A Brief History of the American Breakfast

Definitions:

Breakfast: Literally, to "break fast". Fasting from Supper of one day to noon the next day. An edict of the Catholic Church given in 1300's so as to avoid the deadly sin of "gluttony".

Pork: Meat from the pig/swine. Not native to the Western Hemisphere and Australia. Brought to Mexico, Central and South America by the Spanish and to America by John Smith and the first Colony at Jamestown.

Amish: Followers, but separate sect, of the Mennonite Christians founded in the 1500's during the Reformation.

Grits: A native American preparation of coarse ground kernels of Corn modified over the years primarily in the Southern States.

Hash: Left-over meats of Beef and sometimes Pork Run through a grinder, mixed with chopped onions, green peppers, salt and pepper; Fried and served with a poached egg.

Black Pudding: The congealed (thickened) blood from pigs and cows, mixed with chopped bits of the meats and fat and run through a meat grinder into a pan of prepared chopped onions, green peppers, oatmeal, bread and potato bit to add stiffness to the blood. It is then stuffed into the intestine, sausage like.

Trencher: 1. A large square, wood platter, characterized by a trench, cut near the edge of the platter on all four sides. It collects the juices of the carved meats and vegetables.

2. Smaller versions of the platter used as plates during the middle-ages.

Trencherman: A person with a big appetite.

If one was looking for an interesting subject to write about, you would probably not choose breakfast, and certainly, I was one of those. But for the past month of research I found breakfast one of the most fascinating subjects I could have chosen.

My routine, since childhood was simple enough; normal you might say.
I had hot oatmeal, cream of wheat, malt O meal and cornmeal, during the winter months and various cold cereals like cheerios, kix, corn flakes etc, during the summer.
On Sunday my mom would whip up things like Hot cakes with bacon and eggs and even the occasional eggs benedict or Hash with the poached egg on top. But I never gave a thought to how it all came about, it was just...well...normal.

My first thought in writing about this subject was to find out what the ancients were eating in the mornings and so I began with Egypt and the fact that the written word probably begins there for Western Civilization at about 4000 BC. Surprisingly there wasn't much to learn there for it seems the primary "start the day" meal for all of those early civilizations was various forms of bread dipped in wine or lacking that, in flavored water (tea) and a little later Kafe (coffee).

Fast forward to Rome at about 2500-2000 BC. Breakfast was not something people did  as a  routine so the mid-day meal was usually the first formal meal of the day. However, Rye bread dipped in wine was mentioned as breakfast food.

At the time of Christ, fish was also mentioned but not as a daily routine. We assume then that Bread was probably the main Breakfast food with wine, of course, and possibly cheese.

During the middle ages, the Catholic Church issued a ban on eating breakfast so as not to commit the deadly sin of "gluttony" And the Noblemen and Royal's of that era considered eating in the morning a sign of weakness. But a Ray of sanity was just over the  horizon and begins with the repelling of the Catholic Church by Martin Luther.
 He had been a Jesuit priest and objected to many things the Pope in Rome stood for. The inquisition being one of them. Other reformers appeared such as John Calvin and Menno Simons, the founder of the Mennonites. and it was the Mennonite and later the Amish who agreed that breaking fast at mid-day was a good idea if you didn't have any work to do, such as being a Friar or Monk or Priest.

But for the farming lifestyle of the Amish which was to get up at 4 in the morning to milk cows, clean stalls, gather eggs, feed the stock and have it all done before 6am when they decided that the thing to do was break- fast at that time of the morning. The break-fast was a big meal because it had to restore calories already used in morning chores, but last the until the noon meal as well ,with much work being accomplished along the way.

The Amish break-fast was something like this: Homemade oatmeal mush with fresh milk, pancakes, eggs and both bacon and sausage with bread and fresh butter. All washed down with fresh milk.

When word spread throughout Europe about the Amish eating habits, perpetually hungry peasants got in the act and spelled the death knell of the Gluttony laws. So the large morning meal now called breakfast, one word, was accepted as the norm.

Earlier than the Reformation, in England, King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and he also decided that the dietary edict should be abandoned and so it was.
Henry was well know to be a great trencherman and indeed he was, so much so that since he didn't work (like the Amish) he became obese and died that way. But the stage was set, or table if you prefer, for the full English Breakfast, it was: Back or side meat (bacon) Sausage, eggs, baked beans, black pudding and bread washed down with Beer.
And it was the full English breakfast that came to America by the first Colonists.

On arrival at Jamestown the first Colonists ran into something that would change the dietary habits of nearly the entire world. It was corn, cultivated and eaten by the Native Americans.

While the Spanish had known about corn long before the arrival the British Colonists, they didn't really care much for it and since there was no mention of it in the Catholic Bible it was pretty much relegated to something the heathen Indians ate.
  
