Ow, you told me this wasn’t– It’s not hot. You’re just soft! God, you have hot boy fingers. You’re scared to get hurt. It’s a hot boy finger summer. I said that wrong. Where are the hot boy fingers going? We don’t know! To understand the food of our present, we must first understand the food of our past. That’s why we’re recreating some of the most notable meals throughout history, and today we’re trailblazing through the American West. Oh, is that about the time I had to set a truck on fire on my cross country road trip in 2007? It was a rental, it was fine. Are people looking for you? We’re gonna recreate a meal from the Oregon Trail. It’s time for… Meals of History! Alright Emily, today’s meal comes from 1843. This is when the first big train of a thousand travelers left from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. It was a journey of over 2000 miles, you had to face disease, climate, not shooting yourself in the bean bag with your own gun, lot of things. Bean bag. It happened. There was the story of a guy who tried to grab a gun and bash someone with it, shot himself in the ribs. There’s so many ways to die on the Oregon Trail. Ben said to keep this quick. We’re, this is quick! As you see from our menu here, this is not an official historical document per se. It is from the “Oregon Trail” video game. So they have recipes on the “Oregon Trail” video game? Not exactly, and there were a lot of historical inaccuracies, but they did get some things right. Like you had to take oxen, that was a big work animal. You had to take a bunch of dried goods like corn meal, rice, beans, preserved foods like bacon. So we’re gonna be working with a lot of that today. I remember the beginning of the game well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. A lot of dysentery gonna be involved. Oh, boy. Well you wanna put on an outfit and talk in a funny voice? Do I have to look like that guy though? You don’t have to, but I’d like it. I’d rather not shave my head. We’ll figure it out. Who in tarnation do we have here? My name is Benjamin Buttons. Benjamin wait, you’re gonna get us sued by whoever holds that IP rights. Listen I pee, you pee. We all pee on the Oregon Trail all right? Am I right? Unless you’re wearing a onesie where someone from production didn’t spare for the butt flap, which, thanks a lot. Do you need a guide? I would love a guide. I mean right now, I feel like I have all my food preparation set up. That’s my specialty. I could learn how to like, not die though. You seem like an old timer, like you’ve been around the block. Yes, I’ve been around the block. Yes. I’ve been back and forth five times. So I know everything there is to know about it. And you’ve never suffered, you’ve never died of dysentery. You’ve never– Well, I’ve had it. I could, I smell it from here. Dang flap. You smell terrible. If I had a flap! Jesus Christ! What the devil are we making today? We’re making Johnny cakes, Benny. Or as I like to call ’em, Benny cakes. Oh, Benny cake. I don’t get the joke. No, me neither. There wasn’t really a joke there. That’s why it didn’t land, there wasn’t one. Oh hey, you forgot to ask why I’m called Benjamin Buttons. Why are you called Benjamin Buttons? Because sometimes I come out on the trail, and I find all the… There’s not that many people who die, but when they do they leave behind buttons. Oh, you got the– I’ve got so many buttons. You have the buttons. Did you kill them for their buttons? No, no, no. I just collect the buttons. Benny, we’re making Johnny cakes right now. So Johnny cakes were a staple corn meal, particularly white corn meal. This is a huge non-spoilable food that people could take with them. What you do the original Johnny cake recipe, you’d just take boiling water. You’d add it with some salt and some sugar both really popular rations in the Oregon Trail, you would make your own sort of dough. And then crisp them up into cakes. People had bacon. They estimated that you’d have to take about 200 pounds of food per person on there, roughly like a hundred pounds of flour, 15 pounds of bacon beause it didn’t spoil. Well, it did, but sometimes you just eat it anyways. So right now we’re doing Johnny cakes and bacon. How does that sound Benny? Do you hear snakes? No, I don’t hear snakes, I don’t. You gotta tell me if you hear snakes. I’ll tell, what does the snake sound like? I don’t know. It’s trail along. Churn the butter and distract yourself from the snakes. Now I’m paranoid that I’m gonna die. Jesus. Just now add the cream. Just, here. Well I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. You seem really– I’m just wondering why you have no buttons. I don’t know. There’s like a– Where are they? There’s none. Don’t kill me for my buttons. Jesus. Witchcraft. Now you got me all paranoid out here. Oh, well if you have seen as many