Food eaten on the trail often depended on situation, preparation - and desperation. One pioneer family starting their journey from Nebraska City, Neb., packed ham, bacon, dried beef, bologna, beans, dried fruit of various kinds, flour, meal, sugar and a supply of medicine. Pioneer woman Adaline Ballou Scoville recorded that they put milk in a churn in the morning, which became butter by evening. ("Life of Adaline Ballou Scoville By Herself," pp. 16-20.)
Treats consisted of things like raisins and sugar. (William I. Appleby journal, Journal History, Oct. 27, 1849, pp. 1-23.)When rations got low, children sometimes went to bed hungry. Ten-year-old Amelia Eliza Slade, an English immigrant with an 1864 pioneer company, records that sometime before reaching the Green River in Wyoming, her little family huddled, hungry, in their wagon on a cold, wet day. The next morning, through the rainy mist, Amelia's mother saw an old shack with smoke rising from its chimney. She approached, knocked on the door, which opened to the smell of cooking meat. The woman who opened the door invited her in to eat, but the mother said, "I cannot eat, my children are hungry."
"You shall eat," the kind woman replied, "and you shall have bread for your little ones even if we have to go without." (Journey to Zion, Voices from the Mormon Trail, Carol Cornwall Madsen, relating account of Amelia Eliza Slade Bennion, p. 571.)