The Native American use of dried corn kernels, mashed into a coarse flour like substance, had immediate impact on the new arrivals and cornmeal mush was probably the first use of this new vegetable.

But in addition, the Colonists and subsequent shiploads of supplies and more settlers, brought with them, egg laying chickens that were domesticated, pigs, and potatoes and the great American breakfast was now in place. Somewhere along the line, black pudding and baked beans were eliminated from breakfast.

The breakfast of bacon or sausage, fried or scrambled eggs, hash browns and served up with toast and coffee. is the great breakfast unique to America.

In the Southern States, grits are substituted for hash browns.

Dad.








        
                          

Chuck Wagon

Definitions:

Chuck: Cowboy slang for food.
                  
Chuck Wagon: The Studebaker Wagon; A smaller version of the famous Conestoga "Prairie Schooner".
               
Cookie: The cook and most times, second in command of a trail drive.
               
Possum Belly: A length of canvas attached to the underside of the Chuck Wagon. Used to store dry wood.
                   
Tail: The modified Tailgate on the back of the Chuck wagon.
               
Dutch Oven: A three sided iron box with a hinged door on the open side.

The Chuck wagon was invented by Charles Goodnight, a Texas Rancher in 1866.
He bought a surplus Studebaker wagon from the Army and then modified (change to make better) it to make it useful to a Trail Drive. The benefit of that particular wagon was that it had Iron axels and iron reinforced wheels thus eliminating breakdowns on the trail.
He had a large box made that had drawers and cupboards built in and attached it to the back of the wagon and added a long tailgate with hinged legs that when the tail was opened the legs automatically swung down and you now had a work table.

He also removed the rounded bows that held the canvas top and squared them off then added a looser canvas that could catch rainwater during the storms they would encounter during the drive. That water was then transferred to the water barrels, one on each side of the wagon - necessary to keep the load balanced.

In addition, he also added three rods of rolled up canvas to each top side and one on the back top. They could be rolled out to protect from the sun, rain and sometimes dust. they also provided shelter for the cowboys trying to eat in a rainstorm and also from the hard sun. A small fire could also be started and be protected from the elements. Very important to a wet and weary cowboy coming in from night watch to have a hot cup of coffee waiting for him.

The work space at the rear of the wagon became known as simply, 'the tail' and it was the domain of cookie and no cowboy or even the trail boss would ever interfere or even touch anything without checking with cookie and getting permission, rarely given.

On the day the drive left on its Start day, the Chuck wagon would lead off and quickly leave the herd behind. A scout assigned to ride ahead would find the evenings stop near water, and then ride back and let cookie know where to stop.

On arrival, cookie would locate the wagon near the water and get the firewood gathered up, and the beans and coffee water properly hung from iron tripods. He would then, using the tail as his work counter, cut up the bacon, get the biscuits mixed up, formed and laid out on pans and ready for the dutch oven. (When coals were available the oven was set upon them and the trays of biscuits were then baked.) When they were ready to eat they were removed to large pans and set on the tail, covered with a used flour sack. The cowboys would serve themselves.

By the time the herd arrived the cowboys got them watered and then settled on graze and the food was now ready. Beans, Bacon, Biscuits and coffee with the occasional dried apple pie for dessert, a luxury unknown before the advent of the Chuck wagon.
While the cowboys were occupied with their food the cook would gather dry wood to fill the possum belly, ensure the water barrels were topped off and the mules chosen from the Remuda for the next days drive.

Before there was such a thing as the Chuck wagon, cowboys carried saddle bags.
They filled them with the bare necessities: a clean shirt, socks, a pair of spare jeans, a box of ammo and two or three slabs of bacon, a bag of beans, and flour, salt, baking soda and Coffee. Sometimes, for sweetener a bit of molasses.

Pack horses carried things like ground sheets, blankets, spare ammo and additional rifles. Also the tripods, pots and pans. The dutch oven was not carried due to its size and weight. All cowboys carried a quart canteen for water, sometimes two. Additional water, in canteens or water bags, were added to the pack horses or mules.

Mules were hard to come by due to so many killed in the Civil War so Pack Horses were in general use. All of the pack horse items were transferred to the Chuck wagon after 1866. On some the monster drives of 5000 plus steers, an extra wagon was added to carry water, barrels of flour, bags of salt and dried apples, and all of the cooking utensils and other needed supplies. But it was the Studebaker Wagon with its iron axles, small size and stout construction that made these drives possible.

Dad.

Cowboy Beans

Before we get to the Beans the subject of
Bacon has to be part of the conversation.

Definitions:
Cured: preserved meat or fish by means of smoking, drying, salting, or pickling until cooked without using fire directly applied to the meats or fish.

