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History of a Cowboy Cook | Day in the Life of a Chuck Wagon Cook
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Aug 23, 2023
This week we’re talking about my experiences as a chuckwagon trail cook. This is a historical look at the cattle drives and cooking for cowboys now and in the 1800s. #cowboycooking #chuckwagoncook #ranchcook Stay in touch with more recipes and upcoming events in our email newsletter: https://kentrollins.com/email-sign-up/ Used in this video: Rode wireless mic: https://amzn.to/2ShDyEq Check out our new apparel collection: https://cowboy-kent-fourthwall.com/ Clothing: Cowboy Kent Rollin’s Favorites - http://bit.ly/35qpFaU Shop Ariat.com - http://bit.ly/2QdNSNe Save 10% off your first order - http://bit.ly/2F9QHIT Kent’s apron: https://kentrollins.com/shop-1/ For more suggested products seen in our videos click here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/cowboykentrollins ======================
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0:00
Hey, you'll ever thought of going back down the trail with Oak Cookie in the 1880s and the 1890s
0:04
Well, folks, if you'll crawl up in that seat with me there on that wagon, I'm going to give you a free trip
0:09
We're going to talk about then. We're going to talk about now, and it's all about feeding cowboys
0:24
Hey, thank y'all for stopping by camp and when we're talking about camp
0:28
this is probably my most favorite place in the world to cook
0:32
Yeah. And cooking on ranches is where I sort of got to where I found my niche in life, I think
0:37
because I've always wanted to cook and always did. But when I could start cooking for cowboys, who one of the best things ever it was
0:44
And I still get them questions on YouTube. Did you really cook for cowboys going down the cattle drive trail
0:51
Now we're going to answer that in a minute because we still cook for cowboys
0:54
but it's a little different than when it was going down the trail. Do you actually stay on working ranches in a teepee out there in the middle of nowhere
1:03
Yep, we sure do. So I'm just going to walk you through a day in the life of a camp cook, how it starts, how it ends
1:11
and what all I get to see in between. So how did I get my start in this ranch cooking business that I must be in
1:18
Well, I always sort of had to hanker into cooking. My mother started me cooking when I was probably seven, eight years old
1:25
I can remember standing on a student. in there in the kitchen watching her make stuff and think it was the grandest thing ever
1:32
Now I got to make me a chocolate cake when I was eight years old and whee
1:37
That thing was so good and I got to mix it in that little old bowl and lick the batter
1:41
but folks if I had to know I was going to have to wash them dishes at the time I might have went into being an astronaut or something like that
1:47
Washing dishes goes with cooking and who I have done a bunch of them
1:51
From that we went to cooking for some elk hunters in the early 80s in the heel of wilderness
1:56
Sort of like ranch cooking, you just packed it in on a mule instead of a wagon
2:00
We'd be cooking anywhere from 7,000 foot elevation to 12,000 foot elevation
2:05
which makes a huge difference. But when I got out of there on the long drive home from Silver City, New Mexico that year
2:12
I thought, you know, I'm going to buy me a wagon, and I'm going to go back to my heritage
2:16
back to them ranchers, them folks that I used to sometimes work for, but now I was going to see if they needed a cook
2:23
Now, when you start out in that business and let me tell you, folks, It is a business that is, oh, I'd say, 19 hours a day sometime
2:31
And the pay, oh, my gosh, we got rich. We'll talk about that here in a minute we will
2:36
So I put the word out on a cowboy grapevine. It wasn't none of this TikTokist in-stairs chat stuff
2:44
None of that. It was by word of mouth and a full stomach. And really, the cowboy circle is pretty good to get around
2:50
It'll take you from South Texas all the way up in Montana, back around through New Mexico and into the Texas Panhandle and then back to my house
2:59
And it wasn't long before the people called. They said, hey, we need a ranch cook
3:03
But can you drive a team? So I hired on with my first ranch back in about 1992
3:08
I did. I was down there by Abilene, Silverbrook Ranch. And what
3:12
Staying in there three weeks. Let's just start from that coffee bowl and then sort of back up just a minute and get in that old teepee that we had for so many times on a ranch
3:21
We got them cowboy condominium. We do. Yeah. I mean, it was right next to the double tree and the Hilton and the Holiday Inn American Express and all that stuff was sitting out there right in the middle of this 500,000 acres
3:34
Really, it's just a canvas teepee that is supported by two poles on an a frame
3:40
Now, they make them in different sizes from 7 by 7 to 12 by 12s with two foot walls
3:45
Now, I spent many a night in a 7 by 7 teepee when it was just me, and they never was tall enough for you to get dressed or undressed in, so you always
3:53
