♪♪ [soldier giving orders] [Walter] Fort Larned, established on the western Kansas prarie, was built for the protection of U.S. mail coaches, commercial trade, and other traffic along the bustling Santa Fe Trail.

This important military post was a ground for war and peace with the surrounding native tribes throughout the 1860s and 70s.

The walls of this fort also played host to the first African American military regiments known proudly as the Buffalo Soldiers.

[Buffalo Solider giving orders] [Walter] Join me as I explore the living history of this well preserved frontier fort and learn how the soldiers and their families lived and dined during the mid 1800s.

And all this for A Taste of History.

[Narrator] This program is made possible by the Blue and Gray Education Society, whose mission is to preserve American history through its historical guidebooks, nationwide tours, and philanthropic endeavors.

♪♪ [Narrator] The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 brought on a period of great change for the United States and its newly acquired Southwest Territories.

With international borders now a thing of the past commercial freighting and trade along the Santa Fe Trail increased dramatically.

By the 1860s, a torrent of travelers and developing U.S. government policies inflicted strict boundaries on the native tribes of the Southern Plains.

With each pioneer settlement forcing large groups of Indians to relocate, native resistance to the wagons traveling the trail increased and lone parties were attacked.

In response to increased hostility, the United States military constructed Fort Larned in 1859 at the junction of the Pawnee Creek and the Arkansas River in Kansas.

Throughout Fort Larned's duration, the soldiers primary purpose was to protect Santa Fe Trail commerce and escort U.S. mail coaches and military supply wagons on the trail.

Throughout the Indian wars, of which Fort Larned was at the center of, this military post also served as the headquarters for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tasked with carrying out government treaty obligations and distributing annuities in return for keeping the peace.

Throughout the late 1800s, the railroad pushed west through central Kansas and soldiers from Fort Larned provided protection for its construction workers.

With its more economical and efficient shipping, the dusty wagon roads of the Santa Fe Trail began being replaced.

By 1878, the railroad had completely transformed the West and Fort Larned was abandoned.

Today the fort stands as one of the most well-preserved military strongholds of its era, and gives travelers a glimpse into the life of an everyday soldier and traveler.

♪♪ Good afternoon, chef.

I am Bob Rogers and I'm going to be demonstrating frontier army cooking here at Fort Larned.

I understand that being a cook in the Army in those days wasn't just simple, because it wasn't about passion, It was assignment.

It was an assignment.

The Army had no permanent cooks and so they took a soldier from the company ranks and he cooked for ten days.

At the end of that ten day period, another soldier would be assigned and he would cook for ten days, and then another guy would relieve him.

All the reading I've done, nobody starves in the Indian Wars Army, but nobody writes home and says, "Gee mom, this is really good food."

[Walter laughs] But it was there to nourish the soldier, provide calories, energy, and if it tasted good, very good if not, well, they ate it or starved.

We're doing mashed peas with salted pork.

So what we're going to do is we're going to take the peas and put them in this piece of scrap cloth.

The recipe calls for dried peas.

We have some nice carrots here and we're going to add them to the peas.

Now, these carrots came out of the company garden, and one of the soldiers job was to grow their food.

The War Department was very, very cheap.

And so the idea is if the soldiers can grow the food, more power to them, and the soldiers would make a garden.

-So the good news about peas is the natural vegetable protein too so it's relatively healthy.

-That's exactly right.

Nutrition, calories, energy.

OK, so what we're going to do is my assistant here, Dustin, is going to tie this up into a little bag and we're going to drop it into a kettle and boil it for 2 hours.

If I poured the peas directly in I have to stir them continuously -And they'd burn really quick on a stove like that.

-Modern people would probably use a double boiler.

Yea This we don't.

You have that one cook and maybe an assistant cooking for 75 or 100 guys.

He doesn't have time to continually stir.

And what I have here, chef, is salt pork.

It's slightly different than salt pork today.

It was shipped in giant wooden casks, in brine.

If you look at a lot of salt pork recipes at the time, they don't mention adding salt because the salt is here.

It has this gray color.

A lot of soldiers when they first ate this they were kind of put off by it A different smell.

-It's the pickling effect, yea.

-And so my assistant is going to slice it up in bite sized cuts.

And then we're going to wrap that, too.

-Talking about this recipe makes me hungry.

[Walter laughs] [Bob] And again, we're going to put this into a bag.

-Same thing -Or a piece of cloth and wrap it up.

And we're going to boil this for several hours to boil out as much of the salt and the preservative as we can.

