Haute Cuisine, Lewis and Clark Style

[catbirdseat]

This recipe is available elsewhere on the Internet, but not (as far as I can tell) in the original manuscript form as recorded by Captain Lewis with his colorful spellings. Italics are his. Bold is mine.

 

Capt. C. killed 2 bucks and 2 buffaloes. I also killed one buffaloe... we saved the best of the meat, and from the cow I killed we saved the necessary materials for making what our wrighthand cook Charbono calls the boudin (poudingue) blanc, and immediately set him about preparing them for supper.

 

This white pudding we all esteem one of the greatest delicacies of the forrest. It may not be amiss therefore to give it a place. About 6 feet of the lower extremity of the large gut of the buffaloe is the first morsel that the cook makes love to. This he holds fast at one end with the right hand, while with the forefinger and thumb o the left he gently compresses it, and discharges what he says is not good to eat, but of which in the sequel we get a moderate portion. The mustle laying underneath the shoulder blade next to the back, and filets are next saught, these are needed up very fine with a good portion of kidney suit; to this composition is then added a just proportion of pepper and salt and a small quantity of flour.

 

Thus far advanced, our skilfull opporater seizes his recepticle, which has never once touched the water, for that would intirely distroy the regular order of the whole procedure. You will not forget that the side you now see is that covered with a good coat of fat provided the animal be in good order. The operator sceizes the receptacle, I say, and tying it fast at one end turns it inward and begins now with repeated evolutions of the hand and arm, and the brisk motion of the finger and thumb to put in what he says is bon pour manger; thus by stuffing and compressing he soon distends the receptable to the utmost limmits of its power of expansion, and in the course of it's longtudinal progress it drives from the other end of the receptacle a much larger portion of the [blank in manuscript] that was previously discharged by the finger and thumb of the left hand in a former part of the operation. Thus when the sides of the receptacle are skilfully exchanged the outer for the iner, and all is compleatly filled with something good to eat, it is tyed at the other end, but not any cut off, for that would make the pattern too scant.

 

It is then baptised in the Missouri with two dips and a flirt, and bobbed into the kettle; from whence, after it be well boiled it is fryed with bears oil untill it become brown, when taken and it is ready to esswage the pangs of a keen appetite or such as travelers in the wilderness are seldom at a loss for.