Foods From The Old West That You Should Be Eating

Crackers that can break a tooth, the smoothest coffee ever, and a delicacy that proves that absolutely nothing from a bowl is wasted. The Cowboy era might have come and gone, but good and practical food is forever. Food on cattle drives in the Old West had to meet a number of practical criteria. Since refrigeration wasn't an option, anything carried along had to be non perishable. And since space was limited, it would have ideally been compact and easy to carry. And while these constraints sometimes forced Cowboys to settle for less than appetizing fare, flavor was still a concern. According to History Hit, a Chuck wagon cook with a good reputation could be a powerful recruiting tool for ranchers looking for help. Why can't they cook for themselves? Can't do much of nothing for themselves. Among the historic foods that ticked all the boxes was smoked beef jerky, According to People's Choice Beef jerky. Cowboys made their own jerky from either beef or from games such as elk, deer or bison. Theirs wasn't a refined version, but it was flavorful and a good source of protein, and modern snackers should embrace it for similar reasons, according to Prevail. It's an easy to carry treat for lung hikes or camping trips and depending on the version you choose, a perfect high protein, paleo friendly snack option. Stewed beans are another old school food associated with Old West cowboy culture, but according to Legends of America, they weren't as central a part of the cowboy diet as popularly depicted. While dried beans were a standard part of the Chuck wagon pantry because they are non perishable and lightweight, rehydrating them and cooking them was a long process and that's not always practical for a busy cook at the end of a long day. Still, they were enjoyed by Cowboys from time to time, according to Food scientist and chef Michael Murdie, 1 popular preparation today's diners would enjoy is beans cooked with bacon, with Murdie explaining to mashed Pinto. Beans and bacon are cooked together in a Dutch oven over an open flame or campfire, creating a savory flavor from the bacon and an earthy note from the beans. The high heat of the campfire adds a unique smoky flavor to the meal. Cowboys in the Old West loved their caffeine, and they got their fix from cowboy coffee, a rustic concoction of coarsely ground coffee boiled in a kettle over an open fire. But if you're a serious coffee aficionado, raised on the belief that you never let coffee boil, hear us out. Coffee is coffee, but when you make it the right way, folks, it is going to be the best cup of coffee in the world. According to Long Time Cowboy Cook Kent Roland's Simple Cowboy coffee, if made correctly is a treat. With Roland saying cowboy coffee when it is right is probably the smoothest coffee in the world. When you boil coffee correctly, it takes the bitterness out and boils the acid out of the bean. So if you love coffee but don't feel like splurging on specialized equipment, or find yourself on a camping trip or in an Airbnb with a non functioning coffee maker, give cowboy coffee a chance. In recent years, there's been a fascination in the food world with ancient foodstuffs. According to Clean Technica, long forgotten grains popular millennia ago have started making frequent appearances in artisanal baked goods and other dishes. Nutrition Today reports that even one of today's trendiest diets, the Paleo diet, is meant to replicate ancient and presumably more healthful eating habits. Among the foods with ancient roots enjoyed by Cowboys in the American West was Pemican, which Britannica describes as portable bars made from rendered fat, shredded or puled Boris, dried meat such as venison and sometimes berries. According to History Hit, it was introduced to Cowboys by Native Americans. Cowboys appreciated it because it was portable, non perishable and provided plenty of calories and protein in a small package. It's since gained a reputation as a superfood. According to Mark's Daily Apple, early 20th century anthropologist Vilhelmer Stephenson travelled with an Inuit group in Alaska and lived for weeks at a time on only pemmican and water. He later claimed that he'd never felt healthier. Another ancient food trend, once inelegantly called Quote Don't Waste Meat, has been revived and rebranded with a romantic new name, Nose to Tail Eating. According to Clean Eating, this refers to the practice of eating every potentially edible part of a butchered animal, quite literally from the nose to the tail. Not only does this allow daring diners to enjoy a richer range of flavor experiences, but it's also less wasteful and more environmentally friendly as well as budget friendly. Cowboy cooks who frequently haunted and regularly saw cattle being butchered were among those who followed the principles of nose to tail eating. Meat was precious to hungry Cowboys, and not a bit of it was wasted. For instance, Gastro Obscura reports that among the Cowboys unenviable responsibilities was castrating young bulls both for contraceptive purposes and to curb their aggression. This left Cowboys with the large quantities of detached testicles. So they did what Cowboys always did when encountering a free source of meat. They ate them. The standard treatment was to batter and deep fry them. Today, the unusual treats, nicknamed Rocky Mountain oysters, remain a regional favorite in the American West and are worth checking out if you love adventure and hate food waste. Rascal Stew was another reflection of the nose to tail ethos in action on Old West kennel trails. As The Art of Manliness details, the Stew, composed of a variety of organ meats that could include the heart, brains, liver, short breaths and marrow gut, was not only a way to ensure not one bit of a slaughtered beast was wasted, but also a dish relished by Cowboys. Elizabeth Nelson, an associate professor of history at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explained that fresh meat was often hard to come by on the cattle trail since it couldn't be stored unrefrigerated and eating the Rangers inventory was discouraged. So stews were more often made with preserved or dried meats, such as salt pork. So on the infrequent occasions fresh beef was available, every bit of it was used and enjoyed. Even the