-So I don't see any fancy bay leaf or other stuff to be used in there.

This is just a straight forward.

[Bob] The army bought spices.

They were very, very basic.

Interesting thing.

They used Lea & Perrins steak sauce.

-Worcestershire sauce?

Sheesh -Yeah.

And so there's a lot of accounts of that.

So we're going to let this boil for about 2 hours or simmer.

And then it will be ready to eat.

♪♪ [Narrator] At the conclusion of the Civil War, the United States Army created new regiments composed solely of African-American soldiers, the 24th and 25th Infantry, and the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

Because of the lack of social and economic opportunities for black men after the war, many jumped at the chance for a career in the U.S. Army.

-Here at Fort Larned, in 1867, just right after they were organized at Fort Leavenworth, Company A of the 10th United States Cavalry was assigned here These were regular army soldiers, just like the white infantry.

They received the same pay, uniforms, the same weapons, the same gear that the 7th United States Cavalry was being organized with, too.

But there was a lot of discrimination that took place here at Fort Larned.

Some of the infantry officers, for example, would refuse to allow their men to give their black soldiers the dignity of watching them perform on the parade ground.

-Fort Larned, when we were there Wed go out on patrol and we would help the settlers move westward, protect the settlers.

They wanted us to protect them but they didn't want us too close.

Not everybody wanted blacks to be in the military.

[Narrator] As a Calvary unit at a frontier military post, the men of Company A went on reconnaissance patrols, escorted mail wagons along the Santa Fe Trail and took their turn at guard duty on the post.

Captain Nicholas Nolan noted the Company's devotion to duty, hard work and eagerness to prove themselves in the field.

But it was perhaps the Native Americans who garnered the most appreciation towards the 10th Cavalry, giving them their reputable nickname, the Buffalo Soldiers.

The Plains Indians were very spiritual people, just like the black soldier is.

They thought God had sent the buffalo down as their brother who cared for them food, water, shelter, weapons, clothing, housing.

There's not one part of the buffalo that the Plains Indians didn't use.

They said that the black mens.. hair on the black mens head looked very much like that of the hair on the hump of the buffalo.

They said our skin looked very much like the fur of the buffalo.

And as we got into the fighting spirit and we got into combat with them, they said our fighting spirit was very much like a wounded buffalo, we would not die.

So they started calling us the Buffalo Soldiers.

That's the first time in history that we've ever been called anything out of great respect and great pride.

We wear that very proudly.

♪♪ So our next step in the recipe is we're going to lightly fry some onions, and when we open the bag of pork, we'll just drop the onions on top of the pork, nothing fancy.

So our soldiers plucked this from the ground, and we're going to slice it and fry it in lard or schmaltz.

There's no vegetable oil, there is no olive oil, and lard is what you fry in if you're in the frontier west.

[Walter] Butter was scarce at the time because you use the cream for everything else but making butter.

-That's right.

-Except if you over whipped the cream.

[Walter laughs] Bob, this is why I'm so excited to see that.

This is a complete different approach to cooking, as I'm used to.

Which is nice to see.

And you got an assistant that actually listens to you.

He does.

Well, he's in the frontier army if he doesn't, he goes to stand in the sweat box for a few hours.

So, yes.

So he doesn't have a choice.

[Bob] Now, we have removed that iron circular piece just to get a quick heat.

"Frizzle the onions" I think one recipe called it.

-Yea, because I think when you do it like that, you want the flavor of the onions to still be dominant, you know?

-Yes.

-I get it.

I'll show you an easy trick.

Look here.

[sizzling] -I nominate you to be the cook for the next ten days.

-I wouldn't mind.

I'm just not so sure that they would ever let me leave again.

[Walter laughs] -That's true.

[Walter] Here you go.

Your onions are ready to go.

Look at it, perfect.

[Dustin] Thank you.

[Walter] Perfect.

[Bob] Next, we're going to take our pork and our peas off the fire.

We have simmered these for about 2 hours, approximately.

So, we have our pork.

-All right.

-And we're going to throw the water out.

Or we could reserve it for tomorrow's breakfast.

Take a look at that.

-Take a look at that.

Nevermind take a look at it, take a piece of it!

Oh, man.

Mm!

I can see now why we made the onions translucent.

-Mm hmm.

-That's going to be perfect on top.

-We've added the pork back into its pot and mix it up.

-I need to get a piece with the onion.

-Those three forkfuls were the army ration for pork, so you can't have any more after that.

-You're kidding?

But you know what?

It could use a little bit more pepper.

My opinion.

-OK -It's good though.

