How Gold Rush Miners Ate in the Wild West

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My husband’s family discovered a mine in Montana in the 1880s. They promptly sold it and opened a general store in Butte. My grandfather in law once told me that the smart move wasn’t to dig for gold, it was to sell shovels to men who dug for gold.

Gold Miner Menu - Successful day: Whiskey - Unsuccessful day: Whiskey

Crazy to think that since tortoises can live almost (possibly more than) 200 years, some of those tortoises killed in the mid-1800s could have been still alive today.

I grew up in gold rush country, not far from Placerville and Angel's Camp. My class went on a camping trip along the banks of a creek where we did a small Gold Rush LARP. The kids would pan the river for black sand; we'd then turn the sand in to the teachers running the 'bank', who would give us play-money based on the quantity and purity of the sand. The play-money could be used to buy candy and snacks at a store. Every kid was allowed to have one turn as a shopkeep at the store, keeping the play-money they got while working. Inevitably, the shopkeeps would make far, far more money than the 'gold'-panners, which wound up being the Big Lesson of the trip--that the people who got rich off the gold rush were the people selling supplies, not the miners. We also, of course, had a dinner of pork and beans.

"I don't need to make that many biscuits" well that's quitter talk

"Stewed jackass rabbit" had me rolling. I'm sure it's the long name for a jack rabbit, but I like to imagine the writer just has a beef with rabbits.

“And how would you like your steak cooked?” “Evil”

I wanna see a Max Miller and Kent Rollins collaboration on Chuck Wagon Cooking and its role in the westward expansion of the USA.

The Chinese coin shown at 15:53 says 乾隆通寶 ("Circulating Currency of the Qianlong Reign")! The Qianlong Emperor (that's a regnal title, not a name) ruled from 1739 – 1796, so it's probably a lot older than any of the miners that might have used it!

0:59 [Cookie from 'Atlantis: The Lost Empire' voice] I got your 4 basic food groups! Beans, bacon, whiskey, and lard!

I don't know about anyone else, but I really appreciate you adding the little clip about the mistake you made. Thank you for the honesty.

Editor Max seems like a smart dude. You should keep him around.

The hard tack joke will never grow old and I can't wait when Max mentions it and I can go Clack-Clack myself with a smile.

Fun fact relating to the Chinese prospectors: the original Chinese word for California is 金山 gam saan (pronounced "gum sawn") which means "gold mountain" or "gold mine"! California was so synonymous with the gold rush that when you were going to california, you just said "I'm going to the Gold Mine".

As a southerner, Biscuits and Gravy have been a mainstay in my life since I was a child (for over four decades). It is a dish that we had regularly, think 3-4 times a week, for breakfast. I once asked my mom, now in her 70s, where the recipe came from and all she could tell me was that it was something that she had almost every morning growing up. My grandparents were sharecroppers and had a brood of ELEVEN children (Back in the day when "You didnt hire farmhands, you made 'em.") And biscuits and gravy was one of the MOST economical ways of feeding everyone. To this day, my grandmother's biscuit recipe is a family secret passed down to the generations. I have never met anyone outside my family that could make a biscuit as good as hers. Note: "If you ain't using lard to make your biscuits, you ain't making biscuits." (according to my grandmother.)

My grandfather lived a hard life and said gravy saved more lives than penicillin and my dad agreed. Dad went to a one room schoolhouse and can remember kids running through the freezing morning then stopping to warm their feet in a pile of leaves because their family couldn’t afford shoes that winter. When you’re that poor you may be lucky to get beans and cornbread or biscuits and gravy.

The reason for mixing the baking soda into the milk first is that old baking soda wasn't as good as it is today, it could take some time to activate, and often needed to be hydrated before it was put into whatever you were making.

I'm so conditioned that when Max says "biscuits" I automatically think of ships' biscuits and pause what I'm doing to wait for the clack clack. 😂

Hey Max! Fantastic episode! As an historic archaeologist, I love the episodes on historic miners and saloons! Be sure to let folks know, don't take artifacts if you find them while out on the range, just take pictures - and stay out of old mines, they're deathtraps now. 😁