snakes as I have. What’s the most gruesome way you’ve seen people die? Oh, well let’s see, cholera sucks. Cholera sucks. Put that on a T-shirt. Oh. what’s a T-shirt? Oh boy! Then there’s dysentery which… So most, it passes. Did you? Right there. I once had dysentery at what’s called a Hokkaido Seafood Buffet. Ooh. Yeah. This is a thing that you’re gonna wanna really check out if you know, truly ageless and live into the future. Because they had all you can eat bang bang shrimp, and I ate about three pounds of that Benny Buttons. And then I got a little bit of the dysentery and I also threw up while I had the dysentery and then the sanitation worker came in as I was throwing up with the dysentery at the same time from all the bang bang shrimp. I feel like I should pause because the story is very, very sad. Sometimes you get your leg under a wheel. That sounded pretty brutal. A lot of kids died, right? Oh yeah. Just falling under a wagon wheel? It wasn’t just the leg with those. The whole kid went under sometimes. It’s a little. They gotta watch your kids. They get crushed. On the trail. You know? So I will say that the majority of the reason that I know about the Oregon Trail is from the video game that we all played. You’re not gonna know what the hell a video game is. You probably think I’m a warlock or something. Okay, so I’ll talk about the video game. Okay. Good. Good, good. You weren’t kidding about this tape Chris. Ow. Yeah, I played the game. You said you didn’t play the game? I did, I played it like once at a public library for whatever reason, we didn’t have it at my school. But so everyone would talk about it. I know the references, you die of dysentery. There’s insane things like you can only pack a hundred pounds of food per person, and then you’ll kill a buffalo and be like, you have a thousand pounds of meat now. Yeah. I didn’t make it past the Mercantile usually because the guy was like, what do you need? And then I was like, I don’t know. Let’s have some grain. And some like I don’t know. And then he was like, no that’s too much. And then I’m like, why? Just tell me what I need. Just tell me what I need. And then you get on the trail and it’s like whoa. Somebody didn’t bring enough oxen. And I’m like I had, there were oxen? How’s this Johnny cake batter coming? Oh, I– Going pretty good. I’ve never had a Johnny cake, I better be honest. What did you eat on the trail? Mostly like jerky sometimes just jerky. And then if I was if I brought too much, then I would just eat leather. And just until I could find something else. The thing is I’m not a gun guy on the trail. I’ve seen too many people accidentally, you know, do things cause they, you know, they aren’t qualified to own a gun. It seems like trail law should do something about that. I don’t know if there’s a lot of law to be had out there. I mean that one of the reasons people get out. No, no, you make your own law. What’s the one cardinal law you believe in on trail law? Don’t steal my horse. But just your horse, but you can steal other people’s horses. Well, it depends on the circumstances. You know if like, if somebody stole my horse. Well, sorry buddy. I’m gonna steal your horse. I feel that. It just kind of goes down the line. It’s like paying it forward. Paying it backward? Starring Hailey Joel Osman. You know about Hailey Joel Osman? Really weird movie. I should keep doing this. I remember that. That was based on a weird book. It was. My mom was super into that, weird stuff. Now I did watch that in Catholic school. I’m gonna start frying up these Johnny cakes. I don’t think this is gonna work out. This just looks like polenta mush right now. You can’t be negative on the trail. Can’t be, no room for negativity on the trail. You know, it’s the law. Let’s get two in there. Let’s see if like we can kind of ply this into a dough. Cause the idea was that you just like mash together the corn meal would kind of hydrate and then you’re smashing it into like a sweetened polenta cake. Ooh, that looks nice. Yeah, again, this is the OG recipe. Like people would travel with flour, with eggs, they would have laying hens. There was a big economic depression in 1837. So a lot of people who left were like, really down on their luck and just looking for opportunity. That said, there were also some really well financed trails like John Jacob Astor who was like a big socialite business person from New York, had a lot of stake in trading fur companies out in the Oregon country, and so there was some like really well financed trails, and that didn’t even mean that they were gonna make it out alive because like you can still just fudge up and die. Well, I’m gonna wait for these to cook for a sec. All right, Johnny cakes are almost done. I got some butter I already churned around. Look at all those knives! Benny! Okay don’t touch