[Bob] Now, the recipe says to smash the peas.

Look at that.

Oh, that smells heavenly.

-And if it was me.

If I would be in charge of the kitchen today.

Obviously, you know what I would do?

More pepper and some schmaltz right underneath there.

-Add?

-Mmm!

Yea.

Oh, good.

It might not be in your recipe book, but it's in ours today.

-More lard is always good.

-Hey, after all, I had to come down and show a little bit of my experience with you guys.

-I'm glad to learn from you.

We're going to relocate to the tables out here.

I'm ready for the soldiers.

[dishes and silverware clanking] [coffee pouring] How do you like the food?

[Soldiers] Huzzah!

♪♪ ♪♪ -Chef.

Welcome to Fort Larned, and welcome to the Post Bakery.

I'm Wayne, and I'm the post baker here.

And I'll tell you, I can't wait to see your craft because it's, to me, a very important part.

I happen to like bread, as you can tell, but knowing location that you were in in those days, you couldn't just run down the street or have a truck drop off some bread -No, the flour was shipped in from St Louis and we had to have all of the supplies here in the commissary.

The Post Baker would have an assistant baker and a couple of others that would help out in the bakery and bring over the water, the wood, keep the fire stoked in the oven.

-And you got a beautiful oven behind you there, my friend That's a beauty.

[Wayne] Each soldier would have a ration of a loaf of bread for every day so 300 loaves of bread every day would have to be baked.

-And it was seven days a week?

-It was busy, seven days a week.

You didn't get any off days.

-How many breads can you bake in one shot?

-I've been told 320, but I wouldn't want to try and bake 320 loaves in there at one time.

Well let's do a couple right now -We'll do a couple.

[Wayne] We're going to start with four cups of water two tablespoons of yeast and then to that we're going to add four cups of flour and mix it up, get the lumps out.

Then we'll leave it to sit for about an hour.

That starts the yeast activating -Yep, correct.

You've done this a few times I can tell though.

[both laugh] -There we go.

-Beautiful, yep.

An hour or so it looks like It looks like that one.

Voila.

Magic.

[Wayne] And you can see it's bubbling.

-Yea, it's a beautiful, beautiful yeast smell to it.

-Add another five cups of water.

We'll also add at this time two tablespoons of salt.

-Mhmm.

-For this recipe, for the eight loaves, it takes about 5 pounds of flour You can see I wouldn't want to stick my hands in there yet.

So you get it to the consistency to where you can actually knead it.

-Well if your arm gets tired I can whisk it for you for a while.

-Would you do that?

-Sure.

Come on.

You don't think I've ever done that before, do you?

[Wayne laughs] You're going to need more flour here.

-More flour?

-Yeah.

You need some good, strong arms for that.

If you make enough for 320 So Wayne, I mean we just doing one loaf.

Just imagine doing that times, how many times it is for 320.

So you'd have to use the big trough behind us here?

-Use the big dough trough back here to be able to do that.

It would take some strong arms to mix up the dough in there.

-Yea yea You're almost there.

-Now's the time to get your fingers dirty.

-Yeah.

And then once it's kneaded how long until it rises?

-It sits for about another hour.

[Walter] If it's warm in here, which it is obviously with the oven, so it's perfect.

Otherwise you wouldn't get the reaction to it.

-We'll cut it into loaves -Yep -And put it in the bread pan Then it'll sit for another hour, yeah.

-So you let it rise in the bread pan.

-Yeah.

-Do you put any kind of shortening in the bread pan at all or nothing?

-We'll put some lard.

We have lard, we'll put some lard in the bread pan.

-I see it right up there.

Old Dominion, lard oil.

There you go.

Brush it on the bottom?

-Brush it on the bottom, and then we'll brush the top of the loaves with lard as well.

-In the hierarchy of the fort Who would have been your boss?

-The sergeant.

-Sergeant?

-I am assigned to here from the barracks.

And it could be for 30 days.

It could be for up to four months, depending upon the number of soldiers that are here.

[Walter] And then so somebody just showed you how to make it and then here you go.

If I was lucky I had somebody to show me how to make it.

[both laugh] Now we'll try and cut this into.. -Eight and they're not all going to be even in 1860s we would use the scales and try and weigh them at an 18 ounce loaf.

[Walter] Now it's going to rise again.

One hour now.

Again, it's got to be warm in here for it to rise.

For the yeast to be active because without yeast, you couldn't eat it.

It would be like a stone.

-And then we'll brush the top with lard as well Baking time will be 35 to 45 minutes about 350-400 degrees.

