SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Cowboy camp cuisine-just the basics

By Julie Carter

When the two cowboys were young buttons and working their way through
college and at the same kind of low paying cowboy jobs after college, Jesse
was the camp cook.

The main and only menu during that time was fried deer meat, instant boxed potatoes and beans--not the slow cooked cowboy pinto beans but the straight out of the can Van Camps variety.

The boys claimed the potatoes made a balanced diet out of the deer meat. A trip to the grocery story would see their cart filled with boxed potatoes, grape jelly and rye bread. The rye bread wasn't a popular item with Jesse so it kept the grape jelly bill from getting too high, a clever ploy by his partner Clay.

An occasional variation to the menu, not often served because it took too much time to cook, was chili and eggs. This was Clay's contribution to the menu, although later in life Jesse always tried to lay claim to originating the delectable dish.

This feast was served up with grape jelly and kept them in excellent health and roping condition.

Camp cook stories are passed through generations and one that Clay recalled was one his Uncle Bill had told him. Bill had put out a wagon and concinero with the crew to work on the ranch down in the Big Spring area of Texas.

When the wagon was running short on groceries, Bill gave the only hand in camp some money and told him to go to town and get supplies. He told the kid to be sure and pick up some green vegetables to vary the balanced diet of meat, potatoes and beans they were having.

This boy was a horse wrangler and night hawk by trade; garden truck did not fall within the parameters of his expertise.

The grocer had just received a big supply of okra and he encouraged the innocent young wrangler to take that back to camp. When he got there, the concinero had never seen okra and didn't know what to do with it.

He asked the man on the crew who was the world class expert on everything you could name-there is one in every bunch-how to cook it. The expert didn't really know but told the cook to just boil it. At mealtime, the cowboys passed by the okra fearing they'd get scours or some other dreaded intestinal ailment.

The cook realized that more than likely the crew would be able to suffer along without the okra and tossed it out. The story ends with the image of the two worthless hounds that Bill had following the wagon making sure nothing got wasted. When the cook tossed the okra, one hound opened his mouth and the okra went down so fast that he thought the other hound got it. It started a world class dog fight.

At some point Clay and Jesse reached a place in life where they had more time and money to eat other things. It also helped that Clay married a girl who was a fine cook.

She would occasionally break the monotony of fixing everything fried and feed the pair shrimp, prime rib and exotic desserts. They would sit around the table with their shirt buttons popping and talk about the days of chili and eggs.

The trio's food tastes turn to the exotic as life put them in places where they were offered black buck sausage, elk steaks, impala steaks and all sorts of wild game cooked to perfection.

And along the way they developed the ability to remember to cook the soaked pinto beans before they sprouted.

Although the little woman acquired an entire shelf of gourmet cookbooks and had tried out most the recipes on Jesse and Clay, nothing was ever as good as their fried deer, potatoes and canned beans....

Copyright Julie Carter 2005

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