1. Dried Meat

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By Tricia Drevets 6 Comments ✓ This post may contain affiliate links*

In order to survive the Oregon Trail, American pioneers learned to rely on foods that meet the most basic requirements. They needed to be easy to grow or find, easy to store or carry, and calorically dense.

A typical pioneer diet relied heavily on dried meat and game, flour, cornmeal, rice, beans, and dried corn. If you were lucky, you were able to bring a cow or a few chickens along with you on your journey. Then you could occasionally indulge in eggs, milk, and butter.

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However, many of these animals did not survive the long, treacherous journey. As a successful pioneer, you learned to take advantage of fresh fish and game whenever could. You would add to your menu with wild berries and vegetables and preserve any surplus for the winter.

You would parcel our sugar, salt, and other spices with care since they were usually in short supply. Generally, you would wash your meals down with water or coffee. On the trail, pioneers would roast raw coffee beans in a skillet over the campfire and then grind them.

Once pioneers settled into their new homes, they were quick to plant gardens and build root cellars. They made their own cornmeal and wheat flour, used lard for baking and cooking, and invented new recipes to make better use of the foods available.

Here are some of the pioneer foods that Americans will return to eating if modern conveniences falter in a crisis.

Travelers on the Oregon Trail brought along as much bacon as they could carry. They ate bacon for breakfast, and they mixed it in with beans for lunch and dinner. Bacon also worked as a protein-packed snack food.

As they traveled, pioneers replaced their supply of bacon with dried buffalo and dried venison. They preserved their meat with smoke curing or salt curing.

Pioneers departed on their westward journey with large stores of flour. Whenever they stopped to rest along the way, they would make bread, often using the “salt-rising” method. Since they didn’t have yeast, the pioneers would bake the dough in a campfire kettle overnight, allowing natural bacteria to make it rise.

When they were settled, pioneers used home-grown wheat and corn to make their own flour. They often made biscuits made with cornmeal, and a common breakfast consisted of cornmeal mush. Although it was only a mixture of cornmeal and water and didn’t offer too much flavor, the mush was filling and warm.

The pioneers used dried corn to make dried cakes and dried biscuits that would travel and store well.

Rice was a popular item along the Oregon Trail since it was easy to store and carry. Pioneer cooks would mix rice in with beans, vegetables, meat, and fish in large batches in a kettle over a campfire or fireplace.

In a guide that he wrote for pioneers, Joel Palmer, who traveled the Oregon Trail in 1845, advised westward travelers to pack 10 pounds of rice per person for the trip.

Speaking of rice and beans, dried beans were an essential food item in a pioneer pantry. They were easy to cook and store and provided a good source of protein.

Fresh fruit was a luxury along the Oregon Trail and again when pioneers reached their destination. To make a fresh fruit harvest last as long as possible, pioneers would dry sliced fruit sections out in the sun. Dried fruit had a long shelf life and provided energy and nutrition in the winter months.

Pioneer cooks made the most of leftovers by making soups and stews. They would toss in bones, bits of meats, vegetable peels and ends and whatever else was available to make a warm, nourishing meal. Stew meat might consist of rabbit, squirrel, or other small game that they hunted along the trail or at a rest stop.

Once they got settled, pioneers were quick to plant root vegetables. Potatoes and turnips were favorites of pioneers because they stayed fresh for a long time. Beets, carrots, and onions were also popular. Pioneers would store their root vegetables underground, often digging into the side of a hill for their root cellar.

Pioneers sometimes found pumpkins and other squashes growing in the wild as they traveled west. They used these seeds to plant their own squash when they were settled, often mashing them to make cakes, pies, and breads.

Running out of food was a real concern for pioneers, and those who made the journey west without proper provisions often became malnourished and sick.

Edwin Bryant, who traveled from Arkansas to California in 1849, recommended the following list of foods for each traveler. His advice was published in the Arkansas Gazette in an article titled “Information for California Emigrants.”

Newton G. Finley, who journeyed from Missouri to San Jose, California in 1852, shared in the same article his food supply list. It included “pots with bails or handles attached and large Dutch ovens for baking bread, as well as cornmeal, flour, buckwheat flour, ham, bacon, sausages, dried beef, beans, peas, potatoes, rice, coffee, tea, sugar, honey, syrup, milk, butter, dried fruits, apples (green), walnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, etc.”

When they began their journeys, many pioneers failed to conserve their supplies and wasted valuable leftovers. Peter H. Burnett, who emigrated from Missouri to Oregon in 1843, wrote, “Our emigrants, on the first portion of the trip, were about as wasteful of their provisions as if they had been at home. When portions of bread were left over, they were thrown away; and, when anyone came to their tents, he was invited to eat.”

What can we learn from what the pioneers ate? Preparation and planning are the keys to survival—whether it is for a long journey or a disaster situation. If you’d like to read more about what the pioneers ate, here are a few resources.

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Filed Under: Food, Misc, SHTF, Survival Food

Jackie says

August 8, 2020 at 1:33 pm

You mentioned articles by:
Edwin Bryant, who traveled from Arkansas to California in 1849
Newton G. Finley, who journeyed from Missouri to San Jose, California in 1852, and
Peter H. Burnett, who emigrated from Missouri to Oregon in 1843

Do you have copies of those specific articles you could share? I would love to read them in their entirety.

Elbert Jones says

July 8, 2020 at 7:26 pm

I am surprised you did not list HARDTACK .

Mary says

January 3, 2020 at 12:01 pm

Author of article…
Most folks would make their own yeast…that’s what sour dough was used for…

Patrick B says

January 3, 2020 at 10:07 am

Great article! Luckily, we are now stationary and don’t have to travel with our wares. Be it the pantry, that list can still go far as food storage goes for an emergency. I know my focus this year will be calorie dense and nutrient dense foods. So, it will be squash/potatoes and root veggies for me this year. Cheers, The BreakAway Homesteader

Survivormann99 says

January 2, 2020 at 7:54 am

About that fellow’s recommendation concerning the amount of food to take on the Oregon Trail, I checked a couple of web sites. One said that it took 4 1/2 months to travel the Oregon Trail. Another said 5-6 months.

For simplicity purposes, if I choose 5 months, which is to say, approximately 150 days, that means that each traveler was encouraged to take for EACH DAY, 1 lb. of meat, 1 lb. of bacon, 1 lb. of coffee, 1 lb. of sugar, 1/3 lb. of crackers, 1/3 lb. of dried fruit, plus an unspecified amount of rice, lard, and salt. This seems to be an extraordinary amount of food per day.

The only thing that comes to mind is that the person who recommended these amounts wasn’t simply recommending those amounts for use on the trail, itself, but for the period after they arrived, which would ordinarily be just before winter set in. Nothing else makes sense.

Mary says

January 3, 2020 at 11:59 am

Survivormann99,
Yup, they had to supply for their first winter at their new place too… As they most likely carried seeds for planting with them as well as maybe the single plow that their mules would be attached to (or they could have bought one as soon as they settled in for their first spring).

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