Prairie Recipes

Chuck Wagon Fare

The following includes chuck wagon terms a cook needed to know:

Wreck pan: the pan where the cowboys put their dirty dishes after eating.

Squirrel can: a large can where the boys scraped the food scraps after eating.
Cook’s last job of the evening: he must point the tongue of the wagon toward the north so the herd could “follow the tongue” the next day.
Gut robber, greasy belly, and biscuit shooter: name given for the cook.
Coffee recipe: use a handful of coffee for every cup of water.
Possum belly: the name for the rawhide apron attached to the underside of the chuck wagon where wood or buffalo chips were stored for making fire.
Why the cook threw dirty dishwater under his wagon: kept the cowboys from sleeping in the shade under the wagon. (Chronicle of the Old West)

Whether a cook and his chuck wagon were any good was often determined by his biscuits. If he couldn’t make a flaky biscuit in a cast iron skillet over an open fire, the cowboys were in trouble. The following was a good recipe to use.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour                                                 ½ teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder                        5 tablespoons lard or shortening
1 teaspoon soda                                         1 cup buttermilk

Sift flour, baking powder, soda, and salt together. Cut in lard until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk, stirring until mixed. Turn out onto floured board; knead slightly. Roll out about ½ inch thick; cut with floured biscuit cutter. Place in cask iron skillet with lid. Bury in coals until done.

An older recipe for breakfast might have included this one:

Slapjack

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.