my knives. Don’t you dare touch. Honestly that was very exciting. You wanna know a fun fun way I almost lost an eye? Yeah? It’s one way that I think I might lose an eye today, is these suspenders. I don’t know if you could see how much… What this is doing, but they’re holding on for dear life and I’m afraid one’s gonna snap up and hit me in he eye. Look at it. We got fresh cooked Johnny cakes and bacon Benny Buttons. You don’t wanna get, you don’t wanna get– Wanna get into it, but we got a lot more to cook, you know, apple butter. What you do? Oh my God, apples! They grew everywhere across the Oregon Trail. People just forage them. Johnny Appleseed, who was just a deranged lunatic. You know wearing a pot on his head? Would you call this a wolf knuckle or a moose knuckle? So apple butter, is that… Oh! Oh God! Snake! Benny run! Snake! Where’d it go? Take the bacon. I literally seriously, where did it go? The snake bit you, you gotta rub raw bacon in it. You threw it in the snake just… Oh God. Now we don’t know where the snake is. Oh Jesus. It’s in the deep frier. You. gotta watch it. Wait really, where’d the snake go? I don’t know where he went. I don’t know. We gotta find it. There’s another snake. God, no! Gotta rub raw bacon in the snake bite. My eye! You seem to be recovering well from the snake bite Benny. I don’t like that you got that eye occluded. Oh, god. It’s just weeping hair now. It’s just falling off of his body. I don’t feel very good. Yeah. That makes sense. Do you want me to like try and… There are a couple cures for snake bites. None of them you liked. Well, I think taking out the eye was gonna be the cure-all for this. Yeah. It kinda was though. If anyone got a snake bite, they’d just try and cut out the infected flesh. There was another one though where, what you do is you– Another one? Yeah. You’d cut– Where!? No, not another snake. Benny, Benny. Benny’s all shell shocked now. PTSD from all this. You’d cut an X into the wound and then you’d pack gun powder in it and light it on fire. You wanna try that one? No, no, not that one. That’s for the legs. Stupid me. That’s for only for the legs. Don’t do it. Do you wanna make some bison stew? This was like a prize commodity, because we’ve killed a fresh bison theoretically on this and that was like the number one thing you hunted beause you just got hundreds of pounds of meat. All right. Just, you gotta calm down with the knife. My, periphery vision is kinda jacked. All right. So we got some turnips. Root vegetables, they last a long time, especially in the cold. And if you’re traveling through the Rockies, you’ve probably got some root vegetables on you. We’ve got some turnips right here and then we got some beans. One of the three sister crops. We’ve already had corn for breakfast in our Johnny cakes. Then we got beans and then squash was the other one. So we’re gonna put some beans in there, salt. That was like a cure-all. Cause it’s antimicrobial. So you’d add that to whatever you got and then people would forage for greens out there. Dandelion greens grew wild, probably helped with the poops a little bit. Listen, man. It’s just a long stream at this point. I don’t know when it’s coming or when it’s going. Nothing helps with the poops. Do you wanna… Here, can you like try and pick out the stems of these dandelion please? To get, pick ’em off? Okay. I’m gonna start hacking up this here bison. How many bison you killed out there? How many have I killed? I told you I’m not a gun guy. Well, yeah. Would you I mean, did you wrestle the bison? You just go choke him out? No, I just walk up and I ask it if I can have it. You’re saying like, your pacifism has probably gotten you a long way on the Oregon Trail? Well, yeah, but some of the bison look at me in the eye. Well now I just have one, but they’ll be fine. They’ll do fine. They’ll look at me in the eye like, I’ve had enough. You’re saying the bison are begging for death? Yeah. And then you just wrestle ’em down and gently put ’em to sleep. Do you think that was historically accurate and that’s indicative how most people killed the bison? I don’t know. I just made that one up. But I’m pretty sure that they probably used guns inefficiently. Yeah. That was a big thing. The reason you brought so much bacon is because– Is this right? People rely on grain. Yeah, it looks great. Okay. Where am I putting it? Just throw it wherever, dude. It’s like you go into the woods, you pee wherever. You know? You just throw the Dandelion greens wherever. Don’t poop wherever. Don’t. No, no, no. I went to a wilderness adventure camp and I learned the proper way to poop in the woods. What is the proper way? Well you gotta dig a hole and then you poop in the hole and you cover it. But they made us use one shovel. We all just share a shovel, but they were like don’t touch the poop with the