This is indirect heat so the firebox is alongside the oven and you stoke the fire box and then it goes right into the oven core itself.

-That's why it takes quite some time for the heat to be right in there.

-Yea, you don't just turn a dial.

-That's what I'm saying.

[sweeping] Should be about ready now.

35, 45 minutes.

[Walter] Let's go check it out.

Oh, golly, they look beautiful.

Wayne, you don't have to worry ever to go back to the infantry or someplace.

[both laugh] [Wayne] Now you can see it's not even heat in there.

-Yea, I see There's some burnt parts there.

Even if it's burnt, we had to use a rasp and scrape off the burnt part, and the soldiers would still eat the bread.

Well, now you can't eat fresh bread here.

Surgeon General of the Army says no fresh bread for 24 to 48 hours.

It has to sit on the shelves for 24 to 48 hours.

They were afraid the yeast would impact the soldier's digestive tract.

Well, guess what?

He's not here.

[both laugh] [Walter] He's not here.

So I'm going to oh man.

This is some good bread.

I can't believe you let it sitting out for a day and a half.

Beautiful.

What's missing is a cold beer.

[both laugh] So Wayne, I want to thank you because you did a spectacular job.

If you see the surgeon general, tell him I got some words for him [both laugh] [crispy bread sounds] [blacksmith fire burning] [hammering] [George] For the officers, they tried to make their life here at Fort Larned very similar to the way it would have been on the east.

Captain's or a major.

They're a little bit higher up.

They usually had very nice things.

If you go into an officer's quarters, it's almost like going into a home back east.

[Walter] This is such a spectacular space of the fort.

It's unbelievable.

So Jan, what is your role here?

What do you interpret?

Well, my role here is representing a mother in law.

And we have evidence that the officer came out here with his wife and his mother in law.

And with the amount of entertaining that was done on the fort by the officer's wives, I'm helping out my daughter by doing some baking for a coffee morning that she's having for the other wives.

[Walter] So I can understand why an officer would bring the mother in law because with rotating cooks, you never know what you're going to get.

So having you here, obviously, there would be a taste of home.

Yes.

That is right.

Short of if you couldn't find the ingredients and you got to improvise.

[Jan] And often the officer's wives had to improvise.

Eggs, milk were in short supply on the frontier.

There are accounts of an officer's wife bringing chickens with her.

And if there wasn't an officer's wife at the fort who had done this, then you have to try and buy eggs.

Now, can you buy them from a nearby settler?

Maybe yes.

Maybe no.

So eggs and bacon would have not been an average situation?

[Jan] No.

It would not have been.

Fresh fruit also would have been very short supply The pie that I'm making today is a peach custard pie.

Whip the eggs add in the sugar should be good now the flour so that it mixes better in with the eggs I'm putting a little bit of the milk in there and I'll try and stir it around first because I do not want to have lumps in the custard.

So we will put that into the egg.

And then we mix that together and add the rest of the milk and then we'll take the vanilla extract one teaspoon and that is the custard made I have already made the pastry crust ready to receive the peaches and pour it over the peaches.

[Walter] So in a modern oven what temperature would you bake it in?

-350 in a modern oven.

And now we I will take this over to the wood stove.

We will be placing this in a moderate oven and it bakes in 30 minutes to an hour.

-Depending on the fire and the heat.

-Yeah.

When I made it at home it took an hour it took 30 minutes yesterday.

[Jan laughs] You like peach pie?

You'd like to try?

Let me try your creation.

I mean, I'm very familiar with this recipe but I didn't realize just how difficult the time you had getting eggs out here.

[Jan] Most people don't.

Most people get their idea of the West from from the movies.

But it wasn't that way.

-Wow.

-You like it?

-Do I like it?

I think it's fantastic.

Has a great flavor to it.

And again, you know what I really like?

The simplicity of it.

Custard base, a little bit of flour, and the vanilla.

It holds it together nice.

-It does, yes.

And it would be a nice pie that could be served at a morning coffee or it could be served with afternoon tea or with a meal.

♪♪ [Walter] I had a great time today and my thanks to the volunteers.

Because without you, we would not be able to keep history alive.

And all this for A Taste of History.

[Narrator] This program is made possible by the Blue and Gray Education Society, whose mission is to preserve American history through its historical guidebooks, nationwide tours, and philanthropic endeavors.

Viewers can find DVDs and cookbooks at atasteofhistory.org including the all new “A Taste of History Cookbook ” complete with step by step instructions of recipes seen on the show.

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