We had to do that outside and then crawl in there and go to bed. But folks, they was pretty well airtight
3:59
They kept the water off your back most nights. And you'd unzip that door, usually 2.45 to 3 o'clock every morning
4:06
Make the short commute to work, you would. Which is usually 50 yards at the most to the wagon, that old stove of mine named Bertha, and a lot of firewood
4:16
Stoke that old stove we would, the coffee's been put on. Guess what comes next, folks, you got to do her every day
4:21
That's make homemade bread. Wasn't no whackums here. I said, we're making sardough biscuits or we're making buttermilk biscuits
4:28
but you've got to have them. It's got to be what's in the pot. Give them time to double in size
4:33
and maybe rise up just a little, and then you're thinking, what time are we serving breakfast
4:38
Well, a lot of times on ranches, it was between 4.30 and 5.30, just depending on where you was
4:43
at and what season it was, spring or fall. Now, most of the time, Cowboys hear you clattering around over there
4:50
They ain't going to come at 4 o'clock, but they might be able to. over there at 415 because there is this aroma that's floating down through the camp and them
4:58
13 other teepees that scattered out there across in the moonlight and what is it the smell of coffee
5:04
and mesquite smoke has brought life to the members of the other family it has and you hear them as they come up through there sort of jingling them spurs around but also there a little conversation Pretty light pretty quiet because they know when they get to my kitchen it sort of like sacred ground Nobody is really welcome in there until you
5:23
ask. Now, that's laws that I didn't make. That's laws that old cookie made so many years ago
5:29
going down the trail. And them cowboys knew they come up there. They'd always ask
5:34
can we come under the fly of the wagon, Kent? And you're talking, what? Fly
5:37
of the wagon. Big tarp that goes over the entire camp there, covers everybody up, got snap-in walls
5:44
when it's cold, and there's benches all the way around. Now, they'll get them a coffee cup
5:49
and they'll pour them a cup, pour their buddy a cup, and they'll sit there while I'm beginning
5:53
to finish up on the breakfast side of things. Now, we either going to have bacon or we're going
5:57
to have sausage. Sometimes we might even have some leftover steak that we're going to throw
6:01
back in there from the night before, and what are we talking? Cackleberries. I'm talking a bunch
6:07
of them cackleberries. Take a 20-inch skillet, throw it up our own old broth, and let it get warm
6:12
crack you about three dozen eggs up in there. Now, as we gather all around and then boys know it's
6:17
nearly time to eat, but they know what's fitting to happen next. We all take off our hats
6:22
We buy our heads, and we pray, and we give thanks to God for what we have and the food we get
6:28
and this beautiful creation and this beautiful job that we get to do, because we never take
6:33
that part for greening. So the meal is blessed and the plates are filled
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Soon it won't be long and the bellies will be fooled. They will. And then boys will sit around for just a second and then you'll hear this question
6:45
Who jingled horses up last night? Now that's a term there on a ranch or a cowboy might use to
6:50
Who gathered up the Ramuda of the horses the night before? And a Ramuda, that is a band of horses that we have took in with us
6:58
Maybe it's through a three-week period or a five-week period. Now, whose camp your own, depending on who's running that part of the ranch
7:05
is the first man in the set of them pins. And what's he going to do
7:10
Rope out of mouth. Everybody will call out, I'm riding this, I'm riding that
7:15
The best story ever heard in my life was a young kid hollered out. I'm riding SpongeBob
7:20
And it was an old fellow out there that was slinging a rope to rope he was
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And he said, what the hell does a SpongeBob look like? And it was this old paint coat that this kid had brought in there
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But we didn't know who SpongeBob was at the time, but we found out later and we laughed about that for a long time
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But each, he ropes out a mount for each one of them. That mount is caught, brought to that cowboy
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He puts his bridle on, takes him over there out of the way till he gets all of them mounted
7:47
It's time to go out and do what? Bovine battle due to the day. And you see them right out
7:53
Single file. A lot of times that old moonlight be shining on them like a beacon, I mean
7:58
and you can just hear the hoofbeats. and you can see the dust sort of there in the distance
8:04
and then they go over hill, and they're gone. So, time to wash them dishes it is
8:10
Got them fed and got them on their way. Wash them dishes, pull up a chair, sit there by the old birth of a minute
8:16
and think about, I am the most blessed man in America right now