shovel. All you do is touch the dirt with the shovel, but I don’t trust that. That makes sense. The people I just, you know, I didn’t trust the people. I’ve only pooped outside once. I went backpacking. Here I’m gonna add some beans to the water. Get ’em soaking a little bit. I went backpacking and I only pooped once on a four day trip because I found out I can’t poop while standing. And so what I did– I can’t either what I did is I found– Unless it’s by accident, in which case, I very much can. That just happens. I found two rocks that were spaced far enough apart to where I could spread the butt cheeks on either rock, and then it was basically makeshift toilet. But here’s the problem is that– Okay Jennifer Lawrence. That there was, there was a downhill side, I pooped and then I just watched the turd roll into my shoe. Not like into my shoe, but it’s like on my shoe and I’m trying to like lift my feet up. I thought he’d say he was gonna roll down the hills and I was like, that is the best version of Indiana Jones, that I want to see. Running from a giant– No, but speaking of pooping in the woods at wilderness adventure camp, everybody got constipated because no one wanted to use that shovel. Yeah yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. But we all got constipated. We weren’t feeling good. And so the counselors gave us each a dollop of hand soap to swallow. Ew wait, what? Yeah It’s like, it makes you poop. Yeah cause it’s like poison, right? No, it was like non-toxic. It was the orange stuff. But wait, but why else would it make you, why else would a hand soap make you poop? It’s soapy. Don’t you feel like things are a little bit slipperier when there’s soap on it? I don’t think it’s just lubing you from the inside and that’s why it makes you, but that can’t be right. Yeah its like that. It’s from the inside. Oh, God I don’t. That seems like some form of child abuse. You know? I don’t know. No I’d say nature is a form child abuse. Yeah. That’s a fair point. I did not wanna go. I wanted to suck at games on my Sega Game Gear and stay inside. Maybe I know why so many people felt emboldened to bring children on this trip. Let’s go back to the Oregon Trail. They wanted to bring their children with them probably. Well, yeah. But why they thought like they could do it, right? Because like they could but before that, it was just like fur trappers, and merchants, people like really knew the land. Right. But then there was one famous expedition. Marcus Whitman, a missionary and his wife Narcissa, and Narcissa writes this series of letters that’s like, going on this trail’s super, super easy. And so like– Yeah made it seem easy. Emboldened a bunch of people just be like, screw it. I can take all the yappy kids. Are they the ones that made Whitman’s chocolate? No, I don’t believe it’s the same family. No, it’s not. I do love me some Whitman’s chocolate. Me too. It’s no Russell Stover, but it’s good. Ugh, Russell Stover. Well we got some dandelions. Let’s top this with some more dandelion greens. Nice. Because this was like the easiest way. I was that easy with it. You did good. The easiest way. You have to tell me when I’m doing a thing. The easiest way to stretch your ingredients! Benny Buttons, you wanna survive this God forsaken trip? Benny Buttons. Stop throwing buttons at me. He keeps throwing the buttons. So many! The best way to make any ingredient stretch. That’s a good tip for you at home. Make a soup. It’s just all in there. The broth, you get the nutrients, you got an old man throwing buttons at you. It doesn’t even distract you. You just take it, pop it in a pot, put it on a fire. You bury it in coals, you let it go. Bingo Bango. Pop a lid on. You guys wanna wonder when I’m gonna run out of buttons? When are you gonna– Not now! What’s not today. I got a button that’s lucky. Now I gotta splash my nips. Well we’re gonna let this here stew for about four hours or whenever we decide to stop for the night in which case I’m gonna keep a lantern on so Benny doesn’t creep into a tent and then we’re gonna make some dessert. Oh yeah. I’m feeling a lot better now. Yeah? You got a, what you got there? A very thick whiskey. Yeah. Yeah. Let me, Benny this is… Benny, this is maple syrup. How many bottles of this have you drank? Enough? Oh God Benny. You, you’re not drunk. You’re just in a pre-diabetic shock coma. I thought it went bad. So thick! And it’s not even… Oh! I thought it was just when you gave this to me as a prop concept, I thought it just said grade a amber color. So I was not expecting, but beneath it, it says syrup. Did you think you’re drinking thick food dye? Listen, I’m already– You still drank it though. I know it was really good. Of course I would, for the bit, you know? Yeah. You gotta do it for the bit. We’re very committed to things here. We’re so committed to