Back Meat: the sides and back of the pig.
     
Bacon: 1) From Boucan; A part of the frame used in smoking and/or drying meat/fish.
             2) Back meat salted and smoked until cured

Remuda: A small herd of horses that are saddle ready and from which cowboys choose the horse they will use that day. From the Spanish "to change horses."

The word bacon became the more widely used term thanks to shipwrecked sailors who made their way to various Caribbean islands and since live pigs were carried on ships for food, they too made it shore. Ultimately the pigs were slaughtered, then smoked and cured and traded to passing ships for the things needed for further survival.

The phrase "back meat" was the common usage for most Europeans and of course those men and women who settled in America.

However, it is easy to see why the word bacon became the more popular name if you just imagine yourself in Texas in the post Civil War years and you walk into a Café and order back meat and eggs over easy; no telling what you might be served.

The Beans: Cowboy Beans were usually Pinto beans but red beans and navy beans were also in use during those early days of the Western Frontier.

There were two ways the cowboy had his beans:

If you were a loner and just drifting, you would stop near a creek (if you were from East of the Mississippi) or crick (if you were raised West of the Mississippi). The loner would wash a double handful of beans in the crick and toss them into a pot of boiling water and when tender he would drain most of the water, add the drippings from the bacon he'd already fried and let that cook a bit more then add the now bacon flavored beans to the pan of bacon and eat his dinner. Sometimes he even had some fresh biscuits cooked in a dutch oven or fried bread if not.

The trail drive beans were prepared a little differently: At the beginning of the drive the chuck wagon cook would put about ten pounds or so of beans into a sealable pot or jar and let it soak for the day. When the drive would stop for the night those beans were removed after draining out the water into another pot.(Water was never wasted on these drives but given to the Remuda horses during dry times. Since there were often 5000 head of cattle in the drive it was impossible to water them so if water was within ten miles of the drive after one of these dry camps, the cattle would pick up the smell and stampede toward that water ). Then fresh water was poured over the pot of soaked beans, and added to the pot were wild onions and sometimes dried chili peppers and tomatoes.

A portable iron tripod was then erected over the fire pit and the pot of beans hung over the fire and boiled until tender and most of the water boiled away leaving a nice, slightly thickened, sauce with beans. While the cowboys were eating, the cook would then get the sealable pot readied with fresh beans and water and put aside to be used at the next days stop.

This routine never varied but was sometimes delayed by Indian or Outlaw attacks, Stampedes, or lack of water and dry camp was necessary. More about that in a future Post entitled "The Chuck Wagon."
Dad

Frontier Cooking

Definitions:

Frontier: The border between settled and unsettled lands.

Great Appalachian Mountains: The mountain range East of the Mississippi River; it includes the Great Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland Mountains. They run North and South.

Cumberland Gap: The gap in the Cumberland Mountains that allowed heavy wagons laden with trade goods and people through the Mountain range and was the primary means by which the frontier further expanded West.

Much has been written about that time, including the exploits of Daniel Boone and his exploration and adventures in Ohio, where he lived, but the Frontier I want to talk about is the Post Civil War era. "The old West", especially the campfire cooking used by the honest man and outlaw alike.

What they all had in common, and had the added benefit of fitting easily in Saddle Bags was coffee, beans, bacon and flour for biscuits.

This article will start with the coffee.

Prior to Arbuckle Coffee, which was introduced in 1864, the roasting of coffee beans was so erratic that coffee beans were sold green and the buyer had to do the roasting. Just one burnt bean would spoil the whole batch.

John Arbuckle invented a way to consistently roast the beans so that none of them burned or became over-roasted. He then packaged whole beans in one pound bags and sold them. So wildly successful were these beans that at one point he was roasting over 800,000 pounds of beans a year, just to keep up with the demand.

He also patented a "glaze" that was sprayed on the roasted beans that kept them fresh until used and his Brand called Arioso Became known as "cowboy coffee". Today's production also includes Arioso ground coffee, decaf whole beans and decaf ground coffee.

Early coffee was not ground, more accurate is that it was crushed. A handful of beans placed in middle of a square of clothe, folded up into a sort of flat bag, a rock or butt of a revolver was then applied. The crushed result was added to a pot of boiling water and made so strong that in cowboy slang the coffee was only drinkable if it was strong enough to float a horseshoe.

You can still grind your own coffee with an electric coffee grinder or a manual coffee grinder. While the manual grinder can be a little labor intensive, it is well worth having when on a camping trip or when without power, as our early cowboys lived daily.

more to come.

More about Soup

The oldest food prepared by Homo Sapiens was probably meat cooked over an open fire. But I'll bet that not far behind was a good bowl of soup.

