Come
and Git It!
Or at least that's how we perceive the Chuckwagon
Boss calling the cowboys to dinner. His voice ringing out against the clank of
a "dinner" triangle…. Is that how it happened??
While some form of the kitchens
in wagons had existed for generations, the term chuckwagon or chuck
wagon is credited to Charles Goodnight, a rancher from Texas who introduced the concept in 1866. He
modified a Studebaker wagon, an army supply wagon, to suit the needs of cowboys
driving cattle from Texas to sell in New Mexico. He added a "chuck
box" to the back of the wagon with drawers and shelves for storage space
and a hinged lid to provide a flat cooking surface. He then attached a water
barrel to the wagon and canvas hung underneath to carry firewood.
Chuckwagon food typically included none-spoiling or easy to keep
items like beans, salted/ cured meats, coffee, and ingredients to make biscuits. Food
would also be gathered as they traveled. On the cattle drives, it was common for the cook ,"cookie", to run the wagon and to be second in command
-- only to the trailboss. The cookie would often act as cook, barber, dentist,
and banker.
The term chuck wagon comes from "chuck", a slang term
for food.
Here is a really fun link that tells what kind of supplies a
family headed West might pack for their cooking on the trail. It's a very interesting
site J
How cool! What a neat and informative post, Jenn! I'm going to check out the link.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, Jenn! I'll need it as research for one of my books!
ReplyDeleteI love this story, Jenn. My husband, Jay, was a fan of the Goodnight-Loving trail, (I think that was the name of Goodnight's partner). He even once had a cookbook of receipes supposedly prepared by Cookie on the trail. It did have some strange dishes in it, and even stranger measurements--when measurements were even included! Unfortunatley, I believe we lost that book along with so many others when our house burned years ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the neat post!