the bit. So committed that the mustache left after five minutes. Oh the mustache is outta here man. The lip is too sweaty. I’m 36. I feel that. I sweat on my lip now. Hey we all do. I got sweat in the grundle area. You wanna make some mud apples? Yes. So mud… Yes. So mud apples were… It was actually a native American technique where they would take like fresh river mud, they’d pack it around wild apples that grew, and they’d throw it in the fire. And then the mud would harden and bake and it would just make these delightful baked apples. You’d peel the skin off and eat it. And so pioneers on the trail, they’d like do this for their kids. Be a fun little treat. You wanna make something? Here. Yeah. Mix mix a fair amount That’s how you make it up to them after letting them go under a wagon wheel. Sorry you had got no legs there little Johnny. Here’s an apple caked in mud. Yeah, buck up. They did the best with what they had. So I’m making some strawberry dumplings. Here, add that water to that clay and mix it around with something. Is this hot? Nope. Add the water to the clay and mix it around and then pack it around those apples. We’re just gonna throw ’em in the oven and bake them off. The whole thing? Whole thing! You’re very wasteful with the water on the trail. Maybe. I don’t know, figure it out. Figure it out? Well no, they would use whiskey to dilute into water to supposedly purify it. Didn’t work too well. Because a lot of people just died. I’ve never– I’m gonna start crushing strawberries. Yeah go in with your hands, go with your hands that’s way to do it. Go with your hands. That’s the way to do it. I am taking strawberries. So there were actually like a lot. Ow! You told me this was… It’s not hot. You’re just soft. God, you have hot boy fingers. Scared it is a hot boy fingers summer. Said that wrong. Where are the hot boy fingers going? We don’t know! But– I don’t know why. Strawberries were commonly foraged along the Oregon Trail. What I was trying to say is Josh doesn’t feel hot on his fingers. That’s true. He could put his hands in like boiling water and feels nothing. Absolutely. Hot boy fingers. Ooh. I can’t reach my buttons. This drop. I’m not reaching your buttons for you. You’re gonna have to get the button. I don’t wanna touch your buttons. It’s the side pockets. Not inappropriate. Oh, God. Benjamin I don’t like that. I don’t. What else you got in there? Just the Buttons. A jack knife? No. Here. What do I do? You just throw– Throw ’em up and you say Benny Buttons. This is the toggle. This is, well, it still counts as a button. Yeah! Benny buttons! We got this strawberry and dumpling recipe from Mary Powers. I’m just trying to create a catch phrase you guys. And she said that you mashed the strawberries with some water and sugar and then you let it boil. Comment below if you want Benny Buttons merch. And then you make some nice little loose dumplings with flour and sugar. It’s just a bag of loose buttons. And then saloratum. I knew what you’re saying. We in Saleratus. You’re all like, what? What the heck is Saleratus? It’s what they called baking powder back then. For only the price of a cup of coffee. Isn’t that the craziest freaking thing you ever heard? YouTube can get some Benny Buttons that we’ll put ’em in an apron. Cause its really sodium bicarbonate is what it is. And that’s gonna give you a nice little rise in– I hate this! No one likes it! You’re on the Oregon Trail! It’s just not– We’re not here to have fun. I don’t– We’re not here to have fun. All right. We gotta make dessert because I forgot to put water in it. This reminds me of the stuff that I put on my rash when I was out in the Oregon Trail. We didn’t know what it was from. Sometimes I’m just allergic to things. I have survived despite all that though. Honestly, this is probably what you put on a rash. Just get some mud and rub it around. I don’t know. I reckon. I don’t know enough to say. What it was. All I know is I got these lovely strawberry dumplings. We’re gonna have a nice meal, we got Johnny cakes for breakfast. We got our bison stew. I’m gonna boil these Saleratus dumplings. You know what? I still don’t feel good. I think the snake bite is bad. Oh God, yeah. But you know, I’m a strong man. I’ve lived through, I’ve lived through cholera. I lived through diptheria. I’ve lived through… when I dip, you dip, we diptheria. Did you live through when I put my hand up on your hip theory too? Yeah its when you, when you put your and you put my… Ow! Ow! My hip! My hip! My hip! Just the lack of… Oh God! And the snakes are back. More snakes! Well, you know, honestly, I think this is a good lesson in self-sufficiency from Benny Buttons. Ah, you’re supposed to guide me. I’m out here just trying to make my strawberry dumplings and my mud apples, you know? It’s like, you don’t wanna help me. And that’s