Word: leandra
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...these people when my editors decided they'd like me to eat the kind of food that Lewis and Clark ate. This was not the subtlest of the many ways in which they have tried to kill me, but it's a soft job market. I talked to Leandra Holland, a woman writing a book on the food history of Lewis and Clark and the author of "Preserving Food on the Trail," a recent cover story in We Proceeded On, the journal for serious Lewis and Clark obsessives. Holland and some of her L&C buddies...
...commonly believed nine-pounds-a-day-per-person theory, while the other camp puts its estimates closer to three. Philosophically, the nine-pounders are vested in the fantasy that the explorers were dreamy, testosterone-packed macho men, while the three-pounders like to believe they were more like themselves. Leandra is firmly in the nine-pound group...
...nine-pound chunk of buffalo hump, which Lewis and Clark considered the best part of the animal. This is because it's the fattiest part. Lewis and Clark loved the fat. "The general rule on the hunt was, the fattier the better. They were on the original Atkins diet," Leandra says. With that, she dips three fingers into a container of freshly rendered pig fat and licks them. There must be cultures where this is a mating ritual...
...water to make what my new friends call "Pork and Cornmeal Stew" and what I call "Fatty Fat Fat." Actually, it isn't that bad. This is the first of many demonstrations that anything made with pork fat tastes good. The corps mostly used bear grease, but pork grease, Leandra figures, is a close approximation, and I get the feeling she knows what she's talking about. By the end of the afternoon, I have eaten more lard than I have eaten altogether in my entire previous life...
...other on a metal pole laid over the fire. Both techniques produce a dry version of buffalo, which tastes a whole lot like beef, if a tiny bit tougher and leaner. It would be much better grilled, but it is still pretty good. It also might be better if Leandra hadn't insisted on putting a pile of dried buffalo dung into the fire right under...