most resourceful cowboy cooks only had limited space for provisions, and the few provisions they could bring along had to have a long shelf life. But while an experienced cook could easily whip up a hearty meal with just these ingredients, it would still end up a bit boring, even for a macho gang of Cowboys. To break up the monotony and add some color and novel flavor to their meals, Cowboys sometimes foraged for wild greens and herbs, according to Ask a Prepper, And the types of herbs and greens they encountered varied by location. One day you'd encounter water US lambs quarters or wild asparagus, while another you might find wild garlic, chicory, or sage. And while these plants have never gone away, they remain underappreciated by most modern diners, which is too bad. According to Wild Edible, foraged greens are richer and essential minerals and vitamins than commercially grown produce. Plus, gathering them is a great way to get in touch with your natural environment. But if you do decide to start foraging, do your homework. Find an experienced forager to show you how to identify edible plants in your area, and if you have any doubt about whether a plant is edible, leave it alone. Cowboys regularly supplemented the food provided on the Chuck wagon by hunting and foraging for wild foodstuffs. And according to Ask a Prepper, even in the arid W, edible wild mushrooms were available. The catch was, so were a lot of poisonous wild mushrooms, and telling them apart was no easy feat. Sometimes safe and unsafe mushrooms could look dangerously similar. For this reason, many Cowboys shield away from all of them, figuring life on the open range was dangerous enough as it was. Still, some Cowboys were willing to take that chance. Most who did hedged their bets by limiting their foraging to visually distinctive edible mushrooms without poisonous look alikes. Among these were Morel's blackish mushrooms with tall Lacy caps and fat puffball mushrooms. Today, morels are a sought after gourmet treat in farmers markets on the infrequent occasions they're available and according to Giant Puffball Forager Chef, can grow to be the size of soccer balls and are easy to find in some parts of the country. They also make for good eating. A traditional preparation is to bread and fry them, but they also make great soups and, if sliced and rolled thin, a tasty substitute for lasagna sheets. You saute this in oil and garlic and butter and salt. I mean, anything's going to be good at that point, but this is a very savoury and nutty mushroom. Of course, whatever mushroom you're foraging, confirm with an expert that it's safe before you heat up your frying pan. Another challenge Chuck Wagon Cooks faced was limited cooking supplies, with Elizabeth Nelson telling Mashed. Most meals were cooked in a Dutch oven or a spider, a covered skillet with cast iron legs that could be set in the coals or in a pot hung on an iron bar suspended over the fire. This meant that stews were a common menu item, and it's likely there were as many variations of cowboy Stew as there were cowboy cooks. Still, a common goal of cowboy Stew was to render whatever meat it contained appetizingly tender. According to George Ranch Historical Park, in the days before cattle were crossbred, Texas cattle tended to be lean, which meant it was at its best when slowly stewed at a low temperature. And according to food scientist Michael Murdie, canned vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots were another frequent component of cowboy stews. So if you want to save some money by cooking with tougher pieces of meat, but don't feel like researching complicated recipes, channel your inner Chuck wagon cook and invent a Stew of your own using whatever vegetables and seasonings you have around. After all, that's how it was done on the trail. OK, we're not going to lie. Unless your culinary tastes run towards things that are bland, dry and hard enough to break a tooth, hard tack is unlikely to become your favorite. But if you're a backpacker, camper, or live in an area where an emergency earthquake or hurricane Survival kit with a good supply of non perishable food is a standard part of life, hard tack should be your friend. As it was to generations of sailors and Cowboys in need of a durable food source, according to the Texas Historical Commission. As its name implies, these thick crackers, typically made from just flour for water and salt, are hard. Really hard. You can think of hard tack as akin to dry pasta. You wouldn't eat it as is, but softened and flavored with other foods, it's filling and comforting. Cowboys back in the day soaked hard tack in coffee or soup or other hot wet foods to soften it enough to become agreeable to eat, and sometimes even fried the softened pieces. And if you're an avid camper or backpacker who regularly relies on freeze dried cook in a bag meals, some hard tack softened with hot water should fill you up. Chances are, the only reason you even know sarsaparilla exists is from watching it being ordered by an old cowboy in some movie you stumbled upon. You had a good Sasparilla. Sioux City Sasparilla. Yeah, it's a good one. But in the real Old West, sarsaparilla was more than just a punch line. According to cowboy historian Chip Schweiger, the soft drink was indeed relished by Cowboys as much for its purported health benefits as its taste. The drink, which the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports was made from a wild North American relative of ginseng, was first developed in the 16th century by Spanish soldiers who considered it a cure for syphilis, and 19th century Americans attributed any number of curative properties to the drink. So how does it taste? According to the Sun Sentinel, it tastes a bit like root beer. Indeed, sarsaparilla was one of the key ingredients in some early formulations of root beer, along with other herbs, including Wintergreen. According to Bundaberg, the plant extract used in sarsaparilla has a slightly bitter flavor, which drink manufacturers counterbalance with sweeter ingredients such as licorice. If you like root beer but wish the flavor could be cranked up a notch, sarsaparilla could be the drink for you. It's also still said to have health benefits for those who drink it, including alleviating pain and gastric distress. Yes.