the thing, you know, it’s really this is, you know– I’m a human being! You take a risk to go out on the Oregon Trail. Sometimes that was just the risk that you assumed. I’m in pain! That’s why I you say you hang in the back of the pack. You know? You make the desserts, make people happy. Right? I guess the snake is my friend now. Huh? All right. So we’re gonna take these apples. We got this lovely clay right here. Oh God. That’s so good. I’m gonna take a nap. No Benny, don’t go to sleep. You have a concussion. You’re gonna die. I can’t go to sleep? You’re gonna die. If you go to sleep, you’re gonna die. We’re gonna pack some clay around these here apples. You’re gonna have to help me up because I have Reptar hands right now. I’m not touching you. Because I have clay on them. I’m not touching you. I felt something. I can’t touch anything right now. I felt something through your button pocket that I didn’t like. What was it? All right, we’re gonna take this here apple. We’re gonna pop it in the oven. It wasn’t a snake, was it? Kicking buttons. I just feel the buttons I’m kicking. Look at these lovely strawberry dumplings. They’re cooking away. Oh, you probably felt my lucky used condom, didn’t you? Oh God. What did you even make condoms out of back then? Is it just like a bear intestine? I don’t know, but when you’re born, you only get one. Ugh, have a button. You just get one. Oh, a button. We gotta let these cook for a second. I’m gonna check on Benny. Benny, not the buttons. Oh God. Dessert’s done. I’m gonna grab it. Benny don’t get your ass burnt. Don’t get your ass burnt. I got hot mud apples. I don’t– Look at these beautiful mud apples. Oh, get the buttons out. They creep me out. Your buttons creep me out. Just gotta say that. And then we got– No one was… I didn’t hurt anyone to achieve these buttons. You keep saying that. I don’t know if I believe you. Look at these beautiful strawberry dumplings! Come on. Wait. I think you’re burning Benny’s buttons. Yeah. Burning Benny’s buttons. Don’t ask him where it burns. Hey Benny! What? Can I sell you these for a second? Can I try and trade these to you? These are mythical bear fighting gloves. What you do is you put ’em on your hand and then a bear comes up to you, and then you knee it right in the groin. And then this was gonna protect your hands from being scratched at. They also double as oven mitts that you can take hot pans out of the coal fire. You can buy them at mythical.com. They look like snake heads and they make me a little scared, but I want them. Buy the mythical oven mitts if you wanna scare Benny for the snake. Oh God! See how well they protected you from a fake snake being thrown at you by producer Analise. Thanks Analise. All right. Well the… Oh, bashing the snake head now. We got meat now. We’ll throw this in the stew. Hey, he’s still alive. Run Benny, run! No, he’s he’s rookie. He’s going away. He’s going away. Old Benny Buttons. You’re battered. You’re bruised. You’re bitten. But you’re not broken. I love B words. You’re a B word. And you, oh boy. Let’s dig into the breakfast. You want– Walked right into that. You want a Johnny cake here? We got some fresh churned butter that you almost helped with. I made it. We’re gonna slap some of that in there. Get it melted all around the Johnny cakes. I didn’t make it. Here, I’ll give you the one with the most apple butter. Take some bacon. This is breakfast. This is how you’d start the day. Oh boy. It looks lovely. You know I think I’d like to have these things for my last meal too. Far in the future. Cause I would not die. We’re publishing this episode twice. Benny, how do you feel about death? Well, sometimes I pray for it. And I’m like, why? Why God? Why have you cursed me with this immortality? You’re looking younger. I think my eye will grow back. Yeah. I think that’s how the legend of Benny Buttons– Eat your Johnny cakes. Eat your Johnny cakes Oh yeah. The food. What the show is about. This is an important part. Are you gonna make a taco? Honestly, I don’t think that word came out for another 11 years. Well what would you call it, Mr. Podcast Guy? That’s a delight. I bet you this is how they ate it. There’s tons of butter. There’s tons of just like animal fat and lard, it’s smashing, it’s crispy, it’s effectively a polenta cake. You know– Apple butter. When I came on here, I got a little concerned about the clay apples. But this is really, the apple butter is really good too. Little cakes are a little oily. Yeah. Saturated in butter, but you just needed calories, so you survived, right? That’s very true. All right. Let’s dig in to lunch. We got our bison stew. I only got one bowl. Take a, take a tray out. This is the cup I used to get well water. At least it’s not the one you used to unclog the pooping hole. That’s a shovel. Ah, sorry. The community shovel. It looks