Trail food bags & containers.

Trail Food Bags & Containers.

 "I have travelled with neere 200. of them at once, neere 100. miles through the woods, every man carrying a little Basket of this [Nokehick] at his back, and sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his middle, sufficient for a man three or foure daies. With this readie provision, and their Bow and Arrowes, are they ready for War, and tra∣vell at an houres warning. With a spoonfull of this meale and a spoonfullof water from the Brooke, have I made many a good dinner and supper."

A KEY into the LANGUAGE OF AMERICA By Roger Williams  1643. 
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A66450.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

 If their imperious occasions cause them to travell, the best of their victuals for their journey is Nocake, (as they call it) which is nothing but Indian Corne parched in the hot ashes; the ashes being sifted from it, it is afterward beaten to powder, and put into a long leatherne bag, trussed at their backe like a knapsacke; out of which they take thrice three spoonefulls a day, dividing it into three meales. If it be in Winter, and Snow be on the ground, they can eate when they please, stopping Snow after their dusty victuals, which otherwise would feed them little better than a Tiburne halter. In Summer they must stay till they meete with a Spring or Brooke, where they may have water to prevent the imminent danger of choaking. With this strange viaticum they will travell foure or five daies together, with loads fitter for Elephants than men. But though they can fare so hardly abroad, at home their chaps must walke night and day as long as they have it. They keepe no set meales, their store being spent, they champe on the bit, till they meete with fresh supplies, either from their owne endeavours, or their wives industry, who trudge to the Clam-bankes when all other meanes faile. Though they be sometimes scanted, yet are they as free as Emperours, both to their Country-men and English, be he stranger, or neare acquaintance; counting it a great discourtesie, not to eate of their high-conceited delicates, and sup of their un-oat-meal'd broth, made thicke with Fishes, Fowles, and Beasts boyled all together; some remaining raw, the rest converted by over-much seething to a loathed mash, not halfe so good as Irish Boniclapper.

Chap. VI.

Of their dyet, cookery, meale-times, and hospitality at their Kettles.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of New Englands Prospect, by William Wood Wood's New England's Prospects 1634.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47082/47082-h/47082-h.htm

Corn, can it really sustain you on a long trek?

I have read that the Woodland Indians travelled with just corn to sustain them on their long journeys, & I have often wondered, knowing a little about the properties of corn or the lack there of, how they managed to survive. Then recently one of my sons happened to mention to me the advantages of cooking corn in a lye solution. Apparently the action of the lye on the corn releases nutrients in the corn that otherwise could not be accessed. Now of course I had read about the Indians boiling & soaking corn in a solution of lye, but I had not realised the full potential of this process. So I started researching to see if the parched corn that these woodland travelers carried & ate, was first treated with a lye solution, & found that it was!
Now I don't recall when reading about parched & dried corn used as trail food the mention anywhere about treating first with a lye solution. Now of course this makes perfect sense, no wonder they were able to travel long distances on just dried corn. Of course the lye solution can only release those nutrients that are in the corn, so it does have its limitations. As daily meals under normal circumstances other foods such as meat would have to be included to keep one fit & healthy, but as a trail food for a limited time, this maize or corn was indeed quite adequate.

It is interesting to note that the Europeans did not take this knowledge of treating corn with lye back home with them, so the many recipes we use today lack the nutrition that is locked away inside the corn kernel!

The author's brass trade kettle.

Indians cooking & drying meat.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v036/v036p155.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominy

http://www.thedqtimes.com/pages/castpages/other/Indian%20Customs/indianscookingfood2.htm

https://thehistoricfoodie.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/native-americans-and-the-use-of-brass-kettles/

http://theyankeechef.blogspot.com.au/2014_01_01_archive.html

Dried, Parched & Popped Corn By Keith H Burgess. VIDEO.

Dried, Parched & Popped corn.

Dried Corn, Parched Corn, & Popped Corn.

