The Lewis and Clark Trail: A Food Odyssey

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark brought their Corps of Discovery up the Missouri River in the summer of 1804, the upstream journey between Iowa and Nebraska lasted two, long months. One day, they poled and pulled their keelboat against the current of the meandering river from dawn till dusk, only to discover that they were a short walk from their previous night’s camp. This was some of the slowest going of the entire expedition, in part because there were so many mouths to feed.
That summer, the captains employed 16 extra men, in addition to their full company of 22 soldiers and 2 interpreters, plus Clark’s personal slave and Lewis‘ Newfoundland hound. Hunting, gathering and trading for food took as much effort as exploration. Clark wrote, “It takes 4 deer, or an elk and a deer, or one buffalo to supply us for 24 hours."
“Lewis and Clark Cookbook” author Leslie Mansfield concluded that each man consumed nine pounds of meat per day, when available. Game killed and consumed during the expedition included 1001 deer and 375 elk, which were available everywhere, as well as 227 buffalo, which were only available on the Plains, including Iowa. They also consumed 66 bears, 12 horses, and 190 dogs, but not Lewis’ pet.
An army might march on its stomach, as Napoleon observed, but modern tourists use more refined fuels. Obviously, any personal Lewis & Clark food odyssey needs to steer clear of historic menus, for legal, moral and cardiovascular reasons. Yet, one can hardly go looking for the body and soul of the Lewis and Clark Trail at McDonald’s. So, in the spirit of the 19th century, we decided to begin our trek of the trail at One Stop Meat Shop in Sioux City’s KD Station. Sioux City was the beginning of the expedition’s 10 day return trip through Iowa waters. Going downsteam, even just in spirit, leaves more time to look for good things to eat.
Besides, One Stop is as unique as the historic Swift Packing Plant that houses it. This shop is extremely particular about the meats they sell. All are raised humanely and without hormones, steroids or chemicals. Free ranging is prerequisite. The pork from Ron Muth’s Perry Creek in Ireton is as good as pig meat gets. Ron told us he sells about 80% of his pigs to renowned Niman Ranch and the rest through his own label, and all are raised the same way.
He’s a converted free ranger. “I used to sell confinement equipment. People laughed at me when I pulled up my sheds and added pastures, my vet had a good old time with me,“ he told us. Muth’s pork is raised the way pork would have been raised in the 19th century, had the great breeding lines been available then. It’s the reason we never travel to Sioux City without a large cooler.
One Stop also handles free range beef, lamb, chicken and buffalo, all from Siouxland producers. The buffalo, from Larry, Rose and Monty Mason’s Tarbox Hollow Living Prairie seemed appropriate to our journey. Larry told us he entered the business after discovering that “the most flavorful meat in the world was from an old, dry doe. I just decided to apply that to bison.” He grazes some 350 head of buffalo, some until they 6-8 years old for the specialty market that agrees with his sense of taste. He also advises us in cooking bison, which is far leaner than beef. “Use lower temperatures and less cooking time!”
So, fortified with delicious, historically accurate meats, we head downstream toward Onawa, site of Lewis and Clark State Park and a replica of their keelboat. Mansfield wrote that contributions of native foods by Indian nations of was of incalculable importance to Lewis and Clark. West of Onawa, the Omaha Indians still conduct food commerce with Euro-Americans. The road to their casino buffet winds by some gorgeous camp grounds and parks, on a treacherous parts of the river that brought the Corps here 200 years ago.
Even within the strange world of Indian casinos, the Omaha Casino and Blackbird Bend Motor Speedway seemed quirky. The front doors were guarded by large statues of smiling rats. A neon sign directed gamblers to the buffet, but we were an hour early. That didn’t stop a quartet of senior citizens from taking their places in line though. “By the time it opens, the line will stretch way back to the slots. Then you have to wait standing up, now we can sit down,” they said, assuring us it was worth the wait.
“For $11.50 you get all the crab legs, broasted chicken and prime rib you can eat, plus salad and dessert bars, corn nuggets and beans.” Bingo! The Corps of Discovery acquired corn and beans from the Indians of this region two centuries ago.
Clark was the first person ever to write about the Loess Hills, calling them “bald-pated,” as they towered majestically over the flat, delta-like Missouri valley. Driving I-29 in Iowa today, one can easily imagine that the river landscaped the interstate. This is bottomland, former kingdom of the wider, shallower 19th century Missouri River. In the last 200 years the river has straightened itself, and been straightened by man, while these hills lost their baldness. Even without the magnificent trees that cover them now, the Loess Hills astounded the Corps of Discovery. Built of wind-born glacial silt, they hold the world’s heaviest concentration of the richest farm land ever known.
Leaving I-29 at Mondamin, we climbed quickly into another realm, where the generations who followed the explorers learned they could get good things to grow in this soil - faster, larger and better tasting.
“In 1894, great, great grandfather Small came here and bought some apples that were so much better than any he had ever tasted before that he came back the next year and bought the land to start his own orchards,” explained Tania Coret, part of the sixth generation of the family that grows and sells world famous apples at the Small Fruit Farm. Altogether 13 family members work this orchard, cider mill, pie cafe and country store. Visitors come by the bus load in the fall to pick their own, and to eat pies made famous by Tania’s grandmother Joyce.
Lewis and Clark were familiar with apples because apple jack was the drink that built America. Apple trees were hearty enough to stand up to harsh Iowa winters, but the Corps came here before the disciples of Johnny Appleseed. Small’s ciders, made from a mix of apple varieties, half sweet and half tart, are pure as the hills, the drink of Lewis and Clark‘s dreams. Coret tells us that their apples taste better because the Loess soil has almost no clay.
“We ship to people from all 50 states, we can’t ship to California, but we have customers from there. We have loyal regulars from all over, “ explained Renee Small, a fifth generation member of the family now led by Joyce and husband Russell. In a good year, they will sell 20,000 bushels of 15 variety apples.
Driving south in the hills, Iowa Highway183 brought us into Missouri Valley, home of the Desoto National Wildlife Refuge, where over 400,000 geese stop each fall, late enough in the year to avoid the bullets of the Corps. Eagles, deer, rabbits and fox still thrive here. So does Floyd’s West Kentucky BBQ, a portable outdoor smoke house set up each summer in a parking lot on West Erie, at West Street. Floyd said that he came through one day and liked the people so much he went back and brought his barbecue with him.
We drive into Council Bluffs, gambling boom town of the new millennium, to contemplate the Missouri from the Riverside Grille of the Dodge Park Golf Course. With one the best views in Iowa, Riverside is busy three meals a day. Lewis and Clark named their nearby camp “White Catfish” because Silas Goodrich caught such a fish here. From a golf course that was probably underwater when the explorers passed, we read Clark’s words “A man had like to have Starved to death in a land of Plenty for the want of Bulits or Something to kill his meat." We tried Riverside’s walleye and wondered: If Lewis and Clark had fished more and shot their guns less, maybe they wouldn‘t “have like to have Starved.”
South of Council Bluffs, I-29 glides along the flat-bottomed valley, so we detour to US 275, which soars into the southern third of the Loess Hills. It was Rodeo Week in Sidney, and Whip’s Steak House and Saloon was wild, the floor covered with peanut shells as cowboys beefed up for the competition, and local girls schemed to flirt with cowboys.
“Just tell your Daddy you have to stay and put away chairs after the rodeo’s over.”
“My Dad is not that gullible.”
This corner of Iowa is rich in soda fountains, and the A.V. Penn Drug Store, here since 1863, is among the best. A home made ham salad sandwich came with three kinds of pickles and a bag of chips, for $1.65.
In the southwest tip of Iowa, Hamburg has the look of revitalization, with a new hospital and housing development on the edge of town and a restored 1921 movie house downtown. At the 107 year old Stoner Drug Store, we heard that the edge of downtown used to be a beach. The Missouri River brought this town its initial prosperity. Now it seems miles away, tucked behind I-29, which brings this small town’s new prosperity.
Stoner makes soda the old fashioned way, with hard ice cream and real seltzer. Their famous “fried egg sundae” is a tromp d’oeil, made with egg-rich vanilla ice cream and marshmallow sauce to look like a sunny side up egg. It’s even bordered with chocolate syrup to appear a bit burnt on the edges.
Lewis and Clark never discovered ice cream, but this dish is the perfect final course to our food odyssey. Both breakfast and dessert, it is, like Hamburg, both the beginning and the end of the Iowa portion of the great trail. Made of something other that what it seems, it shows that, sometimes, neither the chicken nor the egg came first, but the cow. And the wit of humans brave enough to digest the unknown and make it familiar.

