Cowboys Counted On This West Coast Staple To Fill Up On The Trail

We have a romanticized view of cowboys and the Wild West, but, in real life, cowboys were laborers with arduous jobs. Far from the glitz of Hollywood, a cattle drive could last for months. Food was scarce, and many cowboy staples were items with long shelf lives that could be carried on the trail with them. One absolute essential was a jar of sourdough starter, which they used to make biscuits.

When heading out on the trail, cowboys would bring a chuck wagon with them. Essentially a basic kitchen on wheels, this may not have been used to prepare gourmet cuisine, but it carried all the things needed to survive. These included the sourdough starter, carefully kept alive over the entire journey. Cowboys ate biscuits in place of bread, and the sourdough used to make them was treated as a treasure. According to stories, some cowboys would even sleep next to their sourdough starter on cold nights in an effort to keep it warm.

Each morning, cowboys would make their sourdough biscuits using a Dutch oven placed directly on hot coals. While the biscuits most people enjoy today tend to be light and fluffy, cowboy biscuits were denser, with a heavier texture — rather than mixing fat (like butter or lard) into the dough, it was used to grease the pan to stop the biscuits from sticking, giving them a light char on the base. These biscuits were one of the basic everyday foods cowboys enjoyed, working perfectly to soak up stew or enjoy with beans.

While California's gold miners didn't care much for the sourdough bread they made, out on the trail, sourdough biscuits became a popular comfort food, providing a soothing meal after a long day of riding. Together with beans and coffee, it was one of the staples that kept cowboys going even when their work was punishingly difficult. Good food was vital under these conditions, and the cook was considered the most important person on a cattle drive, working hard to keep everyone well fed.

The chuck wagon also carried other staples, like bacon and salt pork. To keep it from spoiling, the pork was salted so heavily that it needed to be soaked in water to make it palatable. It could then be added in chunks to a pot of beans, or used to make chuck wagon stew — a filling meal made with whatever was to hand, such as potatoes, wild onions, and herbs. To keep up morale, cowboys would sometimes enjoy sweeter things like dried fruit or molasses, and the most extravagant meals were canned foods, known as "air tights." Their weight made them a luxury, so enjoying a can of tomatoes, or even peaches, was a special treat during a cattle drive.

Alongside all the other foods, though, biscuits were the ever-present staple, eaten morning, noon, and night, together with whatever else was being cooked up. So, the next time you're enjoying sourdough biscuits, remember that you're sharing in a tradition that dates back to the days when the West Coast was a lot wilder than it is now.