The Must-Have Food Cowboys Relied On To Rough It Through The Old West

The cowboy has spent so long as a mythical figure in American culture that it's easy to forget that it was once a job like any other — and not an especially pleasant one. They were doing hard work in the hot desert sun, conducting menial labor on ranches, breaking ornery horses, and trying to get a bunch of stubborn, malodorous cattle from one location to another. It wasn't without its romance, or without certain pleasures (like sarsaparilla, the old-school soft drink that was every cowboy's favorite, or other, more potent potables), but it meant a cowboy worked up a hearty appetite that could only be satiated by sourdough.

That's right! Long before sourdough became a trendy way to pass the time during quarantine, it was a reliable way for cowboys to fill themselves with carbohydrates. A common cowboy breakfast included biscuits made from the sourdough starter (cooked in a Dutch oven, which allowed for both high temperatures and enough airflow to cook properly), beans, maybe some pork, and a whole lot of coffee. Why sourdough? Did they not sell regular baker's yeast back then? Well, no, actually — it only began being sold in France in the late 1800s, which didn't do much good for ranchhands in the American Southwest. If cowboys wanted their carbs, they could either eat some kind of flatbread, or they could develop a sourdough starter. And so that's just what they did — or at least, that's what their "cookies" did.

When a group of cowboys was organized for a cattle drive (the aforementioned transportation of stubborn, malodorous cattle from one location to another), one was designated as the cook, often nicknamed the "cookie." Essentially, they were in charge of the chuckwagon, which held the group's provisions, and woke up in the wee small hours of the morning to prepare breakfast.

Whenever the cookie would prepare the rest of the day's meals, they would ride out ahead of the rest of the group and set up camp, preparing the food alone. And if all that weren't enough, they also took on plenty of other odd jobs as needed. The cookie was known to cut other cowboys' hair and even pull some teeth if needed. (We have to imagine at least one threatened to break out a pair of pliers if a cowboy complained too loudly about the food.) It wasn't an easy life, but then again, there weren't too many easy lives to live in the Old West, were there? You, on the other hand, are free to pick the right size Dutch oven for your sourdough starter, as well as give that starter a head start with some yogurt.