Cooking in the West

Betty Ferguson sent the following article and recipes in. The clipping is out of the November 1996 Agri-News and the author, Corinna Smith, is Betty’ cousin, who Betty says, “Did a lot of ranch cooking.”

Cooking in the West

You just had to know your stove
Cooking on a wood stove wasn’t all that hard because I grew up with it. About the only thing to remember was to keep putting the wood and coal in. By using coal with wood, the fire would last longer and get hotter.
A steady-burning fire would keep the oven temperature about 325˚ to 350˚ F. For a hotter fire, you added more wood and/or coal. (Our daughter Linda cooked on a wood stove. Once a woman wanted her cake recipe. After Linda gave it to her, the woman asked for the temperature for her oven. Linda said, “I put tow sticks of wood and a chunk of coal in the stove.”) You just had to know your stove and what it took to get it hot and keep it hot.
The reservoir was used then as you would use your hot water faucet now. It wa used for dishes or to have warm water to wash your hands on a chilly morning.
If you wanted boiling water, here was always the tea kettle. That was used for scalding dishes or anything that required boiling water. The old timers would say that the weather was going to change when the tea kettle started to sing.
I guess a lot of women had to get their own wood and water, but I never did as Jr. always did that.
I guess I must like a wood stove as we have a wood/gas combination in our kitchen today. I like to cook on a wood stove as I think the food tastes better. It’s a different kind of heat. Also I like it for the paper and trash you can get rid of.
What I dislike is heating the kitchen in the summer; removing the ashes, which fly around; and smoking up the house when there is a down draft or the stove won’t draw or when putting wood in.
Here are some more recipes you might like. They are Brown Better, Rice Pudding (or Spotted Pup as the cowboys called it at the roundup wagons), and Suet Pudding by Harry Sharp, a roundup cook who cooked for some of the big outfits in Big Horn County.
It is rue hard to write down the quantities because I never measure much of anything. That’s the reason I didn’t send the pie crust recipe.

Brown Betty

8 or 9-inch pan, sprayed with non-stick
3 apples, washed and sliced (I leave the skins on)
1/2 c. sugar (more if apples are sour)
1/4 c (or more) butter or oleo
3 slices of bread
1 t. vanilla
cinnamon
salt (optional)
1/2 c. hot cake syrup
Slice 1 apple into pan. Break one slice of bread over apples. Add some sugar over that, dot with butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Do this until all the apples and bread are used. Pour the syrup and vanilla over the top. Sprinkle with salt if you want to.
Cover and bake in 450˚ oven for 20 min. Reduce heat to 350˚for 15 to 20 min. Uncover the last 10 min. Serve with cream.

Harry Sharp’s Suet Pudding

1 c. suet, ground
2 c. molasses
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. strong coffee
1 1/2 t. soda
1/4 t. cloves
1/4 t. allspice
1 t. cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
3 c. flour, sifted
Raisins, nuts, dates, and citron may be added.
Mix well. Use a 25# flour sack. Wet it and then dust inside with flour. Place in a large kettle on a steaming rack. Cover tightly. Steam 3 hrs. May be served with whipped cream, sauce or ice cream.
Caution: Be sure the water does not boil dry. Also be sure to use suet, not just fat.
p.s. This can also be cooked in a pressure cooker. Check recipe for Plumb Pudding.

Rice Pudding or Spotted Pup

9” square pan
2 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. cooked rice
2 c. milk (I use 1 c. canned milk and 1 c. hot water)
2 c. raisin, soaked and washed in hot water
1 t. vanilla
1 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. salt
Break eggs into pan, add sugar, and mix with a fork. Add rice mix together. Stir in the milk. Squeeze water out of raisins and add. Blend in vanilla and sprinkle top with nutmeg. Bake at 350˚ for 30 minutes or until set.
Editor Linda’s note: I don’t know about the rest of you folks out there, but I sure enjoy these columns by Corinna. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not wishing I were cooking on a wood stove - for one thing, I KNOW I’d have to fetch my own wood! But it’s fun and interesting to hear how it was done before we got a kitchen full of conveniences. And I’m not tired of hearing about it yet either! So, Corinna, put your thinking cap on and send up some more of these good recipes. (Linda Grosskopf.)
Editor Carol Klinker’s note: Thanks Betty F. for sending this article and recipes to they Hysham Echo. They are very interesting and got me thinking about a cookbook I have called “Cookery of the Prairie Homesteader” by Louise K. Nickey. She combines information regarding the preparation of their foods with incidents of their homestead life on the prairies of Montana over by Culbertson.

Aunt Hattie’s Fried Frogs Legs

For two years Uncle Berta nd Aunt Hattie lived in a house a quarter of a mile north of Grandpa’s house and barn. This house was on Mamma’s homestead. Uncle Sid and Aunt Emma often came down from Canada to visit. Uncle Bert and Uncle Sid would then go coyote hunting. They would take their two wolf hounds, a great Russian gray-hound and a shaggy long haired mutt called Joe. I think they really like Joe the best. He couldn’t run as fast as the other dogs, but he was a scrapper and they liked to tell the story of Joe going into a hole after a coyote, and brining him out. Joe was badly cut up and didn’t do any more hunting for a few weeks. They rode horseback all over the low hills and flats on the east side of the Little Muddy hunting coyotes - and pushing back range cattle form the crops on the homesteads. Our fields had not yet been fenced.
The flats had many sloughs and marshy places and here Uncle Bert found big jumping frogs. He kept talking about fried frog legs until Aunt Hattie gave in and consented to fry them for him if he caught enough for a mess.
We were all invited to supper the evening that Aunt Hattie fried the frog legs. I was quite dubious about those frog legs as Uncle Bert told Olive and me that the legs would keep jumping and might jump out of the pan. As I remember they didn’t jump and they tasted much like fried chicken.
The frog legs are skinned, seasoned with salt, rolled in flour, or dipped in eggs and cracker crumbs, and fried in deep fat.
As we walked home after supper, the skies were colored by the Northern Lights - red and purples, oranges, yellows and greens. The light seemed to reach away above our heads and then sway aback and forth as if they were great ribbons waving in a high wind. Olive and I stood very near to Manna and Elsie, awed by the great masses of color in the northern skies.
Butter, Buttermilk and Cottage Cheese
Mamma made her own butter and cottage cheese. She churned about once a week. The cream was saved form the morning milkings each day. Milk was poured through a sterilized cloth and strained into heavy stone crocks. Each morning Manna would spoon the heavy cream that had risen to the top of the milk into a big jar to sour. Some of the sweet cream might be saved for cooking or to use on desserts or in coffee.
The skimmed milk, which was still quite rich was used for drinking and cooking, and that not used by the family was given to the cats, dogs, chickens and pigs. Some of the skimmed milk was allowed to clabber. Print this post