Mountain Man Christmas Dinner - White River region, 1842

"This great annual feast is observerd with all the exhilaration hilarity and good cheer that circumstances will allow. Several little extras for the occasion have been procured from the Indians, which prove quite wholesome and pleasent-tasted. One of these, called washena, consists of dried meat pulverized and mixed with marrow; another is a preparation of cherries, preserved when first picked by pounding and sun drying them (they are served by mixing them with bouille, or the liquor of fresh boiled meat, thus giving to it an agreeable winish taste);
a third is a marrow fat, an article in many respects superior to butter; and lastly, we obtained a kind of flour made from the pomme blanc (white apple), answering very well as a substite for that of grain.
The above assortment, with a small supply of sugar and coffee, as well as several other dainties variously prepared, affords an excellent dinner, and though different in kind, by no means inferior in quality to the generality of dinners for which the day is noted in more civilized communities.