Hot dogs, parade candy, potato salad — these are just a few of the foods Mormons will eat over this 24th of July holiday.
However, if you were a pioneer, you might be eating such foods as meat dumplings, quince jelly pie or even Emma Smith's "Candidate Fritters" that she named because they were "all puffed up (with) air in them."
Mormon food historian Brock Cheney of Willard, Box Elder County, blogs about Mormon food traditions and historic recipes at his "Mormon Pioneer Foodways" blog, www.pioneerfoodie.blogspot.com. In one post, Cheney hypothesizes how they would have celebrated the 24th of July back in early Utah days. In fact, he writes that "Louisa Pratt Barnes said of July 24, 1849, 'The tables were spread with the choicest varieties of things produced from the richest soil, and by our own hands labor.'"
Cheney explains that they ate a lot of bread, fruit and in-season vegetables, so if you do the same this weekend, you can say you are eating similar to the pioneers. He also lists this "pioneer" recipe from around 1860 by Martha Bitter Ricks:
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Pioneer Pudding
1 cup bread crumbs
1 cup ground suet
1 cup flour
½ tsp salt
About ¾ cup milk
Mix milk with other ingredients to make a stiff batter. Put in a cloth pudding bag and tie tightly. Cook covered with boiling water for three hours. Cut and serve with brown gravy.
Cheney currently volunteers at This Is the Place Heritage Park, "where they let me play with food in historical settings." His favorite recipes are the quirky ones that make you go, "Holy cow! They ate that?" He has compiled much of his Mormon food research into a book, due out next April from the USU Press.
So if you want to have an authentic pioneer meal this weekend, check out his blog for more recipes, instructions and pioneer food history.
e-mail: ejensen@desnews.com