STAPLE FOODS
Maize (corn), common bean, potato, tomato, pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, peanut, turkey
Okra, watermelon, black-eyed peas, yam
wheat, peas, carrots, sheep, cow
rice, spices, citrus fruits, tea
Many of the foods eaten by Kentuckians in the frontier period are familiar to us today. The study of regional and cultural food traditions can be an excellent history lesson and can be linked to present-day behaviors. The Southern diet is an example of cultural syncretism, the combining of distinct elements into a new form. The traditional Southern diet is a combination of British, Native American, and African foods and methods of cooking. Roasting, boiling and one-pot dishes were common to both native foodways and British foodways. African slaves brought a tradition of deep-frying.
When white settlers migrated to Kentucky they brought with them the seeds they would need to plant their first crops. They grew many of the same foods they had lived on back East, such as wheat, peas, beans, potatoes, and especially corn. Pumpkin and squash were a more important part of the diet than they are today.
The frontier diet would be considered high in protein. Game was plentiful and during times of crop failure, meat could be easier to come by than grains or vegetables.
Lesson 4: Daphne Tiller's letter about early settlement and available crops
Lesson 6: Daniel Drake's letter about bread deprivation
Corn bread and cornmeal were more usual fare than wheat bread because corn was easier to grow in large quantities. In addition to deer and turkeys, people hunted a variety of small game such as rabbit, squirrels, and possums. Pork was particularly common and remains today a hallmark of the traditional southern diet. Food historians and anthropologists have speculated as to why the pig rather than cattle dominated livestock in the south. One theory is that the pig was better suited to the frontier lifestyle. Unlike sheep, pigs require very little upkeep, but more importantly, they do not need large tracts of grazing land or grains to live on. By surviving on human leftovers, they do not compete with humans for food or land.
FOOD PREPARATION
Cooking was not convenient and dominated much of women's time. In one-room cabins, every activity had to be performed in the same room. In two-room homes, one room served as a place for cooking, eating and a number of other chores, while the second room was for sleeping. Before the middle of the 19th century, when stoves became popular, cooking was done in an open hearth, over beds of embers which the skilled cook could adjust for temperature and time. Rather than one large fire, women cooked with several small fires for different jobs, similar to the use of stove burners today. The pots and pans used in hearth cooking were generally heavy cast iron implements suspended on swinging cranes and could be very cumbersome.
Most women learned their culinary skills from their mothers or female relations. Not until the late 19th century did cookbooks begin to give exact instructions and measurements for recipes. Prior to this, cookbooks served more as vague reminders than sets of specific directions.
FOOD PRESERVATION
Items such as coffee, tea, sugar, and wheat flour had to be bought. A cook need to rely on imagination to combat the monotony of the frontier diet with its dependence on a limited number of food choices from dried fruits and vegetables and salted meats. Their diet became particularly monotonous during the winter when the number of food choices diminished.
One means of storing food for winter was drying. This method would provide a family with fruits and vegetables for the year. Peas, apples, lima beans, green beans, and crowder peas were all excellent items for drying. Fruits would be cut into slices and spread out to dry in the sun. Beans and peas could be strung on long cords and hung. When shelled and soaked in water for several hours, they could be cooked over a low heat for a day, and then they were ready to eat.
DRINKING
The accepted explanation for the heavy drinking by the people of the 18th century has been that lack of proper sanitation polluted the water supply, forcing people to drink beer, ales, and occasionally, harder varieties of alcohol. Many of the country farms in Kentucky did not suffer this problem, being far enough from densely populated townships. So it wasn't necessity that led to Kentucky bourbon but a simple taste for the good stuff. The whiskey tradition arrived in Kentucky with settlers from Pennsylvania who found the limestone soil in Kentucky similar to that in their old home. In some cases, distilling was a family tradition. It was a drink for celebration and believed to be medicinal.
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