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Sarah McNeal is a
multi-published author of time travel, paranormal, western, contemporary and
historical fiction. Her stories may be found at Publishing by Rebecca Vickery
and Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints of Painted Pony Books, and Fire Star Press. Her website: http://www.sarahmcneal.com
A COWBOY KIND OF THANKSGIVING
When I was about eight years old, my dad decided he
didn’t want a turkey for Thanksgiving. Instead he wanted roast beef. I believe
Pop was addicted to roast beef, especially pot roast made in a Dutch oven with
carrots, potatoes, and onions. We had it every Sunday. Pop was obviously stuck
in a rut. Turkey is like the very symbol of Thanksgiving. In my childish mind I
thought we must be too poor to have a turkey. I didn’t want my friends or
classmates to know we had fallen into such dire circumstances that we had to
have roast beef for Thanksgiving. What kind of Thanksgiving has roast beef for
Pete’s sake?
Well, turns out pioneers and cowboys would have loved
some roast beef for Thanksgiving. In Laura Ingalls’ famous stories about
growing up on the Great Plains during the pioneer days in America, she
describes the excitement and joy in preparing a Christmas dinner (close enough
to Thanksgiving as far as feasting is concerned) with no turkey or roast beef.
"Ma was busy all day long, cooking good things
for Christmas. She baked salt-rising bread and r'n'Injun bread, and Swedish
crackers, and huge pan of baked beans, with salt pork and molasses. She baked
vinegar pies and dried-apple pies, and filled a big jar with cookies, and she
let Laura and Mary lick the cake spoon."
I never heard of vinegar pie, but I did find a recipe for it and added it to the list at the end of this article.
Cowboys led a labor intensive life and needed plenty of
protein to keep up their energy and strength. Here is a list of their foods:
Dried and Fresh Meat
You’d think with all that beef on the hoof they were chasing around all day, they would
be eating beef every day, but not so. Fresh meat was a rare treat usually
produced by hunting.
Hard Cheese
Hard cheese was dried until hard and dipped in
paraffin wax. The stuff could last for months without spoiling and was nutritionally
valuable in its high fat and salt content. I would have loved this ration.
Beans
Beans were provided in large quantities and were one
of the most abundant foods available to traveling cowboys. Versatile beans
could be made into chili, mashed beans and bean soups when cooked in a Dutch
oven overnight would last for many meals and were often re-purposed, made into
patties when cold and fried.
Dried Fruit
Dried fruit supplemented the starch and protein that
composed the majority of the cowboy diet. Apples, raisins and apricots were the
most common, but berries and prunes were also available. Watch that prune
intake out there on the trail.
Biscuits
Cowboy biscuits were based on the recipe for Civil War
hardtack and so resembled them in taste, texture and longevity. Meant to be
palatable for a long period of time, cowboy biscuits contained only flour,
water and salt. Baked for a long time at a low temperature, they became hard,
brittle and very dry…not the kind of biscuits I’d be looking forward to, for
certain.
Coffee
Coffee became an important staple of the cowboy diet.
Used to remain alert and warm in the wilderness, coffee was prepared by boiling
it directly in the water without straining. Often full of grounds, cowboy
coffee was very thick and strong.
Except for the grounds in there, I like it
strong. My parents used to keep coffee going all day long until my mother had a
heart attack. She couldn’t stand the smell of it after that and she switched to
hot tea.
Oh, just for fun, I found some Chuck Wagon Etiquette
at a website titled Legends of the Old West
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Chuckwagon Etiquette
Did you know?
When Cookie was finished with his
work for the day and before hitting the sack, he would always place the
tongue of the chuck wagon facing north. When the trail master started in
the morning he would look at the tongue and then knew what direction he would
be moving the herd.
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Camp Cook Names
Soggy, Pot Russler, Lean Skillet, Old
Pud, Coosie, Old lady, Belly Cheater, Biscuit Roller, Dough Boxer, Dough
Puncher, Greasy Belly, Grub Worm, Gut Robber, Sourdough, and more.
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I’m glad to report that we only spent that one
Thanksgiving with roast beef. My sister and I gave Pop so much grief over it,
we reverted back to good old turkey after that. Looking back on it, I’m sure my
dad thought his daughters lacked gratitude, but tradition, in my opinion, must
be upheld.
Here are a few recipes of pioneer feasting foods:
Mormon Johnnycake
Here is a form of cornbread used not only
by the Mormon immigrants,
as the name indicates, but quite often by most of the immigrants traveling west.
Because of the inclusion of buttermilk, a source of fresh milk was a necessity.
as the name indicates, but quite often by most of the immigrants traveling west.
Because of the inclusion of buttermilk, a source of fresh milk was a necessity.
2-cups of yellow cornmeal
½-cup of flour
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon salt
½-cup of flour
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients and mix in
2-cups of buttermilk and 2-tablespoons molasses.
2-cups of buttermilk and 2-tablespoons molasses.
Pour into a greased 9” pan and bake at 425
degrees for 20 minutes.
