rel
Milk or cream:
Beat an egg white to a froth and add a small lump of butter, mix well.
Molasses, sorghum, dried, ground figs, honey, watermelon syrup
Vinegar (apple): molasses, honey, beets, figs, persimmon, may-apples and sorghum
Rice, rice flour, cornmeal, and rye flour.
Boiled sea water, or taking dirt from the smokehouse, adding water and boiling it. Skim off the scum on the top and drop in cold water, and the salt sinks to the bottom. The impurities could be boiled off. Wood ashes or gunpowder could substitute for salt as a seasoning.
Source: Varhole, Michael J. Everyday Life During the Civil War.
Most nineteenth century families used salt to preserve meat, but during the war, it was not only scarce but prohibitively expensive. Louisiana and Virginia produced salt, but as Union forces captured more ports, transporting the salt became impossible. To cope with the shortage, North Carolinians used the dirt from the smokehouses, mixed it with water and boiled it. When a scum rose to the top, the cook would skim it off and plunge it into cold water. The salt would sink to the bottom. Coastal residents used seawater that they would allow to evaporate.
To preserve meat, southern cooks would slice it very thinly and smoke it. They would found fish flat and dry it in the sun, often without the addition of salt. Unfortunately these did not last long, so often southerners would use preservatives such as a solution of salt, water, sugar (or other sweetener), and a small amount of potassium nitrate.
1 quart buttermilk
1 quart cornmeal
1 quart coarse flour
1 cup molasses
a pinch baking soda
a pinch salt
Mix ingredients together and bake over a wood fire.
"Apple-less" Apple Pie
1 bowl crackers
1 t tartaric acid
Take a small bowl of crackers and soak the crackers in water until no hard parts remain. Add one teaspoon of tartaric acid, sweeten to taste, add some butter and a little nutmeg. Bake.
Take flour, a little sugar and water, mix with or without a little yeast, the latter better if at hand. Mix into a paste and fry as you would fritters in clean fat.
A Cheap and Quick Pudding
1 pint milk
4 large spoonfuls of flour
nutmeg and sugar
Beat the eggs, add the milk and a little salt, and stir in the four spoonfuls of flour. Add a little nutmeg and sugar to taste. Beat well and pour into buttered teacups, filling them rather more than half full. They will bake in a stove or Dutch oven in fifteen minutes.
Three parts of Indian meal and one of brown sugar, mixed and browned over the fire, will make the food known as "Sagamite." Used in small quantities, it not only appeases hunger but allays thirst, and is therefore useful to soldiers on a scout.
Source: Confederate Cookbook, Bennett Place