8:19
because I'm getting to do what I was meant to do and something that I love to do
8:24
But then it come that time. What was it? What are you going to fix for lunch
8:28
I make a menu. I do and a grocery list. For how long I'm going to stay in
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and I usually pat it three or four days, because you never know what's going to happen
8:38
because Mother Nature is in charge. Now, as I'm thinking about what I'm going to fix
8:43
for them, Cowboys, for lunch, I remember being on the other side, horseback
8:47
and what them fellas was doing out there. They may have been in a 15,000-acre pasture
8:53
setting up a drive where a man will come through out there
8:58
He'd be the man that most of the time runs that camp and he'll drop a rider off. You start here and they'll make sort of a half moon
9:05
circle all the way around. And they'll holler when everybody begins to take off and you push that
9:10
drive around and bring it to a set of pins. Get them in there, they go to separating cows from
9:15
calves, stripping the bulls off, putting them somewhere else. And by that time, it's usually
9:19
getting pretty close to, I'd say, time to go ahead and fix that lunch. I've been gazing out the
9:24
kitchen window too long. So a lot of times first stay in on a working ranch and I've done. I've
9:29
done this for a long time. Bake bean casserole. I mean them cowboys loving and it's so easy to prepare
9:37
The recipe is in our cookbook, taste a cowboy. And we have fixed it many a time. Cowboy approved it is
9:43
Fry you some taters up along with that, make you some sourdough corn bread, but you've got to have dessert
9:49
Every day has some kind of bread and some kind of dessert. Because I'm here of spoiled cowboys
9:55
That's what I do. And I feed them better than anybody else that's going to feed them. Now, I have 12 o'clock on the waterberry, but a cow don't know to watch
10:05
She don't care what time it is. She don't care what day it is. She don't care what year it is
10:10
There comes a certain time when, hey, we got the cows stripped from the calves. It'd be a good time to break
10:15
Go up there and see old Kent and let's get her bellies full. Now most of the time a noon meal for cowboys they not going to eat as much as they would a breakfast meal or a night meal unless their day is pretty short after lunch But most time they going to put in a full one they are
10:31
So they come in, we blessed the meal, they eat, they tell me about the horse wrecks they've seen
10:38
how bad somebody got bucked off, or hey, how come did you let that cow get by you
10:42
Didn't you see that cow? And I'll hear them laugh, and that's what I like
10:47
I know they're happy. and as they come back back up there bringing them empty dishes and they put them in a wreck pan
10:53
which is a wash tub. One has hot soapy water, hot rinse water
10:59
They'll scrape that plate clean if they ain't licked it clean, set it in that hot water and say
11:04
thank you, Kent, for another great meal. And as they go off down there towards a set of pens where they've been working, I watch them
11:12
And they're all smiling. They're all happy. and they just sort of go out of sight again, go down a big old long hill
11:20
and then all I hear after that is belling cows, bellering up with storm, I mean
11:26
So the cows and the calves are stripped off. Now they got a brand, they got to vaccinate, they got a dehorn, and they got a castrate
11:32
And all this is done pretty quick when you've got some good ropers in a set of pens. It is
11:37
Then everything pairs back up, send it out there, let it settle a minute, go back to their home place where they was before
11:42
Now, as they begin to come back up to camp, my work has started about 3 o'clock that afternoon
11:48
because I'm going to try to have supper around 6 to 6.30. And folks, supper time we do put on a feed like any smorgasbord you ever seen in your life
11:57
Because tonight, what are we having? We're having a big old 16-ounce bone-in rib-high
12:01
We are with some sparkling taters, some hominy and green chili casserole
12:06
And what? A double-decker red velvet cake, but also some homemade siredo biscuits
12:12
Now them boys has come up there they took them boots off, put on them shut up dogs on their feet
12:17
What are them? The comfortable shoes. You don't hear them dogs barking no more
12:21
And they get their belly full. They do. Dishes is washed. I tell cowboys, sorry to clean y'all out of camp, but old cookie got to go to bed
12:30
That's 8 to 8.30. Now, they respect me, they do, and their TPs are a long way from that wagon because they know I want it quiet
12:38
Get over in that teepee. Get in that bed roll. pass out just quick as I can because the day's going to start again at 2.45
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Now, you never know what tomorrow's going to bring when you're on a ranch. Like I say, you can go to bed and it be 45 degrees
12:54
Wake up the next morning, it'd be 5. Wind blowing 60 miles an hour
12:58
I can remember breaking ice out of a solid frozen water barrel to make coffee
13:03
