L/D Was salt pork/meat more widely used than bacon or is the term interchangable??You read referances to "PORK EATERS" as it applies to the French trappers!!!Boiling makes more use of the entire meat I would feel as you get the broth as well as the meat just add greens and you have a meal.See you up the trail

Salt pork as we know it today is not the same as in the 1700's early 1800's. Pork was shipped in barrels to fur post or other supply areas and on board ships. It was pork shoulders, roast packed very tight in a barrel then salt added and water to preserve it. I am at the office so I do not have the source document for this but I think it is in the Peas Porige cook book.

when people talk about salt pork today they are probably referring to sugar cure which is salt ,brown sugar ,pepper and salt peter.the salt is the only ingrediant that helps to cure it.the second phase the smoking helps to cure it further. i cant speak for other parts but round here in southern pa i seen this kind of meat(pork shoulder) hang in a cellar for over a year and grow a bluish green and white beard! the mold was cut away the meat washed and baked in an oven and eaten with no ill effects. I know this for true because my whole family ate it.whether this part is true or not im not sure ,but my grandfather always said green mold and white mold was ok ,pink mold was not.I ve also seen meat go bad in the sugar curing process about 5 years ago we had that extremely mild winter,and we lost all the meat. My dad said he can only remember that happening once before.I would assume I said i would assume i dont know for fact that bacon would be less likely to be used because of its high fat content the fat would have a quicker chance of going rancid.RegularJoe

Well the dry-cruing of pork was probably done as a rule after the AWI in the colonies, and most likely done in the beginning of the 19th c. It became the "accepted" form as it's lighter than salt-pork packed in brine. However, salt dry-cured meats existed since the Roman times.

True salt pork as military rations for the colonial and pre-colonial times were probably the cheaper portions of the pig, typically the belly, but other portions might also be used, cured in liquid. (I be this was the cheapest way or the best way to stretch limited salt supplies.)

"Bacon" appears to mean salt pork where the salt had some nitrate or "nitre" in it, AND perhaps the bacon was finished curing by smoking. "Ham" appears to be pork from either the front or hind legs of the pig, while "gammon" appears to be only the hind leg of a pig, salt cured with nitre. Otherwise, it might all be salt-pork.

(I read somewhere that the Blue Licks where Daniel Boone was taken captive was a favored spot for salt boiling as the salt also contained some nitre, so was better for food preservation.)

Anyway, without much info I think dry-cured meats were more expensive, and hard to come by, so I dont take much dry-cured bacon with me.

LD

Mac
The MOST useful cooking pot is a light 22-guage pressed steel 2-quart boiling pot with a lid and
and bailover, like many originals. Go to the hardware store and buy tin paint buckets for about $2.00, they work just fine. If you order a tin boiler from a tin maker they run about $75. A tin paint bucket works best cause it's cheap. Look close at the tin paint bucket to make sure all the joints are pressed not soldered. A boiler can carry food, carry water/ boil, saute/fry/ bake / feed the dog/ make coffee etc. I also have a little 6-inch sheet steel skillet with 3-legs riveted around the sides like a tri-pod to place in/above coals.
With a knife and wood spoon you can cook and eat about everything. Good trekking!!
"The Oracle"

As I said before, I take an ibrik which is a Turkish coffee pot.
Now there is no doubt that this type of pot was available pre 1840, it's been around for a few centuries that I know of, but here's the question: if I showed up at some 'doins with ibrik in hand, would it be acceptable, or would I be shown the door? My argument is, any immigrant to the US from eastern europe or the middle east would surely have brought one with him. Does that hold water (no pun intended)?

Shadow, my mom's side of the family is Greek. (The coffee pot in Greek is called a briki, by the way), so I am very familiar with them.
The only thing I know that is traditionally prepared in them is coffee.
I guess you'd have to find out if coffee was commonly drank in the Mediterranean vicinity during the time period you're portraying. I don't know when it displaced tea as the drink of choice.

I doubt it was something that showed up on trader's shelves. Some possible explanations as how you got it? It could have been picked up by a sailor, or even by one of Napoleon's soldiers (if your portrayal is after the Napoleonic Wars)at a bazaar in the Middle East, and brought to North America, where somehow you obtained it. I'm reading "6 Frigates, The Founding of the U.S. Navy", by Ian Toll right now. It has some very exciting stories about our navy fighting the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean around 1804. It would be more than reasonable to think such an item would be picked up by sailors in a foreign port.

Just some ideas. They are a handy little pot. I only use mine for coffee, but my wife uses it for warming/serving maple syrup, melted butter, etc.

Shadow
No one will probably say beans about your coffee
pot. Once the traders left rendezvous the coffee ran out quickly. It's doubtful the mountaineers carried coffee pots for that purpose. Coffee was a luxury as was sugar.
It's up to you to hold the line. Just cause
somewhere in the world they had something doesn't make it's right for rendezvous. The Dutch wore wooden shoes but does that mean the mountain men did? I know I see wooden shoes all the time.

Thanks for the thoughts. I think I'll keep the ibrik, but I don't think I'll go with the wooden shoes.....

Walking Crow,
"Pork eaters" is a term used to refer to the French-Canadian peasants who did all the hard work paddling and portaging from Montreal to Mackinac, Grand Portage, or Fort William, then turned around after rendezvous and paddled home. Usually, few if any of them spent any time actually trapping themselves, unlike the fur trade in the American west. The natives did the trapping, the voyageurs helped with the trading but were mostly human donkeys carrying the goods. They got to bring along barrels of pickled pork (I think, rather than anything like salt-cured stuff wrapped in cloth for example) which they put in their pea soup. The term distinguished these "less manly" men from the "hivernants", or winterers, who spent the whole year out at some distant fur post and traveled east to rendezvous, then usually went back into the boonies. They considered themselves to be the lobo wolves of the voyageur community.
Long-winded way of saying I don't think salt-pork applies to "pork eaters." Though I could be mistaken.

Dick

Ok,
This is like pioneer backpacking , I can do this. I have a new improved haversack the split one with leather ties.A 10X10 diamond fly and stuff to go in it and I'm set.
MM

quote:

What cooking gear do you consider absolutely essential?

Absolutely essential would be my tin corn boiler (1.5 qts) and my butcher knife, along with the other items MacNnc mentioned in his original post. You can use the boiler for many different things, but I like making flour biscuits and cooking them on a flat rock next to the fire while my meat, what ever it may be for the day, is slowly simmering over the fire, wah! what a feast, makes my mouth water jest thinkin about it!

There were coffee pots very similar to the ibrik but they have a spout from the bottom, not a lip from which to pour. But the handle from the side is the same. They also had pots with detachable handles, which I bet were the ancestors of the ibrik, in a small version.

LD

so the consenus seems to be 1) a boiler of some sort(or maybe two boilers..one for coffee/tea/whatever and one for cooking, btw on these, I am using old coffee cans, blackened on the outside, with wire handles added) and perhaps a frying pan.

Pretty close to right?

If anyone else is wondering if ibrik or briki is the correct spelling for this coffee pot, they are both correct. One word is Greek, the other Turkish.
Sparks