If you’re a history buff and into food, this book’s a “gotta have.” 

This Journal is  not simply a cookbook. It’s a chance to learn more about the people these explorers encountered, how they dealt with hardships, get to take a look at their provisioning and read actual quotes from Lewis and Clark, themselves. 

Perhaps Gunderson’s chapter titles tell the most about her careful research: 

• Jefferson’s Vision, Washington, D.C. Lewis Receives Instructions and Buys Provisions

• Anticipation and Preparation, Down
  the Ohio to Camp Dubois

• High Spirits, Up the Missouri

• Buffalo! Diplomacy with the Yankton and Teton Sioux

• Sacagawea, Charbonneau and Jean Baptiste Join the Expedition

• Another Beginning, the Upper Missouri & Great Falls

• The Journey Hangs in the Balance, Over the Mountains

• Wild Roots, Elk and a Whale, Ft. Clatsop & the Pacific Coast

• Down the Yellowstone – The Nez Perce Help Again

• Return to St. Louis & The Long Welcome
   

The book is detailed account of their careful preparations, tools necessary, foods hunted, foods gathered and foods they traded for.  A partial list of Philadelphia provisions spread the course from 32 tins, or 193 pounds of portable soup, assorted fish hooks, kettles, a corn mill, hatchets, a whetstone, gun powder and castile soap.  

Thomas Jefferson, widely known for his food and agricultural expertise, not only wanted detailed maps and topographical reports about the Louisiana Purchase, he asked that the explorers extend every courtesy to people they met but to record how they grew crops, fishes and hunted. He asked them to observe their “food and domestic accommodations." 

“As they made their way west, the  trailmates sampled everything from Indian corn and buffalo tongues to camas roots and dried salmon,” noted an author and filmmaker, Dayton Duncan. There is a good deal of information on Portable Soup or Pocket Soup, the fine at of making Hoe Cakes, building a special fire to cook a bear, making hominy with corn, lime and wood ashes and the making of William Clark’s Birthday Fruit Salad. Other crafts of the trail included Spoonbread, dishes like Roasted Buffalo, Turnip and Berry Ragout also  Pemikan made with Juneberries and buffalo berries. Other hearty meals were Hazelnut Cornmeal Pancakes, Roasted Parsnips with Pine Nuts and Fort Clatsop Salmon Chowder with fennel and sourdough biscuits.  

Named the Official Cookbook for the National Council of Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, the author states, “History is as close as a bite of buffalo jerky or a taste of hominy.” This attractive, well-indexed book with deckle-edged pages, helpful maps and pleasing sketches, contains over 80 authentic recipes faithfully tested and re-created  for today’s kitchens.  Gunderson includes a generous bibliography, suggested further reading suggestions and a handy, educational website list. In her Mail-Order Sources section, she lists mail order sources for preparing her updated recipes. 

Visit the Mary Gunderson website at:  www.HistoryCooks.com. 

© Marty Martindale, Largo FL, 2003