Under the Wire

A good friend of mine owns a western store. One entire corner is devoted to books and about half of the space contains cook books. All are titled some variation of “cowboy cookbook” and all promise to provide receipts for delicious dishes prepared by genuine authentic American cowboys. You are what you eat. If you want to be a cowboy, I guess you had better buy and cook from these books. Once a year my friend even hosts an open house at the store and prepares several dozen dishes from various editions. All have wonderful cowboy sounding names like “Southwest Pinto Bean Souffle” or “Jim’s Country Tofu.” They taste great and I usually don’t eat for two days before I go for some serious “sampling.”

My only problem with the whole concept of these cowboy cookbooks is this. While I admit I don’t know all the cowboys in the world, I don’t think I’ve ever met a single one who could cook anything worth a darn. Cowboy cuisine is an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. I’ve heard the term “moron” in reference to myself before but that’s another story!

Cowboys I know can’t or won’t cook, at least when they’re cowboying. I’ve known a few who were firemen and while at their fire house cooked gourmet meals for fellow fire fighters. When they come home and pull on the boots and spurs, they can’t boil water. I’ll admit I can whip up some pretty good vitles at home, but put me in a camper going down the road and it’s rodeo food for me.

When we travel, it seems our interests and lifestyles change. For me rodeo food is Hostess Cherry Pies and cartons of chocolate milk for breakfast, fast food burgers for lunch and whatever’s fastest at the concession stand for dinner before heading out to the next early morning slack. Fellow cowboy travelers have subsisted on sardines and crackers, sunflower seeds and cola or cans of pork-n-beans and potato chips. In fact, if one were to publish a book of their favorite receipts, it would probably sell fewer copies than “My ten favorite places to have teeth pulled.”

This unusual diet isn't restricted just to the traveling rodeo cowboy, either. Ranch cowboys don’t do much better. While the movies are full of “old Cookie” putting out a full five course meal on the tailgate of his well-equipped chuck wagon, I haven’t met him on any of the “gathers” I’ve been on.

One neighbor’s wife brings us cold Wendy’s from 25 miles away when we gather his cows in the fall. I’ve been served sardine sandwiches, fried baloney sandwiches (smelled better than the sardine ones in July) and the ever popular ... nothing at all.

Where are the guys who actually prepare and deliver to the working pens, “Rimrock Rumaki Appetizers” or “Sonoita Sauteed Mushrooms.” If you planned on preparing the mushroom dish, how do you keep the horses from mistaking the parsley flakes for alfalfa leaves? How do you keep the dirt out of the garlic powder and how do you keep Ralph from finding the white wine before you need it for cooking?

Nobody loves to eat more than a cowboy, no matter whether he spends his days on the range or in the arena. I’m just happy so many people buy “our” cookbooks. Someday I may get to try “Mesa Verde Cranberry Chicken.”

Note: Some of these recipes I just made up but some really come from an honest to goodness “Cowboy Cookbook” by Jim and Sue Willoughby whom I wouldn’t know from Adam. Someone gave me their cookbook as a gift. I hope they read this somehow and invite me over for supper.