What Did Cowboys Eat? (2024)

FAQs

What did cowboys actually eat? ›

Cowboys in the United States relished similar "chuck" (also called grub or chow). Canned and dried fruit, "overland trout" (bacon), beans, fresh meat, soda biscuits, tea, and coffee. Breakfast might include eggs or salt pork. Eggs, sometimes shipped west for considerable distances, sometimes went bad.

Along the trail, the staples of a cowboy diet consisted of beans, hard biscuits, dried meat, dried fruit, and coffee. Occasionally, a type of bread known as pan de campo (or “camp bread”), which was cooked on a skillet was also available. These along with a little bit of sugar were the staples of the chuckwagon pantry.

Each morning, the cowboys would cook breakfast in cast iron grills, skillets, and pots over a hot fire. 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.

This hearty and satisfying Cowboy Stew is perfectly spiced and loaded with ground beef, smoked sausage, beans, potatoes, and corn. It's a big bowl of comfort on a fall day and perfect with a thick slice of cornbread with cinnamon honey butter!

Free lunch

It was a tradition once common in saloons in many places in the United States, with the phrase appearing in U.S. literature from about 1870 to the 1920s. These establishments included a "free" lunch, varying from rudimentary to quite elaborate, with the purchase of at least one drink.

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.

A simple dish that combined fruit and bread or biscuit dough, cobblers have since become an American staple. This dessert would have been cooked over a fire in a cast-iron Dutch oven and lard would have been used in place of butter.

Cowboy dinner is a hearty casserole of flavorful beef, corn and beans topped with soft, fluffy cornbread and a layer of cheese. So delicious! This easy, comfort food casserole has been a family favorite for over 20 years! After that long, you know the recipe has to be a keeper! What is this?

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. They just eat enough to satisfy their hunger, and not pig out to avoid an upset stomach while on the saddle.

Cowboys would have eaten hardtacks, a dense bread made with few ingredients that resemble modern-day biscuits. These were edible for years. The only downside is that they were rock hard, so had to be soaked in water or milk before eating.

What steaks did cowboys eat? ›

As with most things in the tumultuous west, it was more a case of getting what you're given rather than ordering from the a la carte menu so a cowboy steak can be pretty much any cut you can get your hands on but, traditionally, it would be a bone-in cut most often the ribeye.

Chuckwagon staples had to travel well and not spoil. The list included flour, sourdough, salt, brown sugar, beans, rice, cornmeal, dried apples and peaches, baking powder, baking soda, coffee and syrup. Fresh and dried meat were essential to the cowboy diet, providing protein and energy for their exhausting work.

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.

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.

Well, it is true. Because it can be stored without refrigeration for extended periods of time, jerky became a staple of the Old West and allowed settlers, frontiers men, and cowboys to move west into uncharted territory.

Chuckwagon staples had to travel well and not spoil. The list included flour, sourdough, salt, brown sugar, beans, rice, cornmeal, dried apples and peaches, baking powder, baking soda, coffee and syrup. Fresh and dried meat were essential to the cowboy diet, providing protein and energy for their exhausting work.