13 foods cowboys would eat while on the trail

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During the 19th and early 20th centuries, vast numbers of cowboys roamed across North America, driving cattle between ranches and plains and to points of sale. It began with the vaqueros (the Spanish word for cowboys) in Mexico, and as demand for beef amped up in the north, numerous folks in the U.S. and Canada also adopted the cowboy lifestyle. While on the trail, the cowboys had several staple foods they relied on to fuel them for the long days of cattle driving, many of which were economical, filling, and easy to transport.

In the early days, most cowboys relied on their saddlebags to carry basic foods like dried meat and beans, and they cooked simply over open fires. However, that all changed when Charles Goodnight created the chuckwagon in 1866. Basically a kitchen on wheels (or you might say the precursor to the food truck), the chuckwagon allowed cowboys to carry larger items like cooking equipment, as well as pantry items like flour, salt, and canned goods. Many ranchers hired cooks to man the chuckwagons, and that's when cowboy meals really began to evolve. These are some of the most common foods (aka "chuck") that cowboys would eat while on the trail.

Read more: 13 Meats People Used To Eat, But Are Now Illegal In The US

1. Biscuits, bread, and tortillas

If there was one food that appeared at nearly every cowboy meal, it was bread. It was perfect for chuckwagon cooks because it was easy to make from shelf-stable ingredients, filling enough to keep hungry cattle drivers going throughout the day, and great for sopping up sauces and scooping beans. There were several varieties of bread found on the trails, including sourdough biscuits, buttermilk biscuits, cornbread, and baker's bread. Tortillas were also used for dishes like huevos rancheros, a staple cowboy breakfast.

Although there were numerous breads a trail cook could make, one of the most popular was sourdough biscuits. In his book "Come An' Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook," author Ramon F. Adams stated, "The cowboy preferred sourdough to any other kind." He explained that trail cooks would take great care to tend their sourdough starters and mix the batter with flour, soda, salt, and lard. Then, they would pinch off balls of dough and cook them in Dutch ovens greased with more lard. The end result was golden, flaky biscuits that were rich and tangy. 

2. Beans

Beans were another food that made sense on the trail. First of all, they were readily available in Mexico and throughout the American Southwest. Once dried, they would last for the duration of the cattle drive and even longer without going bad. Plus, they provided plenty of fiber, iron, and protein. Pinto beans were popular, along with kidney beans and Anasazi beans. Regardless of the type of beans they ate, many cowboys referred to them as "whistle berries" thanks to their notorious gassy side effects.

Dried beans take a long time to prepare, as they have to soak for hours to soften them up, so this was something the chuckwagon cook was typically tasked with. After soaking the beans, the cook would simmer them over a fire for as long as needed until they were soft. Many cooks also added flavor enhancers such as salt, garlic, tomatoes, and fresh or dried chili peppers. Some also amped the beans up with meats like bacon or chorizo. And like most meals eaten on the range, the beans were often served with biscuits or cornbread on the side.

3. Beef

Given that cowboys spent months driving cattle across long distances, it's no surprise that beef made its way onto the menu from time to time. However, fresh beef wasn't as common as you would think. That's because the cattle actually belonged to the ranchers who hired the cowboys, and they were meant to be sold for profit. And if a cow was slaughtered, the meat didn't stay fresh for long, so much of it was dried or smoked and turned into jerky. Not only did it last longer, but jerky was also more convenient for the cowboys to carry during the day while they were herding.

As for the fresh beef, it was often cut into thick steaks and tenderized, then either seared as is or dusted in flour and fried in a Dutch oven with beef suet. Many cooks also made a gravy called "sop" with the drippings, water, and sometimes flour. Other parts of the cow were also used to make roasts, stews, and a dish called calf fries (more on that later). In addition, the jerky could be added to dishes like omelets or used in stews. 

4. Salt pork and bacon

Not all of the meat in a cowboy's diet came from cattle. Many cowboys in the Old West also relied on salt pork, a preserved meat that could last for months without going bad. Also called "sowbelly," it consisted of fatty pork, usually from the belly or sides of the pig, and was heavily salted to draw out moisture and prevent bacterial growth. The resulting meat was tough and, as you might imagine, quite salty, so it had to be boiled for some time to soften it up and make it more palatable.

