Originally posted at Pioneer Cooking

Introduction
    Like any other task on the Minnesota frontier, cooking was no easy thing to do.  Supplies were limited, preservation methods primitive to say the least, and the convenience of the modern day appliance would not be available for some time.  Women often passed on to each other secrets that they learned while making meals to their neighbors, and with the advent of the stove came the first cookbooks.  Women took pride in their accomplishments in the kitchen and with good reason too -- cooking food and finding ways to preserve it meant the survival of the family.

Important Types of Food on the Frontier
    Without a large supermarket to go to, the pioneer woman generally had to get all the food for the family's meal from their own farm.  Livestock that was raised was slaughtered for meat, or wild game was hunted.  Bread was one of the most important food items in the pioneer household (Kreidberg, 37).  Even if it was hard to come by wheat because of a bad harvest, women improvised in many ways so they could still set a loaf of bread on the table.  Eggs were provided either from neighboring farms or from their own chickens, and milk was also either bought at neighboring farms, or more commonly supplied by the family cow.  Finally, fruits and vegetables were grown in a kitchen garden next to the house (Kreidberg, 77).

Basic Ways Pioneer Women Preserved Food

    There were many different ways that women learned to preserve food so the family would be sure to have an ample supply to last them through the winter.  These included salting, pickling, smoking, drying, and canning foods.  With no refrigeration or modern day preservatives, it was necessary to learn how to do these things in order for the family to have meat and vegetables throughout the winter when they were no longer available.  Women figured out ingenious methods to preserve whatever they had, and often used whatever supplies they had available.  For example, modern day methods of canning were not available, so they often had to try and make a seal simply by putting wax around the rim of the jar (Kreidberg, 79).  Food preservation was of central importance to the survival of the early Minnesota pioneer.

The Cookstove:  Making Life Easier for Pioneer Women
    If they were lucky enough, most pioneer women were able to get their hands on a cookstove for around 23 dollars in the 1850's (Kreidberg, 149).  The cookstove made cooking much easier for women, and it also provided some much desired variety in the types of food that could be prepared.  It was also just more pleasant in general to not have to use an open fire and hearth to cook all the food for the family's meals.

Some Sample Recipes
-taken from the book Food on the Frontier:  Minnesota Cooking from 1850-1900 With Selected Recipes.

    Vienna Bread
    Sift in a tin pan four pounds of flour, bank up against the sides, pour in one quart of warm milk and water, mix into it enough flour to form a thin batter.  Then quickly and lightly add one pint of milk, in which is dissolved one ounce of salt, one ounce of compressed yeast -- leave the remainder of the flour against the sides of the pan, cover the pan with a cloth, set in a place free from draught, for three-quarters of an hour.  Then mix; the rest of the flour, with the dough, will leave the bottom and sides of the pan; let it stand two and one-half hours, finally divide the mass into one-pound pieces, to be cut in turn, into twelve parts each; rise one half-hour, bake ten minutes in a hot oven.  -From the Dayton Presbyterian Church Cookbook

    Norwegian Soup
    One large cup sago, one pound raisins, one pound currants, one pound best prunes, one tablespoon vinegar, pinch salt and several cinnamon sticks.  Water to make like thick sauce; cook several hours; sugar to taste.  Thin at the last with one pint good red wine; take out cinnamon sticks; keep thinned with water.  -From Marshall Ladies' Choicest and Best.

    Sweet-Sour Sauce for Boiled Tongue
    5 gingersnaps                4tbsp vinegar
    1/2 cup brown sugar    1 cup hot water

    Crush gingersnaps, and mix with other ingredients.  Cook until smooth.  Then add 1 sliced lemon; 1/4 cup raisins, sliced almonds.  Serve over tongue that has been boiled and sliced.  Makes 1 1/2 cups.  -From Bertha L. Heilbron Collection

    Brunswick Stew
    2 large squirrels                        1 qt. tomatoes
    1 pt. lima or butter-beans         6 potatoes
    6 ears corn                               1/2 lb. fat salt pork
    1/2 tsp. pepper                        1/2 lb. butter
    1/2 saltspoon cayenne               1 tbsp. salt
    2 tsp. white pepper                   1 onion
                                                    1 gal. water

    Boil together salt and water, add the onion, herbs, beans, corn cut from the cob, diced pork, pepper and let come to a boil, cut the squirrels in joints and wash them clean, add to the stew as soon as it boils.  Cut the potatoes in slices and parboil them, put them into the stew with the tomatoes and sugar about an hour before it is done.  Ten minutes before taking form the fire add the butter cut in bits and rolled in flour taste to adjust the seasoning and serve in soup plates.  -From New Cook Book