a little gross, but it’s very hearty. You got the dandelion greens, you got this nice tender bison meat, its been cooked all day in a fire. They would’ve just buried it in coals and let it go. Oh, my cake is falling apart in the stew. The Bison’s a little lean, but that’s it. I mean, this is hearty and satisfying, you know? It’s actually very good. It’s really good. I actually would eat this regularly. We’ll send you up back to your trading post or whatever with the mug. Oh boy. I’m gonna be the most popular guy in town. Sounds like you already are one of those Oregonian crabs. You wanna dig in– Actually, no, I’m kind of struggling with my, my guide reviews. Yeah. Word travels fast. I know. So I was hoping… Would you give me a thumbs up? You know, if you have like a survey, like a comment card, I can fill it out and you know– Usually when people– Grab a mud apple. When people fill out the cards, that’s where I get in trouble. Grab a mud apple. So what you do is you would peel off the mud and then you would just peel the skin, which should peel nice and easy. And then you got nice apple flesh.. Benny, you’re not eating your mud apple! All right. Oh God. Why? Oh– This is, reckon there might be like a particular kind of mud you’re supposed to use that we may not have used but yeah. Here, just claw it. This is mine! Just let me touch your mud apple! I just don’t understand why, why the clay on it? It bakes it nice for the kids. Oh, so we’re not supposed to eat the clay? No, don’t eat the clay. Have you been eating the clay? Well I was gonna– Don’t eat the clay. Don’t eat the clay? No. The clay acts like oven… Oh God, it’s all stuck on me. It’s so wet. Oh, it just jizzed. That’s great. Wow. I can’t believe they used to eat such tasty treats back in the olden days. I can’t even deal with my hands anymore because it’s covered in clay. Taste that mud apple? You need a napkin, my friend? My new trail friend? Benny. Thank you. It’s trail law that if you have a sling on, you have to let people wash with it. Your Uber guide rating just shot up in my book. I know, if you have a clean sling, people know that you’re not popular. Grab some dumplings. This seems like a dessert that’s more my speed. This looks really good. Ooh, yes. The dumpling’s cooked up pretty nice. The strawberries cooked down. You’re just throwing it in a fire on the wagon. Next to gun powder. Cheers. Cheers. I’m putting some bacon with that. I think in my mouth. That’s just great. I mean, this is effectively, it’s like a steamed cobbler in a really good way. How many people do you think this would feed? Ah, this would feed like a you know, like one greedy father who shot his children because they were slowing him down. I told you there’s a lot of other ways to do it, but you just died. It’s like it’s in the video game. It’s just brother John. He hit his head on a rock and then was strangled by a snake. This is a grieving father’s day’s meal because his kids fell into the wagon. But my favorite part about playing the video game is when you didn’t give a about one person dying. It’d be like your Aunt Lou… It’s like, I didn’t give a about Aunt Lou.. I forgot she was here. Man. It’s just like less weight. That’s gonna be at least a hundred pounds of grain we can add now. God. Benny sounds like you really care about if people make it through alive. I do! You’re a good man. You can pay me, or you could do the review. I’m only paid in buttons. I’m pretty sure we established that from the beginning of this re-occurring joke. I don’t know. Oh God! It was a snake. God, that’s a snake. You know what? Why won’t you die? It’s the same snake. It’s always him. Benny, since you saved my life, I’m giving you five stars under your official review. Oh boy! This is gonna go up on the bulletin board for all the towns people to see. I think he got me again. Oh no, Benny don’t die. Are you gonna die? No, I’m just gonna be in a lot of pain and never die. Soon I will just be a head in a jar. Benny, thank you so much for the service and for getting me through the entire Oregon Trail safely. Oh thank you so much. That was happening as a meta narrative. we were traveling and now we’re here. We’re in Oregon. Suck it. You can’t prove we’re not. The claps mean wrap it the hell up. Thank you so much for stopping by Mythical Kitchen. We got new episodes for you every week, we got new episodes of our podcast, A Hot Dog is A Sandwich every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on Instagram and TikTok at Mythical Kitchen with pictures of your mythical dishes under #dreamsbecomefood. Benny, you got anything to say to the people? Got any last words? The buttons. Many Buttons. Like a Pokemon who says your own name just, many buttons. You’re too hot to handle. And so is your bakeware. Get a Mythical Kitchen oven mitt available now at mythical.com.