In addition to salt pork, cowboys also sometimes enjoyed bacon, which many called "overland trout." It had to be smoked heavily, but even then it didn't last as long as the salt pork. Both pork products could be eaten with biscuits or eggs for breakfast, added to beans to give the legumes a protein boost, or stirred into stews. They could also be boiled or fried and eaten on their own. As an added bonus, the pork fat could be rendered into lard and used to cook all sorts of dishes.

5. Corn dodgers

Corn dodgers aren't something you see around very often anymore, but back in the Old West, these bite-sized cornmeal snacks were a common staple along the trails. They have a long history that dates back to farming communities in the early 19th century. They were the ideal dish for cattle drives because they could be made with just a few basic ingredients and were filling and flavorful. They could also be used to soak up sauces, gravies, and meat juices. Legend has it some cowboys also fed them to their horses.

The corn dodgers of the Old West were typically made with cornmeal, hot water, and pork fat. Everything was mixed together to form a dough, then shaped into patties and fried in a cast-iron skillet in lard until golden brown on the outside. The recipe could also vary depending on what ingredients the chuckwagon cook had on hand, so some versions may have contained items like salt or sugar. Modern recipes often swap out the pork fat for butter, and some add items like bacon or an egg to hold everything together.  

6. Canned food

The latter part of the 19th century brought many changes in how cowboys ate, the biggest being the introduction of the chuckwagon. Another revolutionary shift was the widespread availability of canned foods. The first American cannery opened in 1812, and by the end of the century, numerous canned products were available across the States, including canned tomatoes, baked beans, peaches, and condensed milk. This added some much-needed variety and nutrition to the cowboys' diets.

Canned tomatoes were particularly popular with cowboys, as they could liven up a pot of beans or a stew, and the juice provided a flavorful contrast to plain water. The acidic properties of tomato juice may also have helped alleviate some of the harsh effects of inhaling alkaline dust. Other canned fruits and vegetables were also a welcome reprieve from the salty meats and some of the blander breads and biscuits offered on the trail, and they likely freed up time the cowboys would have spent foraging for fresh items.

7. Coffee

You would have been hard-pressed to find a chuckwagon in the Old West that wasn't loaded up with coffee and lots of it. Cowboys drank coffee from the time they woke up and well into the evening to stay alert and ready for whatever the trail might bring. And they liked it black and strong. As Ramon F. Adams said in "Come An' Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook," "Good strong coffee was sometimes called 'six-shooter coffee' because it was said to be strong enough to float a six-shooter."

The most common type of coffee used on the trail was Arbuckle Coffee. Prior to the Civil War, coffee beans were sold green and had to be roasted by hand. In 1859, Brothers John and Charles Arbuckle began selling pre-roasted beans coated in a special glaze to lock in freshness. The beans made the trail cooks' jobs easier, as all they had to do was grind the beans, throw them into a tin kettle or bucket with some water (usually about a handful of ground coffee per cup), and set it over the fire to brew.

8. Dried fruit

Fresh fruit didn't last long on the trail, and it wasn't always easy to come by, so cowboys often relied on dried fruit to provide extra nutrients and something sweet to snack on. Popular choices included dried apricots, apples, prunes, and raisins. Even after canned goods became widely available, dried fruit still had a place on the chuckwagon because it was lightweight, easy to transport, and could last for months without going bad.

Another benefit of having dried fruit on hand was that it required little to no preparation after drying. Cowboys could grab handfuls to take with them while out on the range, or have a few pieces at the end of a meal. If the cooks wanted to make a simple dessert, they could rehydrate the dried fruit in hot water and serve it as-is or with syrup. Some cooks also used the dried or reconstituted fruit to make simple pies and cobblers. In Dr. Richard W. Slatta's essay for NSCU, he noted a particularly creative dessert where the cook "would sew dried fruit and dough into a sack and steam the concoction."

9. Potatoes and onions

Fresh vegetables were also somewhat of a rarity on the trail due to their perishable nature, but that doesn't mean they were completely absent from cowboy diets. Potatoes and onions are hardier than fresh greens and softer items like tomatoes, so they could often be found among chuckwagon supplies. Fried and boiled potatoes were common because they made quick, easy dishes. Potatoes and onions are also incredibly versatile, so trail cooks used them in a variety of dishes, including stews, pot roasts, and bean dishes. 

