When the first company of pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley 150 years ago, they started a gardening heritage that persists to this day. Large-scale agriculture had never been attempted in such a desert-like area, particularly one with a cold winter climate. Also new to American agriculture was such extensive irrigation.These brave people had no experience or training for such an undertaking but, directed by visionary leaders, they truly made the desert "blossom as a rose." Their interest was not idle curiosity or to further scientific research. Theirs was a mission of destiny and of survival.
The original pioneers of 1847 gardened to provide food for their families. They arrived to find what was in many ways a hostile environment and immediately began to plant - they had to grow food or perish. Because of the late planting date that first season, they harvested little and almost starved to death.
A general epistle called the Latter-day Saints to come to Zion and to "bring all kinds of choice seeds, of grain, vegetables, fruits, shrubbery, trees, and vines, everything that will please the eye, gladden the heart, or cheer the soul of man, that grows on the face of the whole earth." The immigrants took their mission seriously and brought with them all manner of plants.
The first seasons were not easy or kind to the new settlers; they struggled to find enough food until they could make the desert blossom. Weather, drought, insects and a host of other problems made agriculture a real struggle. More and more settlers made increasing demands on the small food supplies.
The pioneers soon learned that they needed to use any and all food supplies they could find. They survived by eating many native plants. Some of these were pleasant and tasty, but others were eaten only to stay alive. Most people survived by eating indigenous plants that American Indians pointed out to them.
They ate common native plants such as pigweed, redroot and thistles. They gave thanks for the newly discovered sego lily and used many other kinds of plants to feed and doctor themselves. Some brewed a drink from a broom plant called "Brigham tea." While none of these seem particularly appealing to us, they certainly filled the void for food that was lacking in those early pioneer diets.
One pioneer, Priddy Meeks, described attempts to find food while his family "went for several months without a satisfying meal of victuals. I sometimes went a mile up Jordan to a patch of wild rose to get the berries, which I could eat as rapidly as a hog, stems and all. I shot hawks and crows and they ate well. I would go and search the mire holes and find cattle dead and fleece off what meat I could and eat it. We used wolf meat which I thought was good. I made some wooden spades to dig seagoes (sego lilies) with, but we could not supply our wants. We worked particularly hard for thistle roots. I would take a grubbing hoe and a sack and would walk by sunrise in the morning about 6 miles before coming to where the thistle roots grew. In time I would get home and I would have a bushel, sometimes more, of thistle roots and we would eat them raw. I would dig until I grew weak and faint and sit down and eat a root and then begin again."
The sego lily is the Utah state flower because of its historical significance in feeding the early settlers. A member of the lily family, it is commonly called the mariposa lily. The name comes from the Spanish word for butterfly because Spanish explorers thought the beautiful mountainside flowers looked like butterflies.
Elizabeth Huffaker, another early pioneer, described the situation she and others found themselves in as follows: "In the spring of 1848, our food was gone. My husband had killed some wild game and by means of salt brought from the lake I was able to dry and preserve enough to keep us from starving. Along the month of April we noticed all the foothills were one glorious flower garden. The snow had gone, the ground was warm. We dug thousands of sego roots, for we heard that the Indians had lived on them for weeks and months. We relished them and carried them home in bucketfuls. How the children feasted on them, particularly when they were dried, for they tasted like butternuts."
The sego lily is a deep bulb, somewhat smaller than a walnut. It grows in hard, dry ground in the foothills in Salt Lake and other valleys throughout the Western United States. The bulbs were eaten raw, boiled or roasted but obviously should not be dug for consumption today because of the scarcity of the plant.
My own ancestors write of surviving on pigweeds when there was nothing else to eat. They were so hungry that they considered them to be miracles, for the Indians said they had never grown there previously nor had any grown there since.
"Brigham tea" was also an interesting plant. It was used as a soothing brew and as a substitute for tea and coffee. While this bitter drink was not on everyone's menu, it did find some acceptance. It is interesting that this plant has the scientific name of Ephedra and that the modern headache drug Ephedrine contains similar chemicals.
Fruits in season came from nearby mountains. Currant, elderberry, serviceberry, chokecherry, wild raspberry, thimble berry and wild strawberry were highly prized seasonal fruits.
We owe much to these early Utah pioneers. They developed a diversity of crops that most areas of the West never achieved until much later. During this sesquicentennial year, remember these faithful people and their sacrifices, which created the beautiful surroundings we enjoy today.