desert fruit cakes

A form of desert fruit cake — An edible cake or bar created by pounding together seeds, nuts, berries, insects (crickets, katydids, or ants), meat or starchy roots, eaten by Amerindians, early pioneer settlers, and Mormons, in the dry western Great Plains and Rockies foothills, especially around the region of the Great Salt Lake. It is one of the traditional survival foods passed from the Amerinds to the white newcomers for surviving winter starvation.