That being said, Max Miller pointed out on Tasting History that even potatoes and onions only have a limited shelf life. "So if you wanted vegetables, further down the trail, you were probably going to have to forage for some, and so wild onions and prickly pear — things like that were very common in meals," he said. The cowboys may have even picked up a few recipes from indigenous communities along the trail, as many cultures in the areas the cowboys roamed have a long history of using native ingredients like wild onions and prickly pear (also known as nopales) in cooking. 

10. Calf fries

Cowboys weren't known for letting any part of an animal go to waste. That's one reason calf fries became part of the Old West diet. Also known as Rocky Mountain oysters in Colorado and prairie oysters elsewhere, the dish consists of fried bull testicles. They were somewhat of a delicacy for cowboys, as they were typically eaten only in the spring and fall, after the cattle were rounded up from the plains and some calves were castrated. You can now find them year-round in many Western states and provinces.

One way that cowboys prepared calf fries was to simply throw them onto a hot stove and wait for them to explode, which indicated they were done. Nowadays, they're often sliced and battered in a mixture of eggs, milk, flour, and cornmeal and deep-fried. Some cooks also skewer and barbecue them. They can be served with gravy or dipping sauces like hot sauce, cocktail sauce, or aioli. While they might make some modern-day eaters feel slightly queasy, for cowboys they were (and still are) great sources of protein, iron, and vitamins.

11. Molasses and sorghum syrup

Sweet dishes weren't as common out on the trail as savory and salty ones because sugar was tricky to store. Ants were a common problem, and damp conditions could cause the sugar to melt and clump up. However, some chuckwagons did stock syrups for sweeteners, particularly sorghum syrup and molasses. The former is made from extracting juice from the grassy sorghum plant and boiling it down, while molasses is made from extracting and boiling down sugarcane juice.

Although sorghum syrup and molasses seem pretty similar at first glance, there are a few slight differences. Sorghum syrup is slightly thinner and has a touch of tang, so it works well in vibrant sauces and over sweet dishes like fruit. Molasses is typically sweeter, so it's often used in baked goods or in sticky sauces and glazes, such as barbecue sauce. The old-school cowboys probably wouldn't have been picky, though, using whatever syrup they had on hand for everything from sweetening coffee to adding depth to beans, drizzling over cornbread, and amping up chili.

12. Son-of-a-gun stew

Cowboys were known for their colorful language, and one dish that reflected that was son-of-a-gun stew, which is actually the toned-down name used for the dish when the cowboys were in polite company. This is another dish that utilized offcuts of the cow. Ramon F. Adams explained in "Come An' Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook," "It has been said that to make this stew, everything was thrown into the pot except the horns, hoofs, and hide." That meant organs like the heart, liver, brain, and intestines, as well as chunks of meat, tallow, and tongue. 

Although it's unclear where son-of-a-gun stew originated, it's very similar to a Mexican stew called menudo that also features cow organs. And, as with menudo, some trail cooks added chili powder and onions to spice it up. However, many trail cooks drew the line at other vegetables, preferring the stew to be as meaty as possible. According to Adams, many cooks also insisted on using young, unweaned calves because of a feeding tube the milk passed through, called the marrow gut, which they believed made the stew more flavorful.

13. Chilis

Given that chili peppers were first cultivated in Mexico, it should come as no surprise that they've been part of the cowboy diet from the early vaquero days. The vaqueros used spicy hot peppers to season all sorts of foods, and cowboys north of the border took inspiration from many of the vaqueros' spicy dishes, such as soups, stews, and sauces. One dish that became closely associated with cowboy cooking was chili, a hearty one-pot meal named after its star ingredient.

Most sources agree that chili originated in Texas, although there are competing theories about how it came to be. Some say that Mexican cooks introduced it to the city, while others say it was an adaptation of a spicy stew brought over by Canary Islanders. What we do know is that by the mid-1800s, cowboys were creating chili blocks to take on the trail with them, which consisted of chopped beef and chilies encased in lard. The blocks could be sectioned off and dropped into a pot of boiling water for an easy meal. Of course, the dish evolved over the years, and now you can find multiple variations featuring a range of flavor-enhancing ingredients.

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Read the original article on Chowhound.