Camp Food in a Copper Corn Boiler

[Reichert65]

How Do

Maybe recipe isn’t the right word, but does anyone have any period meal recipes or food recipes that would’ve been made in a corn boiler?

 

[French Colonial]

This should be interesting

 

[Brokennock]

How Do

Maybe recipe isn’t the right word, but does anyone have any period meal recipes or food recipes that would’ve been made in a corn boiler?

period meal recipes or food recipes

What "period" are you asking about?
The so called "corn boiler" as offered/advertised by many vendors does not appear to have "been a thing" in the 18th century,,, and I could be wrong but also not for much of the 19th.

Soup is good for any period though . Learn to make "pocket soup" at home and bring some with you along with some unseasoned jerky (no damn soy sauce) and hard tack or ships biscuit.

 

[tenngun]

Boiled meat, and boiled with vegetables was common. Salt pepper nutmeg and cayenne pepper were common spices.
Boiled grain especially corn meal and bits of jerky and maple sugar was a basic meal.
Flour, fat and salt could be put in a small bag and boiled in water in the pot making pudding. Molasses, corn meal raisins or other dried fruit and a little rum or other sprit can make a sweet or savory bread that can be carried for several days
Dried potatoes onions mushrooms carrots and parsnips were common vegetables. Tomato wasn’t eaten in America and much of westren Europe at the time.
Corn was the most popular flour, barley, rye, and wheat flour was all found and used. Oats and rice were popular too especially in the more southren areas.
Portable soup, ie broth gelatin made a great base. Hard tack broken and crushed makes any soup in to a thick stew. Hardtack as a nutty flavor and while plain is good in a pottage.
Softer sweater Pilot bread won’t last is long but for a trek or event it’s good.
Oatmeal or hasty pudding, boiled corn meal and butter make a good breakfast, boiled water for coffee tea or chocolate then boil up your cereal, dinner a stew thicker with hard tack, there wasn’t a lot of gormets with one pot and frontier eats.

 

[tenngun]

Dry hard bacon can be found via several suppliers
If you have a frying pan you can slice that bacon soak it or par boil it in water, toss that ofc then fry, you can throw rum in to the pan and have rashers and rum, a common meal.
However in colonial times bacon was almost always boiled or cut up and used as a side meat in a soup.
Pea soup and white beans were real common fare boiled with bacon.
Green or yellow peas cook quicker than bigger beans.
Beans and rice was especially common in the more southern colonies and French Mississippi. Bacon ham or dried sausage would have been the meat

 

[Reichert65]

Dry hard bacon can be found via several suppliers
If you have a frying pan you can slice that bacon soak it or par boil it in water, toss that ofc then fry, you can throw rum in to the pan and have rashers and rum, a common meal.
However in colonial times bacon was almost always boiled or cut up and used as a side meat in a soup.
Pea soup and white beans were real common fare boiled with bacon.
Green or yellow peas cook quicker than bigger beans.
Beans and rice was especially common in the more southern colonies and French Mississippi. Bacon ham or dried sausage would have been the meat

Thank you!

 

[Reichert65]

What "period" are you asking about?
The so called "corn boiler" as offered/advertised by many vendors does not appear to have "been a thing" in the 18th century,,, and I could be wrong but also not for much of the 19th.

Soup is good for any period though . Learn to make "pocket soup" at home and bring some with you along with some unseasoned jerky (no damn soy sauce) and hard tack or ships biscuit.

I meant 18th century. Understood though with a corn boiler not being a thing.

 

[andy52]

Any kind of soup or stew will work, also porridge or oatmeal and the like.
Due to the size fried meats are difficult unless they are cut into smaller pieces.
Just about anything that can be cooked in a saucepan at home will work.

 

[Ohio Rusty]

Rubaboo has been around as long as pemmican. peas, corn, potatoes and pemmican boiled into a soup. Crushed ships biscuits added to the soup will thicken it.
Ohio Rusty ><>

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I meant 18th century. Understood though with a corn boiler not being a thing.

So what they mean is that the things that have been labelled a "corn boiler" either were not around OR..., they were here but they didn't call them that.

These are really 20th century things, The domed lid and small size pretty much give them away. These were all the rage in the 1990's

Another thing you find for sale as "corn boilers" are American Civil War "muckets", but folks try to say these are RevWar or earlier. I personally think these are one of the worst designs for personal cooking

A "small copper pot" which is has about 3x the capacity of the small "corn boiler" would be correct....

