Spirit of the West: Cooking from Ranch House and Range

Featuring recipes dating back to the first western ranchers who came north from Mexico, a wonderful tour of Western cuisine and the American frontier, brimming with history and photographs, shares recipes for soups, stews, salads, meat, poultry, breads, and pies.

Spirit of the West: Cooking from Ranch House and Range is filled with recipes that satisfy. Here are the robust, flavorful dishes that sustained cowpokes and wranglers, ranch hands and cattle barons. Influenced by the cooking of Mexico and of the Native American inhabitants--and enriched by the many ethnic cuisines brought to the region by its settlers--ranch house cooking is American home cooking on a grand scale.

The book includes more than 100 recipes for simple, mother-watering dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and anything in between. Beginning with recipes that date back to the first western ranchers--who came north from Mexico in the sixteenth century--and continuing through those served at today's dude ranches, Spirit of the West includes such timeless American dishes as Sourdough Hotcakes, Potato Doughnuts, Butterscotch Rolls, Chokecherry Jelly, Grandma Hubbard's Batterfried Chicken, King Ranch Beans, Mission-style Red Chili Sauce, Pot Roast with Dumplings, and Devil's Food Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting.

This book traces the mythic story of the American frontier through the food eaten by those who lived it. Chapters cover the vaquero tradition; the time of the great cattle drives and the open range; the era of the big ranches; the coming of homesteaders; and the traditional dude ranches of today. Chapter introductions by Western historian David Dary, author of Cowboy Culture, sketch the thrilling history of the American West. Sam'l P. Arnold, author of Eating Up the Santa Fe Trail and noted chef and owner of the world-famous Fort Restaurant in Morrison, Colorado, weaves together Western food, history, and way of life in the book's introduction.