• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Let's Spice It Up

L & R
shop deals on amazon
Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

Alden

Cannon
Joined
May 23, 2008
Messages
6,476
Reaction score
55
Man, I just ate three green peppers, jalepenos I guess, that I had put aside from a salad. And now my tummy hurts. That and this weekend's history afield got me to thinking...

Even a short time with bland or repetitive food can cause what the military calls menu fatigue, when you're more likely to lose weight and/or get sick than eat enough. But a little spice in your life goes a long way towards appetite. That, and preserving food, have changed the course of mankind! A shake of reconstitued dried onion flakes in tuna salad in the 70's. Something new called picante powder an old-timer shared with me on the Appalachian Trail in the 80's. Tabasco Sauce in MRE's in the 90's...

I usually carry small wooden vials of salt and black pepper afield. I even offered some to Dick at a dog-n-pony show I took him to this weekend but he implied he would do without such unnatural, worldly, extravagance. He's just totally full of carp as you'll learn in my Dick at Kwanza some are already waiting for, but...

Rev War, plus or minus a generation, what "spices" are you carrying or otherwise relying on to get you through what simple meals?
 
Black pepper, red pepper & nutmeg. Occasionally cinnamon and ground ginger when in drive-up camp. Dried aromatic vegetables are always in my pack (Onions, green onions, carrots & tomato paste).
 
Standard Carry:

Cayenne Pepper (that I grew)
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Salt
"Raw" sugar
Cider Vinegar

Optional for longer camping:

Onions (sometimes)
Cloves (sometimes)
Cumin (sometimes)

I might take some home made curry powder with me, it just depends on how long I will be camping and if I'm cooking for just me or for others.

LD
 
My camps are always dead simple, as are my foods and spices. I routinely carry salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and a grater, raw or maple sugar.

Can anyone point me to a reference for cayenne or red pepper in the 18th century? Most modern spices show up in the old literature, but I haven't been able to find that one.

Spence
 
In my younger days at a primitive camp, a salt horn and sometimes a little black pepper was packed in my possibles. In later years I wanted food to taste better and didn't care about only having salt and pepper, so I regularly carried: Salt, black pepper, granulated garlic or a fresh clove or two of garlic, cinnamon, cayenne, raw sugar, rubbed sage and way down in the camp store box, a container of Red Devil or later Siracha!

As you can see, this may of been a little extravagant, but to many years of eating bland vittles around a campfire turned me into a Gourmet Mountain Man and never heard any complaints at supper time.

Spence - Most of what I have been told is Cayenne and most hot pepper use came out of Mexico and the Aztecs and migrated north, but I'm sure you knew that.

Rick
 
Thanks to all. I have references to 19th century use, looking for the 1700s. Specifically, in the colonies or the new states. Jamaica pepper is allspice, not a real pepper as we think if it.

Keep 'em coming. :grin:

Spence
 
The bottom link in my post was for "Brazil peppers" and appears to describe a chili pepper. However, the location is unknown.
 
Black Hand said:
The bottom link in my post was for "Brazil peppers" and appears to describe a chili pepper. However, the location is unknown.
Click to expand...
Yes, I saw that several places were mentioned in that reference, and a lot of interesting usage, but none in the colonies at that time that I found.

Thanks.

Spence
 
John Randolph of Williamsburg, Virginia wrote a treatise on vegetables grown in the New World. He referred to "Capsicum." Records kept at Mount Vernon indicate George Washington grew a "cayan" pepper.
 
During the 18th century red pepper was mixed with snuff to boost the inhaled tabacco's kick. Herbalist Philip Miller warned against this , saying that the combination caused " such violent fits of sneezing as to break the blood vessels in the head".

Samuel Thomson
Thomson's book called "New Guide to Health; or Botanic Family Physician" (1822), suggested home-made preparations and contempted for conventional medicine which he regarded to be as very expesive:
One ounce of the emetic herb, two ounces of cayenne, one-half pound bay-berry root bark in powder, one pound poplar bark, one pint of the rheumatic drops. This stock will be sufficient for a family for one year, with such articles as they can easily procure themselves when wanted, and will enable them to cure any disease which a family of common size may be afflicted with during that time. The expenses will be small and much better than to employ a doctor, and have his extravagant bill to pay.
 
I've seen many of those in my wandering around the net, but they are mostly medicinal uses. I like the one by Culpeper, it's getting close, although it's wrong time and place. Even it seems to be recommending putting your medicine on your meat. Did the colonists use it for seasoning even when they were feeling fit and healthy?

Spence
 

Latest posts

Back
Top