Cowboys and Cookouts: A Taste of the Old West

Although the recipes in this fun little primer on campfire cooking won't sustain any serious back-to-nature types (where, for example, would you find Worcestershire sauce in the wilderness?), its considerable charm stems from Esson's efforts to retain for contemporary cooks the 19th-century culinary techniques utilized on the open range. Don't sift through these pages to determine what temperature you should preheat the oven to prepare the""Texas Beef Pot Roast,"" for example, because Esson, a member of the Guild of Food Writers, assumes you'll use an outdoor fire or a grill (although some of his recipes, like the""Turkey Stew,"" make use of the refrigerator). To make""Biscuits on Sticks,"" for example, readers should""Divide the dough into about 18 pieces and flatten each out with your hands. Wrap each piece around the tip of a well-scrubbed, thick, green, nontoxic shrub branch that is long enough to use safely on the fire."" Recipes for meat dishes, vegetable dishes and soups, snacks and breakfast meals are interspersed with pages devoted to cowboy doggerel and brief discursions covering such topics as the roundup, cowboy songs and stampedes. The chapter on""Breads and Sweet Things"" thankfully overlooks the fact that sweets were often hard to find on the trail. This is an entertaining, reasonably authentic guide to replicating the tastes of the Old West. B&w and color illustrations.