Trekking Food

[Bear Rider]

I just tried a variation on pocket soup -- pocket salsa, to go with some of my dried mixed vegetables. It's pretty good, and fits well with my southwestern persona.

I'm working up to a dried version of Texas Red Chili, preferably with cornbread.

 

[coloradoclyde]

An interesting one and one of my favorites is pocket soup aka beef-glue aka portable soup aka glue-broth. Well documented as a trail and traveler's food very early, 1728 by William Byrd in North Carolina.



It's very compact and light weight, adds little to your load, and stays good for a long time. A piece of this as big as a walnut dissolved in 1 pint of boiling water makes a very tasty broth. Simmer some rockahominy and jerky in it and you have a good meal, especially if you liven it up with some red pepper.

For the hard core stitch counters, only, because making it is a long, complicated process.

Spence

Check it out Townsend is on the job
https://youtu.be/X9TV44kHgbY
Pocket soup comes out next week probably

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Yeah they are pretty smart...show folks how to use their 18th century items to make tasty 18th century food, and expand knowledge and market share. Pretty cool approach...

LD

 

[tenngun]

There is a difference between enjoying what one eats and having a full belly. :grin:

In his book, "Travels in the Confederation, 1783-1784", Johann Schoepf mentions that: backwoods men take only salt and cornmeal to eat; for the rest of their food they rely on the wild game they kill. Thus they pass 10 to 20 days in the woods, wander far around; shoot whatever appears, take only the skins, the tongues, and some venison back with them on their horses to their cabins where the meat is smoked & dried.

It's ok if some sort of hunting season is open. Much of our trekking is when you can't hunt, or enough.

 

[satx78247]

I don't know the laws of MO but here in TX rabbits, possums, raccoons, feral pigs & exotics are available to hunt all year.
(All of those animals, properly prepared, are FINE to eat.)

I once took 5 jackrabbits in one 2-hour period & ate quite well off them for 2 days. - Roasted, spitted or stewed, rabbit is tasty & rabbits are truly numerous & easy to collect for the pot.

yours, satx

 

[Sean Gadhar]

rabbit is tasty & rabbits are truly numerous & easy to collect for the pot.

yours, satx

Unless you are counting on HAVEING rabbit. Then they are Scarce as hens teeth. I was "The Great Hunter" as a teen :redface: and took almost no food on a camp (3 or 4 days)

"all I need is my rifle" By the last day, I was ready to eat the stock off that rifle for all the good it had done me!

Take it from me, counting on your rifle for food each day may sound cool, may even work out, but I'd ah paid a lot of money for a bowl of oat meal on that last day. :rotf:

 

[tenngun]

Grew up leary of rabbit tween frost, no jacks here, only cotton tails and I can eat two at a time. I have " lived off the land" taking some game out of season, but was younger and foolish then. Do a lot of my tracking now in state parks.

 

[satx78247]

ImVho, one need NOT be leery of rabbits anytime of year if:
1. You wear rubber gloves to dress them
and
2. You cook them well.

Fwiw, I asked a DVM who hunts with us about eating rabbits AND he said that he always dresses game of all sorts with "dishwashing gloves", so I bought my own pair. - The gloves take up little space in my rucksack.

yours, satx

 

[coloradoclyde]

Grew up leary of rabbit tween frost,

I was raised the same way.
I also carry gloves for dressing everything...paranoid or not it saves on having to wash your hands afterwards.

The one thing everyone seems to overlook about being a hunter/gatherer is the gathering part.
Sometimes you have to take the vegetarian route and forage for wild edibles.

 

[George]

I think of the minor trekking I do as just another part of reenacting, so I try to make the food correct, just like the rest of the gear. !8th-century foods are a favorite part of the whole scene, for me, so I enjoy doing that a lot.

There are many references to the old boys taking parched corn along, some for pocket soup, so they knew to go prepared in case the game was scarce. Doing that today requires a bit of an attitude adjustment, but so does hunting with flintlocks. Wm. Byrd discussed that in 1729:

" The Portable Provisions I would furnish our Foresters withal are Glue-Broth and rockahomini: one contains the Essence of Bread, the other of Meat."

"By what I have said, a Man needs not encumber himself with more than 8 or 10 Pounds of Provisions, tho’ he continue half a year in the Woods.
"These and his Gun will support him very well during that time, without the least danger of keeping a Single Fast. And tho’ some of his days may be what the French call Jours maigres, yet there will happen no more of these than will be necessary for his health, and to carry off the Excesses of the Days of Plenty, when our Travelers will be apt to indulge their Lawless Appetites too much."

Spence

 

[coloradoclyde]

About a week ago I made whole wheat bread from wheat I ground myself in a corona mill. I ran it through 4 times and the sifted out the larger bits ( the germ ends I suppose). I then made bread from it and it fed me for 2 days. I ended up with about a half a cup of siftings .....what to do with these?? :hmm: So I thought cream of wheat. Boiled in water with a touch of sugar and cinnamon and it fed me breakfast 5 more times. All this from 1 pound of wheat, it shows how a little grain can go a long way.

 

[tenngun]

I too try to keep in time, although I have to adapt some foods to my diet. I also find foods of that time tasty and unusual.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

several 'treks' some years back I took woods rabbits with my smooth bore caplock pistol useing #5 shot. fairly common in the South Carolina mts.
squirrel and grouse too. bro possum is game too.

 

[satx78247]

Make mine Br'er Possum w/sweet taters, with a BIG bowl of squirrel stew!
(CHUCKLE)

yours, satx

 

[tenngun]

I enjoy trying recipes from the 18th &19th centuries........but I willingly admit that food is one place I make no qualms about deviating from historical accuracy.
I would rather be well fed and happy on a trek than historically accurate. :grin:

Got to say the old boys could eat well. When on vacation you don't want to eat stuff you don't like, but try out a few old dishs I think you will find them tasty.... And they were made to be cooked in our tin and copper pots :wink:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Agree......enjoy and test with sensible reason.

The woods is no place for digestive issues :grin:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

agreed...the bloody flux is authentic, but not something anybody needs to experience first hand to be a better living historian. :shocked2:

LD

 

[tenngun]

:rotf:

 

[KingofDerby]

When I cook oxtail stew in me slow cooker, it comes out near solid when cool...makes me think oxtail would work well for this.

 

[KingofDerby]

I mean for portable soup, not flux!