What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail

I cannot believe Max neglected to mention that the pioneers would sometimes eschew their wagons and instead ride large rocks for miles across the prairie.

There once was a Max with a knack, For videos that featured hard tack, He mentions the quip, And then shows the clip, And his viewers all say KLACK KLACK

I live near the end of the trail; all over the place people STILL have the original covered wagons their families brought here 170 years ago. Someone actually refurbished one & modernized it & they rent it out on airbnb! I stayed in it for my birthday

The story about Smith having to give up his mother’s rolling pin brought tears to my eyes. I know, it’s not as bad as dying of dysentery, but it still hurts.

" Yes honey. I had no intentions of partaking in the boy's actions, I went back to my tent and spent the day writing to you" - most believable boys night out text home

You are on the Oregon Trail and meet a strange man. He says, "Hi, my name is Terry." You laugh and say, "Terry is a girl's name." Terry shoots you. You have died of Dissin' Terry.

That quote about only finding bison skulls and no living bison made me realize why the go to depiction of the american southwest features a lot of bison skulls on the ground

I love the idea of using an egg as a unit of general measurement as almost everyone in the world will know how big an egg is.

My great-great-grandmother was 14 when she married my 16-year-old great-great-grandfather. The first year of their marriage included traveling across the plains to their new life in Nebraska from the east coast. They worked a farm together and, by all accounts, had lives they were happy with and proud of. They were married for over 75 years. I cannot imagine to this day how tough they were. My grandma was born too early and g-g-grandmother was the midwife. She realized by grandma was too weak so she warmed up the old stove they used to incubate animals and put her in it and kept her alive. I literally wouldn't be here without that woman. Her name was Nancy Anne.

Sweetie: I got your four food groups Beans 🫘 Bacon 🥓 Whisky 🥃 And lard 🧈

The meat was often salted in old times and packed in ceramic jars. Salt, meat, salt, meat, all the way to the top. This kept meat from spoiling and had to be soaked in water a few times before use. My Uncle Don told me, when he was a kid, the pork was kept in barrels with salt water and lasted a year.

I love that Max shouted out Townsends! There needs to be a huge mashup of the best historical food channels. Max and Townsdends make early 19th century, historical accurate MREs, then have Steve1989MRE eat them while Steve Wallis does a stealth camp near a wagon train.

As an Oregonian and a member of the Oglala Lakota, I'd like to see you do an episode on Wohanpi, which is a bison stew beloved by my ancestors, and maybe highlight some of the other tribes of Turtle Island. <3

That man with the rolling pin. That grown man crying because he had to leave his mother's rolling pin and he missed her... He's like me. Like us. Every now and then I hear or read something that makes me realize on a deep level that everyone that ever existed was a person. All the heroes and villains of history, sure. But every single one of the common folk was as much a fully realized person as me. They all had dreams and memories and childhoods and dreams and happiness and misery. Tens of thousands of years of human experience. An ocean full of people that lived full lives not unlike mine. It's gut wrenching every time.

The hard tack 'knock knock' is such an old friend at this point, I love it every time.

Hey man, Nebraskan native here! Just wanted to say thank you for showcasing such a monumental part of our history. Fyi, Kearny is pronounced Car-Knee. The fort never rally had much for travelers as it was an outpost rather than a supply depot. Town legend says there were so many pianos, potbelly stoves, and bookcases dumped by the pioneers that when the city was founded, all the citizens just grabbed them off the side of the road.

My great-great-great-great grandfather came along the Oregon trail with his family when he was just three years old. This was in the late 1850's, so a little later than the stories you usually hear about. At this point there were a few more checkpoint settlements along the trail which made getting supplies a little easier. He passed down a story about how on one of the legs they'd misjudged how many rations they needed and had to scrape by on foraging off the land. His sister who was 12 at the time was off foraging when she ran into a Native American. In broken English he asked what a young white girl was doing so far out by herself. She told him of her family's situation, and after listening to her story he reached into his bag and gave her a large handful of the his buffalo jerkey to take back. That handful of dried meat managed to stretch their rations out a few more days and they were able to make it to the checkpoint a week later. Unfortunately she forgot to ask his name, but this stranger's generosity likely saved the lives of the younger siblings, including my great-great-great-great grandpa.

"as we try not to die of dysentery" should be the goal of every cooking show 😂

Laura Ingalls-Wilder describes the pioneer experience in all its glory in her book “Little House on the Prairie” when she and her family went to live in Kansas Territory when it still belonged to the local indigenous tribes. She describes cooking on buffalo chip fires and what her mother would cook. It’s a very detailed description of the lives of those who had an itch to go west. I highly recommend it to all ages, really.

My son gave me a t-shirt last year that had the little ox-cart on it and the words, "You have died of dysentery." I laughed so hard, because we all used to play that game when the kids were growing up. Thank you for a very entertaining (and informative) episode!