"By the time the wagon trains reached buffalo (bison) country, most of the emigrants longingly anticipated a meal of freshly cooked meat. Salted meat had its place, but it could not replace the fresh for weary travelers. The emigrants eagerly devoured the buffalo that had already been so generous in providing fuel for baking bread and cooking beans. The enticing fresh meat with its assertive flavor was just what they thought they wanted...testimonies from pleased diners indicated that after indulging in this gastronomic treat, almost everyone became an instant aficionado.
"I think there is no beef in the world equal to a fine buffalo cow--such flavor so rich, so juicy, it makes the mouth water to think of it," noted Charles Stanton...According to Edwin Bryant, the choicest cuts of a young fat buffalo cow were the rump, tenderloin, liver, heart, tongue, hump, and "and intestinal vessel or organ, commonly called by hunters the marrow-gut,' which anatomically speaking, is the chylo-poetic duct...Bryant was describing the intestine that mountain cooks used for making sausage...Buffalo meat, darker and coarser than beef, was either fried in a pan or broiled directly over the hot coals.
Bones and other parts were added to the soup pot. The hump was cut up to eat immediately or made into jerky. Oner part reported that they buried the large bones in the coals of buffalo chips and in an hour had some delicious baked marrow. Tongues were smoked or pickled. Buffalo tongue became a gourmet food and was shipped to restaurants throughout the country, its popularity contributing to the demise of the buffalo.
Patty Sessions gathered dry weeds to place on the dung before broiling her family's buffalo steaks. Carvalho's companions copied the Indians: "They cut the buffalo meat in strips about an inch thick, four wide, and twelve to fifteen long. The stick is then inserted in the meat, as boys to a kite stick; one end of the stick is then stuck in the ground, near the fire, and the process of roasting is complete--the natural juice of the meat is retained, in the this manner, and I think it the most preferable way to cook game." During the meal the men would simply cut a slice off the piece roasting on the stick.
Buffalo meat was so versatile that Narcissa Whitman boasted that her husband had a different way of preparing each piece of meat. Unfortunately, she did not record the recipes; she did, however, observe that her husband liked the taste of buffalo so much that he now began to do most of the cooking.
Yet there were dissenters. "While here we had buffalo meat. We did not like it very well. It is much coarser than beef," wrote Lucia Williams...Knowing that they must always plan ahead, emigrants preserved the buffalo meat by "jerking" it. In that process the meat is cut into long strips about one inch wide and then dried in the sun or over a fire."
Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregaon Trail, Jacqueline Williams [University Press of Kansas: Lawrence KS] 1993 (p. 150-3)