There are several ways you can cook & preserve corn. Corn can be boiled, & it can be added to other vegetables & meat. Corn can be parched & ground into a meal or flour & carried on the trail as a trail food. This ground parched meal can have water added to it to make it more palatable. Corn can also be popped & eaten & this popped corn can also be carried as a trail food.

Left to right: Parched corn, dried corn, & popped corn.

Corn can be dried on the cob by hanging it from it’s outer leafy layer & it can then be stored. Or this dried corn can be parched & stored or ground into a meal & stored.

Dried corn can be made by cutting the corn from the cob & spreading it on bark in the sun, or it can be dried on the cob by hanging in the sun. Dried corn is just that, corn which has been dried. But parched corn is a super dried corn. To parch corn you can either: remove it from the cob & spread it on flat rocks in or around the fire, or you can place it in the hot ashes until done & then sift the ashes. When pottery came into use, a clay pot would be placed in the fire at an angle & hot ashes would be piled up & placed over the pot. Shucked corn would then be placed into the pot to parch. When parched, the corn kernels would be hard & crisp.

Another way to use the clay pot was to part fill the pot with hot ashes, & then add the shucked corn. Later when iron pots & skillets were available, the shucked corn would be placed in these & shaken periodically to make sure the corn kernels did not burn. I have found no mention of oil or grease being used in the parching process.

Popped corn was made with a different corn to the normal white, yellow or sweet corns. Popped corn is a type of flint corn, & to make it you can place it on a hot flat rock in the fire, or you can place it in hot ashes. When it pops, the kernels will jump from the fire or the ashes & must be retrieved. If placed in an iron pot with a lid, it may be wise to rub a little grease round the inside of the pot, but not too much.

Drying corn on the cob by tying the gathered husk & hanging.

AMERICAN INDIAN CORN DISHES By 1CPuriel H. Wright

Botah Kap.ussa (Cold Flour) : Shell corn from the cob when the grain has reached the stage where it is firm but not dry. Place the shelled corn in a large pot of hot ashes, keeping the pot over coals of fire until the corn is parched a golden brown, in the meantime stirring the grain to keep it from scorching. Put the corn into the fanner, and clean off the ashes. Next pound the corn in the mortar until the husks are loosened. Again clean out the husks from the grain in the fanner. Beat the clean corn into flour in the mortar. This parched corn flour may be sweetened with enough sugar to taste. Add enough water to dampen a small serving, and eat as a cereal. A small amount of botah kapussah will go a long way as food. In tribal times, the Indian hunter took a small bag of this unsweetened food with him on long expeditions, often traveling many days with nothing else to eat except botaic kapussuh, a little at a time generally mixed with water. This cold flour was a boon on a long hunting expedition because a small amount was nourishing, and a bag of it was light and easy to carry.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v036/v036p155.pdf

Parched Corn or Nokehick
[Parched corn was called nokehick by the Indians, but the Englishmen called it nocake.]
 “Nocake, as they call it which is nothing but Indian corne parched in the hot ashes being sifted from it, it is afterward beaten to a powder, and put into a long leatherne bag, trussed at their backe like a knapsake; out of which they take thrice three spoonfulls a day, dividing it into three meales.”

Wood's New England's Prospects [1634]

 “Parched meal...is a readie wholesome food which they eate with a little water, not or cold; I have travelled with neere 200 of them at once, neere 100 miles through the woods, every man carrying a little basket of this at his back, and sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his middle sufficient for a man three or foure daies: With this readie provision, and their Bow and Arrowes, are they ready for War, and travell at an houres warning. With a spoonfull of this meale and a spoonefull of water from the Brooke, have I made many a good dinner and supper.”

Roger Williams A Key into the Language of America [1643]

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mosmd/foods.htm

Maxi'diwiac (Buffalo Bird Woman) (ca.1839-1932) of the Hidatsa Indian Tribe

Originally published as

Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation by Gilbert Livingstone Wilson, Ph.D. (1868-1930)

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html

John Bartram 1743. Shelter & Food.