Food

1. My topic is the food on the westward trails 2. The people of the westward expansion What? The food they ate Where? where ever they could. When? whenever they were hungery. Why? becuase they were hungary. How? im not really sure on how they prepared their food or who prepared it. 3.What i wanted to know who? i want to know who prepared the food what? what kind of food did they eat during that time.


 * Research paper :**

Food was a big part of the westward expansion because it helped the settlers get through thier journey and it also kept them nourished. Food was what kept the settlers going. Without it they would not have been able to continue. Thier most disired foods included bread, bacon, and sugar. they had many ways to cook the different foods but sometimes it was difficult.

Bread was key when traveling along the Oregon Trail. ''Baking bread was a daily and necessary activity. Flour was such a critical item on the emigrants' list...'', (www. oregonpioneers.com).They ate bread regularly. Somtimes three times a day. It was very important to the settlers. They would take with them 200 pounds of flour so they wouldn't run out on their journey. They usually took 100 pounds of the other food but bread was so important they took double that amount. Another important food they took along with them was corn. You could just eat the corn or you could use the corn to make mush. (Parched corn and cornmeal scored high on the list of desirable commodities because they were easy to cook with and did not spoil or turn sour). Several emigrants commented on the culinary attributes of this quintessential American grain. According to Peter Burnett, "cornmeal [would keep] to the mountains, and parched corn meal all the way." He found that it [the parched corn] "is most excellent to make soup."(29) S .H. and Clarissa Taylor were even more complimentary. "

Buffalo, though sometimes cause trouble when traveling, make a good meal. There were hundreds they ran into everyday while traveling. The settlers used the buffaloes meat to get their daily nutrients. All animals where a great source of food, but while they ate meat they ate more grain.

A way the settlers ate food without cooking was drying out their food."In addition to the usual dried fruits that everyone carried, dried vegetables also showed up in the provision box. Marcy, in his book The Prairie Traveler, advised his readers to take desiccated or dried vegetables as they had been used successfully by the army. He included this recipe for their preparation: They are prepared by cutting the fresh vegetables into thin slices and subjecting them to a very powerful press, which removes the juice and leaves a solid cake, which, after having been thoroughly dried in an oven becomes almost as hard as a rock. A small piece of this about half the size of a man's hand, when boiled, swells up so as to fill a vegetable dish, and is sufficient for four men.''.

There was also the amount of food you should have." The amount of provisions should be as follows; to each person except infants: 200 pounds of bread stuff (flour and crackers)100 pounds of bacon,12 pounds of coffee,12 pounds of sugar.Each family should also take the following articles in proportions to the number as follows:From 1 to 5 pounds tea From 10 to 50 pounds rice,From 1/2 to 2 bushels beans,From 1/2 to 2 bushels dried fruit ,From 1/2 to 5 pounds saleratus.''

One of the desired foods was bacon. 'Next to bread, bacon was the food most eaten-often on the menu twice a day. Bacon received mixed reviews. Abigail Jane Scott praised it. "A piece of bacon placed between two pieces of bread actually tastes better than the best of cakes and pies at home.''(23) George Curry accepted it as a fact of life. "Life on the plains far surpasses my expectation....Bacon and biscuit may occasionally interfere with his fair[y]dom, [wonderful adventure?] but that only occurs twice a day, and the influence is but momentary."(24) Helen Carpenter groused that it occurred too often on the menu. "But then one does like a change and about the only change we have from bread and bacon is to bacon and bread."(25) Bread dipped into bacon grease was called "hot flour bread."i n his guidebook. Randolph Marcy not only recommended bacon but advised that if traveling in hot climates the bacon should be put in "boxes and surrounded with bran, which in a great measure prevents the fat from melting away."(26) Bacon, because of its high fat content, readily spoiled and was one of the items frequently thrown away. Alonzo Delano graphically described a piece of bacon ready for the trash bin: We discovered that we had been imposed upon in St. Louis in the purchase of our bacon, for it began to exhibit more signs of life than we had bargained for. It became necessary to scrape and smoke it.''(food choices).

Many of todays food were key items when traveling along the trail. Among those included bread, which was eaten more than twice a day and bacon which you ate twice a day. Those were the most favored among the settlers. Drying fruit was also very popular. So what the settlers ate along the trail was very similar to what we eat today. code code Works Cited code //Buffalo on the Oregon Trail//. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. . code code "food of the oregon trail." //food of the oregon trail//. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. code code . code code "food of the westward expansion." //key ingredients//. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. code code . code code //The Melting Pot Ethnic Cuisine//. San Antonio: The University of Texas, 1977. Print. code code "recipies on the oregon trail." //recipies on the oregon trail//. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. code code . code Paraphrase || No quotes or paraphrasing used. || Very few quotes or paraphrases included, no parenthetical references. || Some errors in quoting or paraphrasing and/or a few missing parenthetical references. || Several quotes and paraphrased pieces of information in each body paragraph, all with parenthetical references. || 4 || Be careful with capitalizing
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