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It depends on which goldrush one means - Australian or any of the gold rushes in America.

People on the Australian goldfields most commonly ate damper, a simple bread made of flour, salt and water and cooked over an open campfire. They ate mutton with potatoes and onions, perhaps some cabbage and carrots if they were lucky, mutton or rabbit stew, or salted beef jerky. Occasionally they might kill a kangaroo or wallaby, but it was not the favoured food, although "roo tail stew" did become reasonably popular. Other fruits and vegetables were rare on the goldfields. They enjoyed billy tea as well.

Miners and their families often bought their food in one of the "trading posts" that grew up around where the fields were. Food was often very expensive as the local supplier had a monopoly on the market. This meant that he could charge whatever he liked, knowing that the miners would not leave their claims in order to travel to the cities for supplies at cheaper prices.

In the American gold rushes, they would have eaten wild game of whichever area they were inhabiting, but many of the other staple items would have been very similar.

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14y ago

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