the expedition, June 11, 2007

By 

J. R. Caster (bethel park PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the Early 1800s (Paperback)

I bought this book at the Charlie Russell Museum in Great Falls while on vacation and ended up reading it every night before bed. Even if you dont like history or know nothing of L@C you will find tons of interesting facts on nutrition, health, survival. Truly a must for American history fans. It really completes the L@C story.