This doesn't go into a great deal, but a lot of reasons 18th and 19th century cuisines resemble each other is because people literally had to live out of wagons, and you'd catch whatever you could for protein, boil it whatever seeds or vegetables you could find, and that's what you'd love on for possibly days at a time.
If someone knows, I can't remember it, but there was a fascinating book from the 80's which was a dictated biography of a Siberian frontiersman who detailed the horrible things they'd have to eat to stay alive, like boiled bark and tree sap, dirt stew, and dead animals (also stewed) that were frozen, so preserved. It's a hard, hard fucking reality when you consider how people can just go to stores and get stuff in the modern age.