Fire was borrowed from a neighbor for ease of starting, and who could blame them? Life on the trail was hard enough without having to make a fire from scratch every single time.Ĭooking required simple cooking utensils such as butcher knives, large spoons, spatulas, ladles, Dutch ovens, pots and pans, grills, spits, coffee pots and an iron tripod to suspend the pans and pots over the fire. Some carried matches in water-tight containers. Flint and steel were used to start fires. I describe it as an art form in this article.įuels used were wood, buffalo chips, willow or sagebrush. No cookbooks were used, so pioneer cooks used the feel of dough, the look of cooked beans, and the smell of a hot dish to get their cooking just right. Additional food like pickles, canned butter, cheese, or pickled eggs were occasionally carried, but canned goods were expensive and food preservation was primitive, so few items could be safely kept for the four to six month duration of the trip.Ĭooking along the trail was done over a campfire. Some families took along milk cows, goats, and chickens (penned in crates tied to the wagons). The Indians in Oregon traded potatoes and other vegetables they had learned to grow from the missionaries. When they got to the Snake River and Columbia River areas they would often trade with the Indians for salmon. Most travelers carried a rifle or shotgun and ammunition for hunting game and for protection against snakes and Indian attacks.

Travelers could hunt antelope, buffalo, sage hens, trout, and occasionally elk, bear, duck, geese, salmon and deer along the trail. In general, wild game could not be depended on for a regular source of food, but when found it was relished as a welcome change in a monotonous diet. Prior to the 1870s, there were vast herds of buffalo in Nebraska which provided fresh meat and jerky for the trip.

The amount of food required was lessened if beef cattle, calves, or sheep were taken for a walking food supply. In today’s dollars, that would be about $3000. The typical cost of food for four people for six months was about $150. The usual meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner along the trail was bacon, beans, and coffee, with biscuits or bread.

These provisions were usually kept in water-tight containers or barrels to minimize spoilage. The recommended amount of food to take per adult was 150 pounds of flour, 20 pounds of corn meal, 50 pounds of bacon, 40 pounds of sugar, 10 pounds of coffee, 15 pounds of dried fruit, 5 pounds of salt, half a pound of s aleratus (baking soda, baking powder leavening mix), 2 pounds of tea, 5 pounds of rice, and 15 pounds of beans. Packing food for the Oregon Trailįrom historical documents, the following was the recommended amounts of food per adult When you think about how much food your family consumes in that time frame, it’s a lot of food. The journey from beginning to end took from 4 to 6 months. Those wagons carried not only passengers and a few personal belongings, but over 1000 pounds of food! They were hoping to add to those food stores with hunting, fishing, and foraging, but none of that was guaranteed, so they had to give careful consideration to the most essential food items. Most of these pioneers traveled by covered wagons, which were pulled by oxen and horses. True Accounts of Life in a Covered Wagon and Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail are vivid, first-person accounts of this harrowing journey. We know a surprising amount of the Oregon Trail experience because so many travelers wrote journals, sent letters home, and even wrote books and newspaper articles. Over half a million stalwart souls were brave enough to leave the relative comfort of civilization at that time and venture off into strange and unknown lands. The Oregon Trail was an exhausting, sometimes treacherous, 2,000-mile journey that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.

Oregon trail 2 two wagon weight