'Cowboy' food

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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
......My father, who grew up on a farm in Southwest Virginia, once worked as a cowboy and did use horses......

So did I; in Mississippi though. And later lived in Texas and Nevada. We used horses to work cattle, plow gardens, and log. And TBH 1 good dog is worth three horsemen when working cattle (but not nearly as much fun)
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
I suspect that on the American frontier, people did not live in close villages they way they did and still do in Great Britain and the.....

Maybe. I suppose it depends on just how you define a "village." The larger ranches would have really been a village unto themselves: cookhouse, blacksmith, etc. and a population more or less the same as a small village.

The trappers and explorers would have been more scattered and on their own but most waves of actual settlers traveled and settled together; The wagon trains, the Mormons, etc.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
I know things like bannock/fry bread was and is popular in the USA, perhaps more isolated folk used this. Dutch oven cooking/baking is far more popular in the US than the UK so I suspect risen bread/sour dough was cooked in these in Ye Olde days?

When I lived on Cyprus in the 80s my local village had a community wood fired oven that was lit a few times a week and locals would bake bread of various types in it.

I think you're right Rik. It's also been said that was the origin of the "cupcake." Simply making up the batter, pouring it into a cup, and baking directly in the fireplace.
 

BlueTrain

Nomad
Jul 13, 2005
482
0
77
Near Washington, D.C.
I think by the time there were ranches, there was no longer a frontier, Mr Santaman. However, the use of the word cowboy during the American Revolution had nothing to do with cattles and the word is sometimes used for other things having nothing to do with cattle. Trappers could probably be said to have preceded the frontier and at least one (Johnson, I believe) claimed to have not tasted bread for a very long time (don't remember the exact number of years). That would be "Liver eating Johnson. I don't think the Indians recognized the trappers as settlers either, though I suppose they could be called frontiersmen. It is true that settlers tended to move went in groups and in fact, often quite large numbers, even when "the west" was Tennessee and Kentucky. Supposedly the Indians in the midwest believed there were no people left in the east after seeing so many people go west. They were wrong.

It is entirely possible that you are the first person to use the word "cupcake" on this forum.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
I think by the time there were ranches, there was no longer a frontier, Mr Santaman......

The Spanish had ranches in the West as far back as the 1600s. It just wasn't part of America yet. The continent was actually settled from the coats inland rather than from East to West.
 

PDA1

Settler
Feb 3, 2011
646
5
Framingham, MA USA
Santaman - real haggis is banned throughout the USA. Import of any food containing sheeps lung is prohibited. US made haggis is an abomination made from beef (probably hydraulically recovered) and zero offal. The import ban started in 1971 and I think was brought about by the belief that Scrapie was endemic in most sheep herds. There is/was a belief that it could migrate to humans as jacob Kreuzfeld (spelling?) disease. For the same reason, the DFSIS also discourage the consumption of squirrel. From 1985 to 2011 import of any beef or lamb from the UK was prohibited because of the BSe/Scrapie scare. That has been lifted, but not for sheep lung.
On the subject of abominations, you may import Scottish made vegetarian haggis. So now we have mentioned "cupcake" and "vegetarian haggis" in one thread on this forum. will civilisation now end?
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
Santaman - real haggis is banned throughout the USA. Import of any food containing sheeps lung is prohibited. US made haggis is an abomination made from beef (probably hydraulically recovered) and zero offal. The import ban started in 1971 and I think was brought about by the belief that Scrapie was endemic in most sheep herds. There is/was a belief that it could migrate to humans as jacob Kreuzfeld (spelling?) disease. For the same reason, the DFSIS also discourage the consumption of squirrel. From 1985 to 2011 import of any beef or lamb from the UK was prohibited because of the BSe/Scrapie scare. That has been lifted, but not for sheep lung.
On the subject of abominations, you may import Scottish made vegetarian haggis. So now we have mentioned "cupcake" and "vegetarian haggis" in one thread on this forum. will civilisation now end?

I suspect you're partly right. I'm sure you're right as far as any haggis that's imported or sold in the US. That said, I stand by my statement that there is no law banning anything that a person personally harvests and eats. If I (or anybody else) wants to kill a sheep, harvest the lungs, and make a haggis for personal consumption; no law prevents it.

Not that I would.
 

BlueTrain

Nomad
Jul 13, 2005
482
0
77
Near Washington, D.C.
So now we have mentioned "cupcake" and "vegetarian haggis" in one thread on this forum. will civilisation now end?"

It may be the end of civilization or--maybe the beginning! However, this forum is not about civilization, is it?

Santaman, I agree that the country was settled from the coasts, or more accurately, from the waters, by which I mean to include the Mississippi River. I would include the Southwest and Califormia as part of American, as well as Canada and Mexico, just not part of the United States. We in the United States are sometimes guilty of ignoring simple historical facts when it comes to who went where when. Jamestown was founded in 1607, well ahead of Massachusetts in 1620 but Quebec city and Santa Fe, New Mexico were establish within only a couple of years of Jamestown and both did much better. St. Louis was already 40 years old when Lewis & Clark set out to explore the west.

Of course, Mexico City was already a metropolis when Columbus came and it's still going strong. Then there's London!
 

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