Cooking on the Trail

We have been traveling around in the country in an RV since 1988. Most of the time I prepare our meals in the trailer. So I guess you could say we have been cooking on the trail. But that has been going on for long before we began. Saturday we attended the Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook-off where contestants prepare meals as the folks driving cattle did in past centuries. They have built authentic chuck wagons and cook as people did then, over an open fire built in a trench in the prairie.

Each team prepared a meat, beans, biscuits, potatoes and a dessert. In our current trailer we have a 3-burner stove. Some have had 4 burners. But look at all these pots--several ovens as well as pots cooking like I do on the stove top.

About half the wagons served chicken fried steak; the others cooked beef tips or chili beef. One wagon was cooking a meal for the contestants to eat after the contest ended. They were roasting pork.

Do you think those biscuits are a little over-browned?

Cowboys and cowgirls need beans and potatoes, of course.

An odd factoid we learned.  Do you know why iron spoons like this are twisted?  It is so the heat from the bowl of the spoon doesn't make the handle hot.  This cook said he learned that from his 8-year-old granddaughter who had attended a class in blacksmithing.  (He checked it out with another blacksmith, as well.)

And then there are the chuck wagons.

We had a fun day. This is the third time we have attended this cookoff. It is getting so popular that the line to buy lunch tickets begins forming at 9 and tickets go on sale at 10. Only 550 tickets are sold. Each wagon serves 50 meals. By the way, the food is good. Those cowboys on cattle drives must have eaten well.