Mesquite was found in the valleys and valued. In the pioneer days of the great west, coffee and tea were hard to get; and, instead of them, teas were often made from garden herbs, spicewood, sassafras-roots, and other shrubs, taken from the thickets. There's a lot to learn from the old chuckwagon cooks, especially if you're into backpacking light and looking for an easy brewing method rather than a cup of really great coffee. The famed Brazilian coffee owes its existence to Francisco de Mello Palheta, who was sent by the emperor to French Guiana to get coffee seedlings. 8. With an ax and adze for cutting tools, the pioneers made beds, tables, benches, and stools. Dried beans. It was the process of boiling water that helped purify the water! Just as it is for the average homesteader today, dried beans were a favorite staple for the pioneers. Innovator R.W. Salt has to be processed and was expensive. Substitutes for tea and coffee were provided by boiling sassafras root and brewing parched corn and barley. Most of us can’t imagine leaving the house without our morning coffee—can you picture driving a wagon for 12 hours without it? Over half a million stalwart souls were brave enough to leave the relative … Foods Carried on the Oregon Trail Read More » Where did they get salt? Three exotic beverages—coffee, tea, and chocolate—arrived in seventeenth-century Europe at a time of burgeoning exploration and trade, and their arrival caused a near revolution in drinking habits. During the civil war the soldiers made substitutions with cotton seed or peanuts. All water is "contaminated" to some degree, as you will never kill everything in it. This technique would spread widely and is still used … Timpsula (prairie turnip) was a common food on the Plains. Check out how the troops in the Civil War did it for more ideas. 1900 - The demise of local coffee roaster and coffee milling operations begins due to the availability of roasted and ground Hills Brothers coffee that is packaged in vacuum tins. The Oregon Trail was an exhausting, sometimes treacherous, 2,000-mile journey that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between. They split logs into rails to make the zigzag fence that enclosed their clearings. The crushed beans were then dumped into a coffee pot filled with water and set on the fire. Pioneers did their best to prevent sickness by drinking coffee. As to whether pioneers or anyone else 200 years ago boiled their water, I don't know. Ever heard of Scandinavian coffee? Pioneer lesson #9. After the coffee had boiled, it was ready to drink, even with coffee grounds floating in it. Hills had developed the process to remove the air from the packages thus preserving a fresher coffee product. The poll of a small camp axe or even the handle of a wagon jack would work nicely. Plums, grapes, bramble fruit, wild cherries (sand, choke, run and so on). Whereas before the revolution most people drank tea, after it the nation switched to coffee. Pioneers knew how essential this energy booster would be, so they packed tons of it. 1900-1910. Wild apples, pecans, walnuts, hazlenuts and so on. By the time of the revolution, tea was mostly drunk only by the wealthy. If no coffee was available, pioneers made a coffee-like substance from acorns, dandelion roots or chicory. The land was rich in fruits and vegetables. Coffee. But I'm sure that occasionally someone did get sick. This coffee recipe isn't exactly difficult, and it's based on the bare minimum attitude that pioneers had to adopt. Fresh water from streams is much better than stagnant water, and people did readily drink it without ill effects all the time. In 1839, in the city of Chicago, one of the minor taverns was known as the Lake Street coffee house. And—fun fact—they fed it to the animals, too.