I was going through my genealogy tonight and found this in my notes. Talk about being a homesteader. I love my modern devices so much. So what was it like for our great-great-g- grandparents? I know mine where on the forefront of westward movement all the time following William Penn and then Danial Boone and his crowd.
from a book called "Pioneer History of Indiana".
"The pioneer women who came to the wilderness of Indiana had very few utensils they could use for cooking. The older sections they had emigrated from were quite distant from their new homes and if they had the different dishes and vessels to bring it was hard work to bring them for very few of them came in wagons or carts but mostly on horseback. There were many who walked all the way and had only such things as they could carry. In fact, at the beginning of the nineteenth century in some of the older states , cooking utensils were not plentiful and they were very high priced and hard to get. The reader must take into consideration that this country was just beginning to gather strength after the great war of the Revolution, when our finances werecompletely wrecked. There was almost no money and the continental script was worthless. Mrs. Nancy Gullick, related to me that when she was a grown woman in the neighborhood where she lived, there was not more than one vessel for cooking in any home and that was nearly always a skillet and a lid. Often the lid was broken and the skillet nicked. Many of those who had cabins did not have any sort of vessel to cook in unless it was an earthen pot which had been made by the owner out of clay and burned as hard as it could be. Since there was no glazing, when boiling anything that had grease in it, there was nearlyas much fat on the outside as there was inside. So much came through the pores that after the first fire to boil the pot, there was not much more needed for the fat on the outside was constantly on fire. In the skillet, allthe meat had to be cooked on the hearth before a blazing fire, the cook having to stoop half bent and attend to the meat. The bread was baked in the same skillet, if not on a Johnny-cake board that was made for this purpose about ten inches wide and fifteen inches long and rounding at the top end. The corndough was made thick and put on the board which was placed against a chunk of wood near the fire. After one side was baked to a nice brown, it was turned over and the other side was baked in the same way. This was called a Johnny-cake. If a board was not at hand, a hoe without its handle was cleaned and greased with bear's oil. Then the dough was put on the hoe blade the same as on the board and baked...this was called a hoe cake. When they had neither Johnny cake board nor hoe, a place was cleaned on the hearth under the edge of the fire, the dough wrapped in cabbage leaves or fresh corn shucks and laid on the hot hearth and covered with hot embers. This was called an ash cake. The bread from any of these ways of cooking was good, even delicious.A little later on more iron vessels were brought into the country and the dinner pot that held about two gallons with a lid and three short legs and an ear on each side for the hinged hooks to fit in, came into use. It was a great improvement over the old vessels and enabled them to boil the meat instead of always having to fry or roast it. A pole was put above the fire from jamb to jamb and a hook was put on it, sometimes several of them of different lengths. The hooks which were fitted in the ears of the pot were hung on these hooks holding the pot over the fire. In this pot meat and vegetables could be well cooked. While these people had only a very primitive way of preparing the food, they cooked it well and I doubt if any age in this country's history will see another time when such delicious meats were served or a people who so thoroughly enjoyed their food. The country was so abundantly supplied with all sorts of game that all could have a bountiful supply. The usual dish for breakfast was fried turkey breast and slices of venison; for dinner the loin of a fat deer cooked with potatoes; for supper of the evening meal usually the meats were roasted. These dishes of food served with Johnny cake seasoned with the rich gravy of these meats, were certainly a repast which would satisfy the most exacting epicure. I can't determine the date when stoves came into general use but as late as 1820 there were but few stoves in use and I very much doubt if one of every twenty families in Indiana had any idea of how to cook and prepare food in any other way that I have described, up to 1835.
Possible they were not so careful in appealing to the eye then as now but I am sure the dishes were prepared better than they are now and tasted just as well and I think better. There were no sweets nor pastries and biscuits were a luxury that were served only on Sunday mornings".
