Mark Twain's Vittles And Viands

Meals by stage, restaurant and campfire.

 

- Sherry Monahan

Once Missouri-born Samuel Clemens headed west in July 1861, he began his lifelong career of penning frontier life accounts that were both serious and humorous. Unable to prosper as a silver miner, he began reporting in 1862 for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada Territory, where he first signed himself Mark Twain. He frequently commented on the food he experienced out West, whether he dined at sophisticated restaurants with china or at campsites with tin plates.

Stage stop dining could be hit or miss. Twain noted: “At the Green River station [Wyoming Territory] we had breakfast— hot biscuits, fresh antelope steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted between the United States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only one we were ever really thankful for.”