To get a lighter johnnycake include two beaten eggs
and 2 tablespoons melted butter.
To get a lighter johnnycake include two beaten eggs
and 2 tablespoons melted butter.
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Thanksgiving Pudding
(From an 1880 Cookbook)
Pound 20 crackers fine, add 5 cups milk
and let swell.
Beat well 14 eggs pint sugar cup molasses 2 small nutmegs 2 TSP ground clove 3 ground cinnamon 2 TSP salt ½ TSP soda. Add to crackers. Finally add pint of raisins. Makes two puddings.
Soda Biscuits
Take 1lb flour, and mix it with enough
milk to make a stiff dough;
dissolve 1tsp carbonate of soda in a little milk; add to dough with a teaspoon of salt.
Work it well together and roll out thin;
cut into round biscuits, and bake them in a moderate oven. The yolk of an egg is sometimes added.
Red Bean Pie
Beans were a staple of the cowboy's
food, particularly when he was on the trail.
Beans could be easily stored and they were inexpensive. And although it probably wasn't known,
they're also nutritious.
Here is yet another way the cook could
feed cowboys beans.
1-cup cooked and mashed pinto beans.
1-cup sugar.
3-beaten egg yokes.
1-teaspoon vanilla.
1-teaspoon nutmeg.
Place combined ingredients in an
uncooked piecrust. Bake at 350 degrees
for 30 minutes. Make a meringue with
the leftover egg whites. Spread over
baked pie and return to oven to brown.
Baked Apple Pudding
The recipe below was brought out west in the 1800’s
by the ancestors of Audrey Crandell of Linden, Arizona.
3 Large apples, grated
1 cup sugar 1 cube butter ½ cup nuts 1 egg 1 cup flour 1 tsp baking soda Pinch baking powder ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp nutmeg
Beat egg, sugar and butter.
Add apples and mix well.
Add dry ingredients.
Bake 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees.
Serve with cream or a white sauce.
Vinegar Lemonade
Mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a
12 ounce glass of water.
Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar to taste.
Note: The pioneers used vinegar for numerous
reasons.
One reason was to add vitamin C to their diet.
Corn Muffins for Breakfast
Farmer’s Almanac 1885
Pour one quart of boiling milk over one
pint of fine cornmeal. While the mixture is still hot, add one
tablespoonful of butter and a little salt, stirring the batter
thoroughly.
Let is stand until cool, then add a
small cup of wheat flour and two well-beaten eggs.
When mixed sufficiently, put the batter
into well-greased shallow tins (or, better yet, into gem pans) and bake in a
brick oven for one-half hour, or until richly browned. Serve hot.
How To Fry Quick Doughnuts
The following recipe for doughnuts came
from the March 17, 1885 Daily Missoulian. Obviously, anyone making
these doughnuts will want to find a substitute for fat as a cooking oil.
Put a frying kettle half full of fat
over the fire to heat. Shift together one pound of flour, one
teaspoonful each of salt and bicarbonate of soda, and half a saltspoon full
of grated nutmeg.
Beat half a pound of butter to a cream
and add them to the flour. Beat the yokes of two eggs to a cream, add
them to the first-named ingredients, beat the whites to a stiff froth and
reserve them.
Mix into the flour and sugar enough sour
milk to make a soft dough and then quickly add the whites of the eggs.
Roll out the paste at once, shape and fry.
Vinegar Pie
There were two different kinds of
vinegar pie, one without eggs cooked as a cobbler in a Dutch oven, and the
one below which is a custard pie.
A most important concern for a cook on
the trail was to have items, especially for dessert, that do not require
perishable items, and can have substitute ingredients. When the cook wanted
to make the pie below, and ran out of sugar, he would substitute molasses,
honey or syrup.
½ cup sugar
1
tablespoon butter
2
tablespoons vinegar
2
tablespoons flour
3
egg yokes (Save the whites for a meringue.)
1
cup water
Line a pie pan with your favorite pie
crust. Bake the crust about half done before placing the mixed ingredients
into it.
Bake in a slow oven until the custard is
done.
If you would like you can use the egg
whites for a meringue, but it is not necessary.
Sourdough biscuits were a delicacy
whether on the trail or at the ranch. Once a cook got a good sourdough
starter he cherished it like a baby. On the trail he would store it in a
dark, cool place in his chuck wagon. Here is one cook's recipe for a
sourdough starter.
2 cups of lukewarm potato water
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
Make potato water by cutting up 2
medium-sized potatoes into cubes, and boil in cups of water until tender.
Remove the potatoes and measure out two
cups of the remaining liquid. (The potatoes can be used for the evening
meal.)
Mix the potato water, flour and sugar
into a smooth paste.
Set the mixture in a warm place until it
doubles its original size.
Slapjack
This recipe came from The Old
Confederacy Receipt Book of 1863.
Take flour, little sugar and water,
mix with or without a little yeast, the latter better if at hand, mix into paste and fry the same as fritters in clean fat.
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