Holiday Food Civil War - Idiot's Delight Cake

Food was scarce for the South, but they tried to celebrate Christmas and the Holidays.  Here is a frugal recipe used for party cakes in the South.

CIVIL WAR IDIOT'S DELIGHT CAKE Idiot's Delight Cake Ingredients 1 c. brown sugar 1 c. raisins 1 tbsp. butter 1 tsp. vanilla 4 c. water 7 tbsp. butter 1/2 c. white sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 c. milk 1 c. flour Boil together the first 5 ingredients. Make a batter of the second 5 ingredients. Drop the batter in a greased pan by spoonfuls. Pour first mixture over it and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.  Source:  Cooks.com    It was popular because it used only a few, inexpensive, easy to obtain ingredients and is fool-proof. Even an "idiot" can make it.

Southern Women Outwit Yankee Soldiers

Hiding Valuables

As in any war, there was much theft and plunder by Yankee soldiers.  Southerners, however, had 2 advantages which helped ensure their survival:

1. Yankees did not recognize the patches of sweet potatoes, thinking they were weeds, and overlooked them.

2. Southerners knew their local terrain.  They knew its hiding places, and hid livestock such as pigs, and valuables in swamps and forests.

Diary of Nancy Emerson  
Staunton, VA  July 13, 1864
"They told us that Crook's men were a great deal worse than they, & that was true, but they were bad enough & worse at some other places than with us.  At one of our neighbors, they took every thing they had to eat, all the pillow cases & sheets but what were on the beds, & the towels & some of the ladies stockings.  One of them made up a bundle of ladies clothing to take, but his comrade shamed him out of it.                 

They then poured out their molasses, scattered their preserves & sugar & other things about the floor, & mixed them all together & destroyed things generally."

Diary of Estelle Laughlin 

"Word was sent by a neighbor's young houseboy ... that the Union soldiers were foraging, and so they had a little time to hide things.

All the keepsakes that they felt the Union soldiers might take were hastily dumped into a large, dark-colored bag.  Uncle Adam suspended it down into the well by the long rope.

The Union soldiers arrived and took the chickens, and some other things, but when they went through the house, they couldn't seem to find anything of value.

When the soldiers stopped at the well to draw up a bucket of cold water, the hearts of the watching family were in their throats, but by good fortune they didn't notice the rope suspended into the well, or else thought it was merely something put down in the well to be kept cold, as was the custom, and so the family treasures were saved."

Click below to read more:

Frugal Civil War Cooking: Oatmeal Pie recipe

There were many food shortages because of blockades.  The following recipe provides flavors that substitute for pecans, which were hard to find.  A very frugal recipe and tasty.

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Pie

Ingredients:

1 (9 inch) pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup light corn syrup (sorghum or molasses during Civil War)
1/8 to 1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup quick cooking oatmeal (uncooked)

Directions:
Preheat oven 350 degrees. Beat eggs until frothy. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in small bowl. Add eggs and mix well. Add corn syrup, melted butter and vanilla. Mix oatmeal. Pour into uncooked pie shell. Bake for 45 minutes. 

Oatmeal pie is also known as “poor man’s pecan pie” or “mock pecan pie.”  Another time in U.S. history when oatmeal pie was popular was during the Great Depression when everything was in short supply. Oatmeal pie is made with basic ingredients that were and still are in most of our pantries. 

Click below to read more:

Civil War Frugal Recipe: Cabbage Stew

Civil War Recipes 

During the Civil War finding sufficient, edible food was challenging.  Devastated landscapes with no one to farm them, insufficient labor, and blockades and barricades prevented access to provisions. Much like settlers headed out West or poverty-stricken people during the Great Depression, Civil War civilians and soldiers resorted to whatever they could find to eat. The following recipe reflects the creativity men and women undertook in the kitchen and at the campfire. 

Cabbage Stew

Ingredients:

1. - one head green cabbage
2. - onions (slice the cabbage and onions - approximately ½ & ½)
3. - salt pork (cut the salt pork into small cubes)  NOTE:  a modern    Vegan substitute is tempeh or tofu
4. - stewed tomatoes
5. - salt, garlic salt, pepper, cajun seasoning or ground red pepper

Fry the salt pork in a very large, hot, cast iron pot 

   until well browned (do not drain).
Turn the heat down (move to a cooler fire area).
Add cabbage and cook until wilted
Add onions and cook until wilted

Let cook approximately 1 hour (low fire).  Add tomatoes to more than cover.  
Let cook ...simmer... The longer the better, the flavors will blend nicely the longer it cooks.

Add garlic salt (small amount), then add salt and pepper to taste.
Add a very small amount of cajun seasoning or ground red pepper. Be sure to taste after adding each time. It takes the seasoning a few minutes to make themselves known. Better to add too little than too much.  Stir occasionally.
After approximately 2-3 hours, start tasting then season/cook more if necessary. 

Click below to read more:

Source:   Total Gettsburg

Folk Medicine in the South during Civil War

Shortage of Medicines

Much of the suffering in the war was because of a rapidly declining supply of medicine in the South as blockades restricted importation of all essentials.

Speculators: When enemy camps were overrun, speculators raided the medical stores capturing morphine, quinine and chloroform to resell at 50 times their original value. It was such a problem that General Lee called upon the secretary of war to put an end to the practice.

A well known manual on indigenous substitutes written by surgeon Maj. Francis Perye Porcher was “Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economic and Agricultural.”

Published in 1863, the 600-page book was distributed to medical officers to help aid the sick and wounded. It is said to have helped so many that Confederates were able to hold off the Union Army for two additional years.

Malaria was a major problem in the South.  Malaria became a constant problem where insects swarmed like a plague in swamps, marshes and bayous. 

Union surgeons had ready access to quinine, which is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, to treat malaria.  Confederate doctors improvised with boneset, dogwood berries, willow, poplar bark or the wahoo tree bark as substitutes.

Eupatorium, known as boneset, was a substitute for quinine.  It is also known to be used by slaves of the southern plantations to treat typhus.

Other medicinal substitutes used by Confederate surgeons included blackberry roots, charcoal, wild lettuce, peach leaf tea, rhubarb and a cordial made from persimmon and sugar to treat diarrhea and dysentery. These substitutes were undoubtedly less toxic than Union medical personnel’s affinity for mercury, used to treat everything from dysentery to headaches.  

Read Porcher's book Online: 

Museum of Civil War Medicine

article source:  TimeRecord News, Wichita  Falls, Texas

Hiding Family Valuables from Plunder

The suffering and bravery of southern women in the American Civil War can inspire us.  Northern soldiers confiscated wood for fuel, chickens, garden crops, pigs, out of necessary.  Rogue soldiers often robbed a family's wealth.

Hiding family valuables

"Word was sent by a neighbor's young houseboy, who sneaked through the woods to their home to warn them that the Union soldiers were foraging,  and so they had a little time to hide things."

Food and valuables were hidden in nearby swamps or woods.   

"We heard that Sherman had burnt Columbia and was advancing towards Fayetteville N.C. We began  to make preparations for the expected raid by hiding such things as we  could unbeknowing to the Negroes. My brother Elisha and I hauled away two barrels of lard, pretending in the presence of the Negroes that we  were carrying it for delivery to a purchaser in the neighborhood...

After leaving home and got out of sight we drove into the woods some distance where we had previously dug holes to receive it and  there buried it destroying all traces of the affair. After we had finished, it was too soon to return home so we spent the time collecting  wood to take back home. In due time we reached home with our load of  wood, reporting in the presence of the Negroes, the safe delivery of the  lard handing in a pretended receipt. "