Physically active outdoor life creates appetite that salted provisions still defeat

Evidence

Food is a great difficulty. Of thirty milch cows only one is left, and she does not give milk enough for us to drink. The only meat is some pickled pork, very salt and hard, which I cannot eat, and the hens lay less than one egg a day. … To-day I found part of a leg of beef hanging in the wagon shed, and we were elated with the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we found it green and uneatable. … In this superb air and physically active life I can eat everything but pickled pork. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 222

Categorization

• CANDY: A stockpile of thirty milch cows reduced to one skimpy cow, and a leg of beef hanging in the shed turning out green — good dinner-party color about frontier rationing.
• SHARE: Perfect for the one friend who collects homestead-era domestic logistics and would appreciate that the proudest find of the day was a rotten leg of beef.