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Show BOOK REVIEWS revelations such as this. Through methodologies employed by folklorists, historians, and archaeologists, Cheney argues that “the story of pioneer Utah can be told in a compelling fashion by using food as our main theme. . . . Settlers spent the overwhelming bulk of their energies and time in the pursuit of growing and preparing food” (175). Cheney’s exhaustively researched study clearly identifies the realities of Mormon pioneer life for a wide audience. One of the major challenges for a study such as this is access to sources. Pioneer women cooked by routine and passed recipes to their daughters orally. Often, these recipes remained unrecorded for several generations. Diaries mention meals and dishes, but not preparation. However, Cheney puts the pieces together by using instructions from era-appropriate cookbooks and examines the physical materials left behind. On the trail, pioneers made soda biscuits to provide the necessary carbohydrates for the trek. In the Salt Lake valley, settlers pursued what was available in the wild (including pickleweed, sego bulbs, berries, game, and fish). Cheney spends much time explaining the intricacies of bread-making, food preservation, Scandinavian cooking, and even home brewing and wine-making. While most studies of the Word of Wisdom (the Mormon health code) and its role in nineteenth-century Mormondom briefly discuss the haphazard observance of its proscriptions, Cheney looks deeper to reveal exactly how Mormon pioneers did not always abide them. Ethnic identities sometimes took precedence over religious affiliation; for example, British converts continued their rituals around tea, and Scandinavians continued drinking coffee long after they settled in Utah. Mormon families who brewed beer at home probably did so because they viewed beer as a viable form of nutrition, not as a recreational beverage. Studies of food and foodways have the potential to reveal interesting and important issues of power and community. Cheney explains how geographical isolation, ethnic traditions, and poverty helped differentiate Mormon foodways from others. However, these factors were present for many other western settlers, as Reginald Horsman identified in his recent study Feast or Famine: Food and Drink in American Westward Expansion. So what makes Mormon pioneer foodways different from those of other western settlers? Cheney briefly mentions that Mormon religious sensibilities brought meaning to some of their food, particularly fruit. They viewed their vast orchards as fulfilled prophecy in making the desert “blossom as the rose.” Yet most of what marks Mormonism as different in this pioneer era receives little attention. How did living arrangements due to plural marriage affect food preparation and consumption? How did the pursuit of food affect relations between Mormons and Native Americans? How did Mormon conceptions 295 |
