44 Days Until Trek - Cooking Fuel

Don't worry, you will not be required to collect cow dung to cook your food. We have a food committee who is planning nutritious and delicious menus for Trek and helping arrange for clean, reliable fuel sources for your cooking needs. Still, I suspect you will encounter plenty of "meadow muffins" where we're headed if you were sad to not receive the full pioneer experience.

“By far the most universal trail fuel was dung from the innumerable buffalo that had not yet been massacred to near-extinction in the 1840s and 1850s. This fuel went by a variety of names: buffalo chips, bois de vache (“wood of the cow”), meadow muffins, prairie coal, or cow pies. It is not surprising that dried dung burned; it was mainly grass. However, it burned quickly, as much as two or three bushels being required for the typical meal. It also had to be very dry, could not be used in stoves, and left many ashes. It burned without visible flames, like charcoal, and was also oderless, although a common joke was that a steak cooked over such fuel required no pepper.”

Selection from Stanley B. and Violet T. Kimball's 2011 book, Villages on Wheels: A Social History of the Gathering to Zion.

Look closely at the above painting. The artist, C.C.A. Christensen depicted handcart pioneers collecting and burning buffalo pies to cook their food. The woman to the right and the little girl to the front near the handcart are both picking up fuel while the woman and boys to the left of the forefront are starting a fire from what has been gathered.