Holiday Drama In The Dark Woods
 THE FIRST RECORDED HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS IN OUR OZARKS

by James F. "Jim" Barrett
© 1995 to 2003

    The first written record of a meal being served and savored in the Central Ozarks was that prepared by the intrepid young explorers, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and his loyal sidekick, Levi Pettibone. They were exploring the Ozarks, looking for marketable minerals, particularly guano for gunpowder and lead for bullets. They had started from Mine a Bretton, in Eastern Missouri, with very few supplies, one packhorse, gentlemen's street clothes and two fowling pieces. These were gentlemen's sporting guns, for birds and the like, not for the dense, dangerous woods of the Ozarks. Henry and Levi were not only young, they were novices when it came to traveling Missouri's wilderness. For the Ozarks of the day were wild, unsettled and dangerous.

     By the time the two young men had reached the vicinity of what is now the Forsyth/Branson area, deep in the Mid-Ozarks woods, their supplies had long since been exhausted. They had plenty of water from the many clear streams, but they were out of food and had found their guns inadequate to secure enough wild game to keep them going. In fact, it was the dead of winter, they were cold and tired - and they were about to starve. The only settlements in that part of the Ozarks in that winter of 1818-1819 were the widely scattered, very crude cabins of white hunter/trappers. These were not permanent settlers, for they hunted out an area and then moved on. The boys had no hope of finding help and sustenance in these lonely cold woods.

     Then, while Levi rested and anguished beneath a tree, Henry once more scouted into the dense forest, hoping to find something they could eat. Anything, other than the few roots and berries which had been keeping them alive. Suddenly, he broke into a weedy clearing where a temporary encampment had been kept. Whether Indian or White-Man was of little importance. Henry found the last traces of a cultivated garden. And there, to his amazement and joy, he found three remaining pumpkins, surviving the cold of winter.

     Greedily, Henry and his horse ate the first one. Then he carefully gathered up the other two and returned to where his friend Levi lay on the cold ground beneath a tree. The two built a small fire and took out the contents of the pumpkins. They gathered what few berries and roots they could find, along with fresh water from a nearby stream. Then they prepared a simple, humble pumpkin stew of sorts. Never was a meal eaten with more care, delight and relish. The lives of the young explorers were saved. What joy! For the date of the meal was quite significant as well -- that day, the very first Thanksgiving Dinner of record was prepared, served and enjoyed in the our Ozarks!

     The young men traveled on, seeking their lead and guano deposits. After many days they stumbled upon a game path and met a man on horseback. It had been a very long time since they had seen another human being, so they were joyous and much relieved. The hunter/trapper led them to his humble log shack in the woods where his family and he lived temporarily. He went out to shoot turkeys with which to celebrate. He bagged fourteen, a slight overkill, quite common in those free spirited, careless days.

     With corn meal, beaten by hand with rocks in a hollowed log, the marrow from some buffalo leg bones, the remaining meat of a panther, some crushed rock salt, handfuls of dried vegetables and berries - and the breasts of the turkeys, of course, - the lady of the cabin prepared several turkey pies over her open hearth fire. The men ate ravenously and with great joy, as was also common in those days. This was the second special family dining day recorded in Schoolcraft's journal - for this was the very first Christmas Day dinner in the Ozarks, December 25, 1818.

     Simple foods were favored in those rugged days, for preparation was usually done over an open-hearth fire, using precious cast-iron pans and kettles, often lovingly handed down for generations. A well-built fireplace sometimes afforded a swinging iron rod with a hook at its end to bring the pots in and out of the flames. Others simply used a pile of rocks to hold the utensils. In time, cast-iron stoves came to the Ozarks hills. Then women no longer had to kneel on a stone hearth or stoop over an open fire for hours to prepare the family's daily meals. The treasured ethnic and old family recipes from the East Coast and from Europe were joyously brought out and given fresh Ozark lives. Many of the recipes you may find in tattered old books have been through this experience. The ladies carried their beloved recipes with them when they and their men came to these mountains. When stoves were available they began to reuse the recipes - bringing wide smiles to the family diners.

     But here in the Ozarks, new herbs, new roots, different berries and fruits had been discovered by the settlers. Now the old traditional recipes and foods acquired subtle or powerful new flavors, colors, spice and aroma. What was good in the old country became succulent here in the Ozarks. Perhaps it was just the fact that existence was hard, that long hours of work were required to thrive here. Honest sweat, weary bones and a growling stomach sometimes add their own spices, flavors and delights to well prepared food. The women of the Ozarks mountains also discovered new foods and methods of cooking. Like alchemists of old they blended, boiled, stirred and stewed new and interesting basics and condiments until they had concoctions which sent up odors to whet the appetite, thrill the senses and fill hungry stomachs.

     We who have prepared this tale for you assure you; if you take the ingredients of family, kindness, memories and good times, stir in your own special flavorings, and serve the whole with love; you will have one of the grandest, happiest, best remembered old Ozark meals ever! Our latch-string's out in this holiday time - and you're always welcome in our home.

     Oh, yes! As for our two young explorer lads, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and his loyal sidekick, Levi Pettibone, the Ozarks' version of Don Quixote and Sancho, they journeyed on up to the area which is Springfield today. There, on the banks of the Finley (Findley), they found what they sought, lead. Schoolcraft, in his very precise journal, told of the beauty of the Kickapoo Prairie, and anticipated the value of a settlement there. Also, to complete our historic holidays of first record in our Ozarks, they spent New Years Eve there, now happy and well fed.