Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail [Hardcover]

Jacqueline Williams (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pioneers along the Oregon Trail in the mid-to-late 19th century not only traveled stoically, risked their lives, spent their savings and suffered, but cooked and ate as well. "Simply surviving the trip was not the only goal," Williams ( Lowfat American Favorites ) notes. "Food was a primary way of providing some pleasure and variety during the endless days of riding and walking." Her culinary history of an essential episode of the American story calls for its facts on diaries and letters written by the voyagers, newspapers and magazines of the era and period cookbooks. The result of research is a dutiful chronicle distinguished more by the information imparted than by much verve in the telling. How, let us say, did boudin blanc come to be cooked by travelers on the Trail? It was "an ancient recipe for sausages" made new, based on buffalo cow meat killed fresh while the settlers were en route. (Williams supplies the complete recipe, seductively archaic: cooks are instructed to make "love to" the "lower extremity of the large gut of the Buffaloe" with "forefinger and thumb" maneuvering the gut to keep what is needed and eject what is not.) Faithful readers will find lore like this interspersed with rather dull prose.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Pioneer temperaments, Jacqueline Williams shows, were greatly influenced by that which was stewable, bakable, broilable, and boilable. Using travelers' diaries, letters, newspaper advertisements, and nineteenth-century cookbooks, Williams re-creates the highs and lows of cooking and eating on the Oregon Trail. She investigates the mundane--biscuits and bacon, mush and coffee--as well as the unexpected--carbonated soda made from bubbling spring water; ice cream created from milk, snow, and peppermint; fresh fruits and vegetables.

Understanding what and how the pioneers ate, Williams demonstrates, is essential to understanding how they lived and survived--and sometimes died--on the trail.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas; First Edition edition (August 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700606092
• ISBN-13: 978-0700606092
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,005,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy Trials., May 14, 2002

By	claudia Talbert (Richmond) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail (Paperback)

Good read for those interested in how their ancestors ate -- especially if it is known one of them was among those who went west using this paticular route. Highly recommended.