Pioneer cooking is an interesting subject; it comes very close to the way in which many of us may have to cook in the future. It was a type of cooking that required that you make do with what you had. I recently came across a set of rules for pioneer cooking. These are simple rules that you can easily to follow.
1. No complaining, I don’t have that, the recipe won’t work. Figure out a substitute.
2. No temperature gauge in your improvised oven, 400-450 your hand can be held in the over for 35 seconds. 350° your hand can be held in the over for 45 seconds. 200-300° your hand can be held in the oven for 60 seconds.
3. Learn to cook by feel. Notice how a teaspoon of salt feels in your hand. How about a cup of sugar. Can you judge what three cups of flour look like?
4. No timers, learn to check your food. Learn what your food smells and looks like when it is finished cooking.
5. Learn the following
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder raises one cup of flour
- To make bread, use one cup of liquid to three cups flour and one package yeast to two cups liquid.
- Muffins use one-cup liquid to two cups flour.
- 5 heaping Tbs. of flour equal one cup
- 1 Tbs. of sugar equals one oz
- 7 heaping Tbs. of sugar equal one cup
- 2 1/2 cups of sugar equal one pound
- 3 ½ cups of cornmeal equal 1 quart
- 4 cups of flour equal 1 lb.
- 1 cup of water equals 8 ounces
Now these may seem a bit silly to someone who is used to following modern recipes. But if you read old pioneer recipes, these are the type of measurements they used.
Pioneer cooking was a “make do” type of cooking. Most people had no measuring cups, so they needed to learn to do measurements by sight and feel. They learn to watch their food and taste it while it was still cooking. Temperature was done by feel. If you burned it you ate it, you couldn’t afford to throw away food.
Next time you go camping try pioneer cooking, make your meals from scratch using no measuring cups or spoons.
Howard
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