So let's talk about some of them conditions I've cooked in. The worst conditions ever always involve the wind
13:10
because the wind can just tear up so much stuff. It's two places
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Paladarra Canyon, back in December one year, minus 10, wind blowing about 35, about 12 inches of snow on the ground
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It was not pleasant. We had moved camp, 19 degrees. It was just right
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Got up the next morning, tore my fly plum off the wagon. So what I need to do, I got to sew it back up so I can get the walls around it
13:35
so I can have a place to cook for them, cowboys, but also keep them comfortable
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Well, the first night I rolled up that bedrored right there beside Old Bertha without nothing on top of me
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No tarp, no nothing. I liked froze to death. It's three below zero that next morning
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Now, a good buddy of mine, old Chris Morton, he was most gracious to ask me the next night
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why don't you pull in here at this teepee with me and you can sleep? I said, I'll do everybody. I've been about to freeze
14:00
So I go in there, get ready to go to bed. Now, before that we went to bed, I'd wash dishes that night
14:07
Rolled up the sleeves in my shirt there a little, so I didn't get them so wet. I took that shirt off that night and just laid it over on the floor
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What water was on there froze, the sleeves was froze to the elbows
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When I put them on the next morning and Chris, he don't hear well all the time. I said, my gosh, I got ice
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He said, lice, he said, you got to get out of my teepee now
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I know why nobody let you sleep with them. I said, no, Chris Morton, you don't understand
14:31
It's ice from washing dishes. But I remember getting that sewed up and getting camp stood back up that day
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It was just two days of hard. sewing and I didn't miss a meal. I would cook breakfast, I'd cook lunch, I'd cook supper, I'd sew
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in between. But the other place that probably shocked me and Shan as many places that we cooked
14:51
on was up near Casper, Wyoming, the Poison Spider Ranch. Beautiful day. No wind
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Supper fixed, washing dishes, and it hit out of the west. Not a cloud in the sky
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75 mile in our straight line winds. I see it's pulling it down
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It was that way. Ripped the fly of that wagon to shreds, blowed over tepees
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It was a nightmare that happened. It wasn't even dark. And it blowed like that all that long
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So you never know what you going to get from Mother Nature but she going to give it to you most time in full force Now let talk about the difference that old cookie going down the trail in the 1880s had and what I got now Now I think we should talk about the similarities first
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He had a wagon and a team. So did I. He had Dutch oven, skillets, coffee pots. So do I. He had coffee
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flyer, sugar, beans, maybe some jerky, a little bit of dried fruit, onions, peppers
16:08
and a little bit of lard. That's about it. Me, I had everything that I could towed into one of
16:15
them ranches too. I mean, I'd have it all. But I had a little more means and opportunity to
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keep it and to have it accessible. And folks, that's what it's about, is trying to bring a meal
16:25
together for them cowboys that they didn't even think you might can put together out there in the
16:29
middle of nowhere. But old cookie did his job too. And boys would get up over morning, beans, biscuits
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and coffee. Hey, what, nothing wrong with it? Because it's supper, guess what? It's a good we're
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going to have it again. Now, there was no noon meal that cookie fed in between, because remember
16:44
they're on a cattle drive that maybe started out down by, oh, San Antonio, and ended all the way up in the
16:50
middle of Kansas. Put them on a railhead, ship them somewhere. Us, a little different. Today, we're
16:55
working usually a pasture at a time. Them cowboys can come in for lunch
17:00
Now when we're moving camp, say we're going to move camp early
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of a morning after breakfast, we'll usually make breakfast burritos or me and Shan'll make a sloppy Joe or we'll make something
