Meals at the various forts ranged from dull and monotonous, based on the daily ration, to tasty and varied, supplemented with game meat and vegetables from the post gardens. Although some foods were available from the post sutler, they were likely expensive due to the cost of transportation.
Men in the barracks ate at the barrack's dining room, or mess, combining daily rations. Soldiers drew kitchen duty to provide the meals. Officers and their families often had a cook.The laundresses prepared meals in their tents or other housing. It would not have been unusual to see a dutch oven in the same coals that were heating wash water.
The following recipes would have been common in the 1800s.
Rabbit with Cream Gravy
1 1- to 11/2 pound ready to cook, cut up rabbit 1/4 cup all purpose flour 3/4 tsp.salt Dash of pepper 2 TBSP. fat or oil 1 c. chopped onion 1/2 tsp. ground allspice 1/8 tsp. ground cloves 1 bay leaf 1/4 c. water 1 TBSP. vinegar Paprika 1 to 1 1/4 c. milk 2 TBSP. all -purpose flour
Coat rabbit pieces with mixture of 1/4 c. flour, salt and pepper. In skillet, brown meat slowly in hot oil, about 15 minutes. Add onion, allspice, cloves, and bay leaf. Stir in water and vinegar. Cover and simmer until meat is tender, about an hour. Add more water as needed. Remove rabbit to serving plate, sprinkle with paprika. Remove bay leaf from drippings. With remaining ingredients, make gravy. Shake milk and flour together in jar with secure top.Sprinkle in 1/4 tsp. salt, and a dash of pepper. Add to pan drippings, stir until smooth and bubbly. Add additional milk if needed to make gravy of desired consistency. Serve rabbit with gravy.
The spices called for in this recipe may or may not have been available. Wild herbs may have been substituted. Vinegar was a staple. Wild onions might be found, or onions may have been grown in a post garden. Milk might have been available, if one of the laundresses kept a cow. Keeping livestock was not uncommon. The paprika might have been replaced with Tabasco sauce, common for masking the taste and odor of meat that was past it's prime. The rabbit called for in this recipe would have probably been a wild cotton tail or jack rabbit.
Frontier Beans
1 pound dry pinto beans 7 cups cold water 2 pounds smoked ham hocks 1/2 c. chopped onion 6 oz. tomato paste or 1 quart canned tomatoes Chili powder or Tabasco sauce to taste 2 TBSP. sugar
Rinse and sort dry beans thouroughly. Discard any rejects, stones etc. Combine beans and water in kettle or Dutch oven. Bring to boiling, simmer a couple of minutes. Remove from heat. Cover, let stand one hour. Add ham hocks and onion, cook over low heat for an hour. Stir occasionally. Remove ham hocks, remove meat from bones. Cut up meat, return meat to pot, discard bones. Stir in tomatoes, sugar and hot spice. Cover and cook another 30 minutes or longer until beans are tender. If desired, dry beans may be soaked over night before cooking. If so, skip the first boiling and standing step.
Beans were a staple at the forts, and were part of the daily ration. It was not uncommon for the laundress to keep a hog or two. This supplemented the meat ration. If ham hocks were not available, she probably substituted salt pork, which was often part of the daily food ration. The ham bones were probably tossed to one of the many dogs that lived on Laundress Row.
Corn Bread
1 c. cornmeal 1/2 c. all purpose flour 3/4 tsp. salt 1 c. milk 1 egg 2 TBSP. lard, melted
Mix cornmeal, flour, and salt. Add milk, egg, and lard. Beat till smooth. Pour batter into medium sized greased cast iron skillet. Bake in hot coals (or oven, at 425 degrees) until broom straw comes out clean, approximately 15 minutes. Serve with molasses.
Cornmeal, flour and salt were staples. The eggs would have been provided by the ever present chickens kept by the laundresses.