Recently, in China, while excavating for an airport, a bronze cooking pot, sealed tightly, was uncovered and when examined by Archeologists the pot was opened and liquid soup was within, along with some bones. Sounds like someone was making stock and just after I had that thought I wondered what had happened that the soup wasn't consumed. The pot dated to 2500 years ago.

Another discovery that dated to 6000 years ago was the recipe for Hippopotamus soup.

More toward the present but long before the Americas were discovered and settled, Europeans had moved fire inside the home by way of a Stone Fireplace and chimney to remove the smoke generated by the burning wood and later, coal. At the sides of the fireplace were imbedded iron rods of varying lengths that held pots of various size but soup was the primary food and remained so for centuries. That same fireplace setup was also used in the Americas and was the principal way to cook meals until the iron stove was invented. The Ben Franklin stove was probably the first. You can probably find a picture of one if you do the search.

A Note on Stock and Soups

Definitions:

Soup: Liquid food made up of Water, Vegetables, Meat, Fish etc.

Thin Soup: The remaining liquid from boiled meats,vegetables or fish. When thoroughly boiled the contents are removed and the remaining liquid is the "thin soup".

Broth: A thin soup, containing all of the vitamins, minerals and flavor of the thin soup contents.

Stock: 1) Broth.
           2) Water in which meat, fish or vegetables have been cooked and then removed, leaving behind the vitamin and mineral rich water. The primary use for stock is the base for soups, stews and gravies.

As you can see from the definitions, boiling meats and vegetables and then throwing out the water is not exactly a good plan unless you are also regularly taking vitamin and mineral supplements.

I like to save the water, now stock, and freeze it for future use. To do this, after removing the contents let the stock cool and then use empty plastic jars (Mayo jars are good) fill them 3/4 full since water expands when frozen, cap them and into the freezer.

To make a quick stock from scratch:
It is difficult to find the necessary trimmings in the well picked apart, modern day packaged meat, but you can still find packages of marrow bones, excellent for gravies as well as soups and stews. You can still find turkey and chicken neck bones which are good for veg soup and of course any recipe calling for chicken stock. Just boil the bones for 2-3 hrs.
For Gravy or Soup:
2qts cold water.
Any leftover steak bones can go directly to the pot of water.

Bake for one hr, marrow bones then remove them and the juice remaining, let cool to room temp and then add to the pot of cold water. Add a tablespoon of vinegar.
Bring the Pot to a rapid boil, reduce heat, cover and let simmer for about 4 hrs. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp and remove the bones. pour the broth into used plastic jars, Mayo jars are good, and either refrigerate or freeze.
Note: If you refrigerate add a pinch of salt to the broth as that will help preserve the broth for up to a week.

A Note about Water

It sounds like it should be just turn on the faucet, fill your cup or pot and all will be well but that is not always so.

First: we'll define the terms that we must use:

Water: a compound made up of two gaseous atoms of Hydrogen and one  gaseous atom of Oxygen equals one molecule of water.

Molecule: The smallest part of a compound that can exist independently and it is made of one or more atoms.

Ozone: A created, (by lightning or other type of electricity), form of oxygen which consists of three oxygen atoms per molecule. It has the unique ability to destroy pathogens in air and water. Created by lightning it cleans the atmosphere and in water in kills any pathogens present thus sterilizing the water.

Pathogen: Any disease causing micro-organism or virus.

Alkali: chemical compound that reacts with acids to form salts. Lye and Ammonia are salts as is Sodium chloride (table salt). Some salts also neutralizes some acids and all are soluble in water. Desert cities have the problem of alkali water.

Soft water: water that has been treated and excess salts, other minerals and pathogens removed.

Hard water: water containing certain salts and other compounds.

Water for cooking is preferably soft water as it is tasteless and takes on the flavor of whatever food is being cooked or mixed in it. Alkali, for example, will leave a bitter taste and if food is cooked in it the bitterness will remain. A cup of coffee made from alkali water is nearly undrinkable.

Bottled water is usually ozonized and that is why it tastes so good and it has the added benefit of having no pathogens in it to worry about.

If you are out camping and are depending on the water from streams, lakes or creeks, (Water from a Beaver Dam pond is full of pathogens since the water in it is also the toilet of the beaver) and you are unsure of its purity, add to one gallon of water, 8-10 drops of bleach and if you didn't bring any bleach, add 3-5 drops of iodine, mix it well and let stand a few minutes before drinking or cooking with it.

Boiling water will kill most pathogens but leave behind the Alkali's. This can sometimes be handled by adding a few,2-3, teaspoons of Vinegar or lemon juice or wine to each quart of water.

To find out how the water in your area is treated or at least, where it comes from, you should be able to log on the net and do the search for your area's water dept. or health dept.