What Did Cowboys Eat?

Cowboys ate specific foods carried on chuck wagons. There were many special foods on chuck wagons, ready for hungry cowboys.

Food that was eaten along the drive became better over time with the invention of new cooking equipment, such as dutch ovens. The food the cowboys ate included:

• Coffee: This was an essential part of both the cowboy’s and the cook’s diet. The first coffee cowboys drank came from green coffee beans and the cook had to grind and roast the beans himself in order to make the coffee. In 1865, a new process was invented and coffee beans could be pre-ground, pre-roasted, and preserved making the process of serving coffee much simpler and quicker.
• Beans: This type of food was another essential part of the cowboy’s diet. Primarily consisting of pinto beans and the occasional red bean, they were an important part of the diet because they were cheap, easy to transport, kept well without spoiling, and were very filling.
• Sourdough Biscuits: Another staple food for the cowboy out on the drive, the sourdough to prepare biscuits was guarded very carefully. So important was the sourdough to the cook that he would sleep with it to ensure it would stay warm on cold nights to keep it from spoiling.
• Meat: The amount of meat cowboys had on the drive was not much. When they did have it, the meat was gathered from kills the night before and then packed into the cowboy’s bedrolls and stored in the wagon until the next night. The cook would then prepare the meat, primarily using it in chili or stews.

Importance of the Cowboy Chuck Wagon

When cattle drives first began, every cowboy along for the drive was in charge of bringing his own breakfast, lunch, and supper. In addition they were also required to bring all their own cooking equipment. However, a man by the name of Charles Goodnight, one of America’s first cowboys, realized that the extra baggage slowed the cowboys down along the drive.

Goodnight then pioneered the use of chuck wagons. Chuck wagons were wooden, sometimes covered vehicles driven by older cowboys who were hired for cattle drives to be cooks, repairmen, doctors, gravediggers, and perform all sorts of tasks along the drive.

The cooks were considered second in command along the trail and all other cowboys thought twice before crossing their path if they wanted to eat well. The wagons themselves were equipped with small specific areas to store food and other cooking supplies, in addition to having spare room to carry all the cowboy’s belongings.

Origin of the Cowboys

It is believed that the American word cowboy spawned from the Spanish word caballero. A caballero in Spanish means a horseman. The American cowboy is defined as any boy or man who worked with cattle. Cattle were introduced to America by the Spaniards some time during the 1500s.

Cattle became domesticated and more and more people began to desire the meat they could provide. However, cattle were native to only the states in the south. When demand for meat to the North began to rise, this encouraged the idea of cattle drives.

Cowboys were hired to escort these cattle on many days journey from areas in the South to areas in the North where they could be butchered. Along these long journeys, the cowboys had to eat.