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HomeGold Beaver Silver and Gold Medallion Membership Application Stories, Legends & Oregon History Millenium Gold Miners Cookbook ************************ Pacific
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Miners'
Cookbook
 Jointly Produced by Eastern Oregon Mining Association and Defenders of Private Rights This book is dedicated to the old timers. Most of them were loners, living by themselves in the hills. With everything they owned packed on a burro, these prospectors75 roamed the Blue Mountains of Northeastern Oregon searching for the "Mother Lode". They worked for themselves, and they liked it that way. A few struck it rich, but most just made enough to get by. The quality of life they lived was equally important to these men and women as the gold. When gold was discovered in Northeast Oregon in 1862, miners flocked to the area to seek the riches Mother Nature had hidden beneath her surface. Mining towns such as Baker City, Auburn, Sumpter, Granite, Greenhorn, Sparta and Cornucopia appeared almost overnight. These towns were filled rapidly with merchants and saloon owners eager to sell food, drink and supplies to the miners. Because so many of the mines were in remote locations, and supplies had to be packed in, only essential foodstuffs such as flour, salt, sugar, beans, potatoes and a little dried fruit were available. The bulk of the miners' diet was taken from the land. Cooking in these isolated mining camps evolved into a culinary art form almost unknown today. Meats were primarily wild game and fish. Berries, wild greens, onions and herbs were used for balance. Bread was an important part of all meals, and sourdough starters were guarded like gold. Some of the sourdough strains used today date back well over a hundred years. Once the miners got to town, it was a different story. Those with gold in their pockets or pokes partook of all the luxury foods they had missed. Meals of eggs, cream, oysters, steak, pastries and whiskey soon depleted their gold reserves and they had to head back to the hills to replenish their supply so as to return to these delights. Many of the recipes in this cookbook are well over a hundred years old, and are, in fact, a legacy of those early miners. Others are more recent, but all are favorites of todays miners and prospectors, who, perhaps surprisingly, still wander the canyons, creeks and ledges in search of the yellow metal.
Eastern Oregon
Mining
Association and the Defenders of Private Rights, two grassroots
organizations
homebased in Baker City, Oregon have undertaken to save this legacy
from
the old timers in the publication of this Miners' Cookbook. You
can
own a copy for only $10.00, with no shipping or handling
fees.
Simply copy the following form, and
send it to the indicated address
with
check or money order for $10.00, to get your copy of the Miner's Cookbook. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ______________________________
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2
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4
5
10
Other ( ) Check or Money Order enclosed for $____________ Mail the above
to: Eastern Oregon Mining
Association,
P.O. Box 932 Baker City, Oregon 97814 ======================================================================================
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