“"My father's family was small and he took us all with him. The Indian meal which he brought was expended six weeks too soon, so that for that length of time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the breast of wild turkeys, we were taught to call bread. I remember how narrowly we children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin, and squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes, when we got them! What a jubilee when we were permitted to pull the young corn for roasting ears! Still more so when it had acquired sufficient hardness to be made into johnny cake by the aid of a tin grater. The furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls and trenchers and noggins. If these last were scarce, gourds and hard shell squashes made up the deficiency.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
BREAD AND BREAD-MAKING. 1668. AMONG the numerous vegetable products yielding articles of food for man, the Cereals hold the first place. By means of skilful cultivation, mankind have transformed the original forms of these growths, poor and ill-flavoured as they perhaps were, into various fruitful and agreeable species, which yield an abundant and pleasant supply. Classified according to their respective richness in alimentary elements, the Cereals stand thus:--Wheat, and its varieties, Rye, Barley, Oats, Rice, Indian Corn. Everybody knows it is wheat flour which yields the best bread. Rye-bread is viscous, hard, less easily soluble by the gastric juice, and not so rich in nutritive power. Flour produced from barley, Indian corn, or rice, is not so readily made into bread; and the article, when made, is heavy and indigestible. 1669.
Sources: The passage is from John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott, Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — moss cloth, sheaf stamp.