These are fine, and you place cloth sacks within when hiking for holding dry ingredients, that you will later cook


Now IF you want something small, you can always try a brass, trade kettle

So I mentioned "corn boilers" were not a "thing" but there was the Soldier's Can, a tin mug

With liquid in them the soldered seams won't melt open, AND you can always take a nail, and punch two holes, and add a bale type handle to them

The advantage of this is that you can hang this over the fire. NOTE that the bale goes in a hole adjacent to the mug handle, and then opposite that hole. This allows you to still drink from the side of the mug as normal.

BOILING
They didn't know about germs as we do today, BUT they did understand cause-and-effect relationships, and knew that if one boiled food, one tended to be healthier.

Rock-a-hominy, which isn't hominy nor grits. You take dried, dent corn, and then dry-roast it in an iron pan. This is really the corn that should be boiled in a "corn boiler", and it can be eaten unboiled and dry... sorta like a salt free corn chip. So you take the dry-roasted corn (aka "parched") , then grind it. This type of corn meal may be eaten dry with a few gulps of water OR you can make a corn porridge with hot water, some salt and cayenne pepper. Highly nutritious. You can add dried beef jerky or bits of air cured bacon.

Cube up a potato into small cubes and boil that up. Smaller cubes cook much faster.

Mash up the tiny cubes with some olive oil and salt , and that's pretty close to mashed potatoes made with milk and butter.

Oat Groats (oat grain not rolled nor cut) may be boiled and eaten. 1/2 cup oat groats in a cup of water, but you need to boil for about an hour, until the grain looks like it has burst. ( You will need to add water as this cooks) Add some brown sugar if you wish.

Dried Hominy.... grits is merely this ground up, and like groats boil them for about an hour until soft. IF you have salted butter this stuff is great. You can get away with some olive oil and some salt

Cornmeal may be boiled into Hasty Pudding

Carry raisins, especially if you are hiking. Potassium in the raisins wards off leg cramps, especially in hot weather. Add raisins to any porridge or hasty pudding.

Lentils boil the fastest of the beans.

Peas, especially split peas boil pretty fast too. With some smoky dried cured bacon, that makes a fine meal.

IF you can't find dry cured bacon, use shelf stable pre-cooked bacon
You can crush up ship's biscuit, and add that to bacon pieces in water. IF you make ship's biscuit yourself, use whole wheat pastry flour and add a cup of whole wheat bran, to get the ship's biscuit right.

Abuelita or Ibarra brand Mexican chocolate may be grated into boiled corn meal, or may be eaten straight.

You can boil coffee or tea, and add sugar. Yaupon Tea has been rediscovered in North America, and was a very popular, green tea, and HAS caffeine. I think it's tasty.

LD

 

[French Colonial]

If you are looking for authentic recipes I would suggest you also look at authentic cooking utensils of the 18th century.
Tin corn boilers may or may not be proper for the period (some with more research can answer this better than me) but brass kettles and cast iron pots certainly would be.

Brass and cast iron kettle fragments have been dug up at the Guebert site which is circa 1721 in southern Illinois, see the book " The Material World of the Kaskaskia" by Mazrim and Weedman.

So a small brass kettle would be proper and not much heavier than a corn boiler for trekking and for a camp would be just perfect I would think.

I was typing while LD was above........see his picture of a brass kettle...perfect!

 

[tenngun]

There were small cast iron pots in about one quart size, but they are heavy and actually fragile.
Trekking as a sport is not real hc, people didn’t go camping then, although a night or two on your own was possible.
Hunting and traping was almost always done as a party. And the party had pack horses or water craft with supplies. Even so they had to be weight conscious.
Any pot big enough to serve several men was very heavy, so tin or copper was more appropriate
Plum-Martin records how his mess had an iron kettle issued to them and how heavy it was on the march. They ‘accidentally’ dropped it on a hill.
Meat and corn cakes can be cooked right on coals or hot ground, root vegetables and roast baked under a fire.
I carry a pot, and in camp have way too much cooking stuff. Today we are a material culture. You pretty much wouldn’t find too many folks with tea and coffee pots, camp kettles and frying pans.
We can read of such in use on the frontier, but is a rairity
Of note, there was a British woman who did travel in Canada about 1830, her name escapes me now, who did see cast iron ovens in use for beard making. However she was with large groups transversing the area with wives and children in tow.
Likewise MM journalist record frying pans, these were small sheet metal and were packed in a pack train, very light.