Staples of the Emigrant Diet

“The two great staples of ordinary diet were ‘sowbelly’ and ‘biscuits’—which, being translated, meant bacon and hot bread baked in a Dutch oven. In a camp exclusively masculine this was not varied much. Sometimes they had beans or ‘slam-johns’ (the current slang for flapjacks) with occasional game and a pickle now and then as a precaution against scurvy.”