Chili Served to Hungry Cowboys on the Trail (2024)

FAQs

Chili Served to Hungry Cowboys on the Trail? ›

Chuck wagon cooks had a tight schedule and limited resources while feeding 20 or more cowboys three meals each day. They made "a bowl of red" popular by chopping tougher cuts of beef and simmering it with lots of hot chiles for a long time.

And most ranch owners wanted their cowboys fed well so that they would stay healthy along the trail. So, the crew also included a cook. Along the trail, cowboys ate meals consisting of beef, beans, biscuits, dried fruit and coffee.

Every cattle drive had chili as a chuck wagon staple, since the native peppers and onions were abundant along the trails. But stories are spread that the beef was too valuable and was limited to be used as food on the cattle drive, so extra protein came from a pot of beans along side the chili pot.

The dinner menu was similar to breakfast and lunch (beans again!), but could also include fresh buffalo or antelope meat or prairie hens if hunting had been successful. Using their ingenuity and the materials at hand, pioneer women prepared special foods to relieve the eating monotony.

Suppression only fueled this fire and in the 1800's chili was a staple food for cowboys, ruffians, and Adventurers on the Western Frontier. It was even served up in jails. Originally made of dried beef, fat and spices carried in saddlebags, then reconstituted over campfires. It was cheap and hearty and filling.

Brine was saltwater that was traditionally "strong enough to float an egg." Preserved in this way, homesteaders could keep meats for weeks and months at a time. However, like the other staple of pioneer diet, salt pork, "salted down" meat had to be laboriously rinsed, scrubbed, and soaked before consumption.

Chili with beans could be called chili frijoles or chili con carne con frijoles. I've not seen any other name than “chili with beans.”

bread, coffee, beans, beef, and bacon at the chuckwagon daily during the drive. While food variety is something to be desired, cowboys generally eat only two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. There is always an option for a third meal, but cowboys prefer to eat less.

Cowboys enjoyed black, strong coffee. After the first round was poured, they would add more coffee grounds to the pot to keep it strong. Brewing the coffee was a way for the men to relax and catch up at the end of their long days.

Prior to 1870, a few basic staples dominated the menu in all cow camps. These included coffee, bread (in the form of biscuits, corn meal, or hard crackers), meat (bacon, salt pork, beef—fresh, dried, salted and smoked—and wild game), salt, and some sugar and sorghum molasses.

What food did they bring on the 1800s trail? ›

The pioneers who joined wagon trains, he says, usually started out with a barrel of flour, 150 pounds of salt pork or bacon, 100 pounds of dried hulled corn, 25 pounds of green apples or peaches, a barrel of molasses, vinegar, and a keg of beef suet as a butter substitute.

Meals often consisted of hot coffee, a large pot of beans, and biscuits that were baked in a cast iron pot and slathered with lard and gravy. Today the term “Cowboy Breakfast” has evolved to include eggs and skillet potatoes, bacon or sausage, and perhaps biscuits and gravy to round out the plate.

Prior to 1870, a few basic staples dominated the menu in all cow camps. These included coffee, bread (in the form of biscuits, corn meal, or hard crackers), meat (bacon, salt pork, beef—fresh, dried, salted and smoked—and wild game), salt, and some sugar and sorghum molasses.

The wagon would have been stocked with dried and salted meats, lard, flour, sugar, coffee, beans, corn meal, potatoes, hard breads and cheeses, etc. To augment some meals, they would have shot a cow or wild game.