Lewis & Clark’s Menu (Recorded by Raymond Darwin Burroughs, from "The Natural History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition")

Deer 1,001
Elk 375
Bison 227
Antelope 62
Big horned sheep 35
Bears, grizzly 43
Bears, black 23
Beaver 113
Otter 16
Geese and Brant 104
Grouse 46
Turkeys 9
Plovers 48
Wolves (only one eaten) 18
Indian dogs (purchased and consumed) 190
Horses 12
Burroughs did not include smaller animals that were captured and eaten by the Corps, such “as hawk, coyote, fox, crow, eagle, gopher, muskrat, seal, whale blubber, turtle, mussels, crab, salmon, and trout.” (from Lewis & Clark Cookbook: Recipes from the Corps of Discovery and Jefferson’s America, by Leslie Mansfield)

The Modern Menu
National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, sells “Lewis and Clark food items such as Sacagawea Trail Mix, Bitterroot Mountain Berries, Granny Mississippi River Jams, Mississippi River Blueberry Hoecake Mixes, Pirogues Fry Bread Mix, Missouri River Corn Bread and Granny Cherry Discovery Preserve.

Our Providers
One Stop Meat Shop
By the front door, KD Station,2001 Leech Ave
Sioux City, IA 51106-5701 , 712-395-0491
Open 9-6 Tues.- Sat.

Omaha Casino and Blackbird Bend Motor Speedway
Onawa, IA
Always open

Small’s Fruit Farm
1844 194th St.
Mondamin, IA 51557
www.smallsfruitfarm.com
712 646-2195
Open 8-6 daily, 9-5 in the winter

Riverside Grille, 2 Harrah’s Blvd. Council Bluffs, 51501, 712- 328-7079
Mon. - Sat. 7 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Sun. 7 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Whip’s Steak House, west side of Sidney square, 51652, 712-374-2728
Lunch Mon.- Sat 11-1:30
Supper Tues. - Thurs. 5-9 ; Fri. - Sat 5 - 9:30

Penn Drug Store, west side of the square, Sidney, Ia. ,51652, (712) 374-2513

Stoner Drug, 1105 Main, Hamburg, 712-382-2551
Mon. - Fri 8-6; Sat. 8 -3

This story was first published in The Iowan