Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation cook book of regional nature.

Folks, Iwould like to do this project and I need your help to get it done. What I want to do is write a book on the foods of our forefathers, foods that were staples to the pioneers and settlers, imigrants and natives no time frame required. This book will not be an ordinary dash of this cup of that kind of affair, but rather a living history or story. I need stories of how the food was prepaired, hunting methods, gathering stories, etc. I would like this to be a history that is also a cook book. What would be really nice is to have recipes from all states, Canadian provences and Mexico. The more the better. I will site credits to all who participate and if this works out an electronic copy to same. Your help and stories will be greatly appreciated. Minor editing may be required but I will contact you first.
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<br>Jim Tobey
<br>Bullwnkl.
<br>Bullwnkl@HCTC.com

Well, if you are serious here is the beginning of the first recipe in my book:
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<br>STEW
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<br>Tie sharp rock into split stick with sinew. Find Wooly Mammoth and stab same to let blood run out.
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<br>Is this sort of what you want?
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<br>BCR

Bogg Man I heard you was an old timer...but wow... I had no idea you was that old
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<br>So now you have a wounded or preferably a dead mammoth on your hands, how do you prepair it for the inlaws?What are the choise cuts? What kinda wine goes with mammoth? And was that a magnum rock you smacked em with? We gotta know!
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<br>Bullwnkl.

Here's one for you, Winkie Baby, from my cookbook -- sourdough starter as she was done-up by early settlers, mountain men, and gold-rushers.
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<br>"Bare Bones" Sourdough Starter
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<br>2 cups (more or less) warm (up to 90�) filtered, pure, or spring water
<br>2 cups flour
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<br>Notice that this starter uses neither sugar nor packaged yeast, nor anything other than water added to flour. It owes its special nutlike flavor to the natural wild yeast (drawn from the air in your kitchen) that takes-up residence in it. It's much more than simply a sour leaven.
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<br>Add enough water, in a nonmetal container, to make one cup of the flour soupy. A stoneware crock is preferable. A glass or new plastic container is good.
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<br>Cover with cloth and set aside out of the way -- on top of refrigerator or cabinet -- until it sours (three, four days or so). If mold forms on it, throw it away and start over.
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<br>When it's sour but not moldy, add one cup of flour and one cup of water.
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<br>If liquid forms on top, stir it back into the "sponge." When this doubled starter is sour through and through, divide it into two containers.
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<br>Refrigerate one half if you're not going to use it in the next few days -- freeze it if you won't be using it for a month or so.
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<br>A day before you intend to use the other half, mix it into the flour that you intend to use for pancakes, biscuits, rolls, bread, waffles, cake, etc. Try it first as your only leavening -- then, if you have to, add a bit of baking soda.
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<br>TIP: Sourdough starter is an excellent gift, especially if you put it up in a nice little stone crock.
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<br>TIP: As an alternate, try making a corn sourdough starter (for making sourdough cornbread) -- instead of "regular" wheat flour, use corn flour (corn milled as fine as ordinary wheat flour -- Mexican masa harina, for example) rather than relatively coarse corn meal.
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<br>TIP: Sourdough buckwheat pancakes, waffles, muffins, and doughnuts are outstanding! And sourdough devil's-food cake is incredibly delicious.
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Winky you got to cut the mammoth up in serving size pieces. This is the problem because hardly anybody lives with a tribe to help and unless they are Catholic or careless Baptist probably don't have enough kids.
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<br>In all seriousness (if I have any) here is the story and how to on HOE CAKE
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<br>No one knows how this originated but it was common any where corn was grown. Wanting something that was hot for noon break in th fields about an hour before mix boiling water into two hand fulls of corn meal and a two fingers of salt. Let this sit until you are ready to cook. If you don't let it sit a while it won't stick together or stick on the hoe blade. Clean the dirt off your hoe blade and spread the cooled meal on it @ 1/2 inch thick. Heat your hoe first and make little tabs of meal over the edges of the blade to hold it on as it cooks. Hold it over a twig fire and bake it.
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<br>BCR

Ken, thanks for the basic sour dough recipe. I will use it as a chapter on breads and such, As a kid in Alaska I remember the stories of sour dough and it's uses. Over the years my sourdough has been kept though hunderds of generations, it is said to have been started in the days of the Alaska gold rush, 1890's, this particular starter was spawned by a prospector on the Yukon, so the story goes, it was split and split and split... It would be an interesting genetic's study. A history of a sour dough. Alaskans take pride in their sour doughs linage. I wonder if there is a govenment grant for a study here Any way sour dough was used by the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and a lot of other folk. The recipies are nearly endless, what I would like to add to the recipe is a story related to a particular recipe or the recipie written as part of a story. Thanks again Ken.
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<br>Bogg Man I have a couple recipies for whale, seal, and walrus, but Mammoth I just don't know, does it taste anything like chicken? I was even going to include a bit by Capstick on canabalism. Seem appropiate. This is not going to be your ordinary cook book. I gotta feeling it's going to take a few years, and the pictures...well?
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<br>Bullwnkl.

Corn Dodgers, immortalized by John Wayne in "The Cowboys" and "True Grit", rival potato chips for the "YOU CAN'T JUST EAT ONE" AWARD.
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<br>1 cup cornmeal
<br>1 cup boiling water
<br>2 tablespoons bacon grease
<br>1/2 teaspoon salt
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<br>Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Pour batter by tablespoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.