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and it's like a drive-up window by the wagon. Them cowboys will come by and get them a sandwich and just peel right off
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We keep them fed, get to camp, set up, start over. But we weren't doing that every, every day
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and we weren't taking balling longhorns from South Texas to the middle of Kansas
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Trucking has really come in and helped the industry in so many ways that you can load cattle
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take them to a feedlot, or you can trailer cattle from one part of the ranch to another
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and you're not spending two days driving them somewhere. So, sure, me and old cookie got the same job
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He was a doctor. I've been a doctor. He was a dentist. Yeah, I've been a barber
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We had to do what was needed. to be done. And that was
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cooked and take care of a bunch of cowboys and be the luckiest man in the world to do it
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One other question I get a lot from people is do you take a bath
18:05
ever? If it's like a springtime ranch, I'm going to take a bath
18:09
every night. I used to hang a five-gallon bucket up in a tree that had a vegetable
18:13
sprayer hose on it. The sun would warm that old black bucket
18:17
during the day. I could go over there and take me a shower. It was the best thing ever
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Then Shan modernized that. She did. got one that run off a battery and then knock the hair off your head it was so much powerful it was
18:27
but yeah washed up got a pitcher some soap towel you can take a bath it is good as go but folks
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the days come to an end out there a nightfall begins to come along there the curtain is being
18:41
drawn and we're going to start what the nighttime symphony that i love to hear i'm talking about
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that old cow sitting out there on a hill so far away singing to a mate
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And you just hear it soft there in the distance. The old hudal after that, then you hear the crickets, and it just starts
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And it's sort of like music to your ears, and if you can get really lucky and the good Lord blesses you
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you get that light sprinkling of rain during the night that just floats so gentle and easy on that teepee
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It's the best sleep music you ever found in your life. I take my hat off when I go in that teepee before my eyes shut every night
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I say, thank you, Lord, for making the cowboy. And thank you, Lord, for making me a cook, because that's what we love to do
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We hope you enjoyed this little life and times in the day of a camp cook
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because, hey, we've enjoyed bringing it to you. Hope we answered some of your questions
19:35
Be sure and sure of this with all your folks and the neighbors. Give us a light. But as always, and it is with great privilege and honor
19:41
I tip my hat to all our servicemen and women and all the veterans that have kept that old flag of flight
19:46
But there's more folks I want to thank, too. Everybody that's fighting this COVID deal again
19:51
all the nurses, the ER rooms, the people that are staffing things
19:55
Everybody that's trying to get product to us back and forth up the road, the truck drivers
19:59
because folks, we have so many truck drivers that watch us. They use our recipes in a little crock pot in a truck, and they cook them
20:06
And we are proud to be part of them. We are. So to each and every one of you out there that's doing a service to the community
20:12
hey, we thank you so much for it. Now the rest of you, come on up in here
20:16
There ain't no dancing today. I just don't know what it would be because I didn't have no bad of food
20:20
so don't be too. I don't even know where my pups are. Everybody has left today
20:26
Shan, thank you so much, darling, for loving me and always making me look better than I do
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God bless you each and everyone, and we hope we took you down the life and the trail today
20:35
If you like the historical aspect of the cowboy lifestyle and cooking on ranches
20:40
you might enjoy one of our very first videos we did, Spring Works on the Bell Range
20:45
And also one of my favorite videos that we ever did with Sounds of a Cow Camp is something to hear
20:50
Thank you
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