Confessions of A Culinary Gunslinger
I stroll into town with my weapons in hand like a western gunslinger. Instead of revolvers in a holster, I carry a variety of sharp knives and other kitchen implements. There are chef knifes, serrated blades, paring knifes, vegetable cleavers, melon ballers, peelers, and measuring cups. I slice, dice, chop and julienne. Word reached me through the grapevine that there was an outfit round here which could use some skilled hired hands. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
My culinary aspirations began in a small Nevada café, just outside of Death Valley. I was eating breakfast with one of my geology bosses when he told me the story of an ancestor who had participated in the 49er gold rush. Mr. Ahearn’s distant uncle had walked all the way from Illinois to California, worked in the mines for two years and then walked back — a much wealthier man. Not long after leaving the gold mine, he came across two spinsters driving a covered wagon. The covered wagon contained a rolling restaurant. It was the first home cooking the 49er had tasted in over two years. He finished the meal in big gulps and then devoured an entire apple pie for dessert; paying for his dinner with gold dust. Mr. Ahearn told me “My great uncle wrote that it was the best apple pie he had ever tasted.”
It was geology exploration which led me to become a culinary gunslinger. Geology exploration was a wonderful job, I saw remote mountains, golden eagles, brightly colored lizards, and herds of wild mustangs running fast. Geology work always had an off season and during those slow periods I would work in restaurants. Eventually, the geology jobs dried up and I found myself employed in kitchens full time.
Like many western towns, one of the first businesses to operate in Sedona, Arizona was a lodge and restaurant. Karl and Sedona Schnebly rented out rooms in their home to travelers. Sometimes they would even rent out yard space to pitch a tent. Mrs. Schnebly was famous for the hot cooked meals she would feed her guests. Not only was the town named after her but Sedona Schnebly was also the first chef in a town that would someday be famous for its culinary offerings. Many of Sedona’s early pioneers planted orchards and when the breeze is just right, the smell of apple blossoms fill the air. It is no coincidence the statue of Sedona Schnebly outside the library is holding a basket of apples. One has to assume that Mrs. Schnebly was baking apple pies for her boarding room guests.
If you are curious about one of the first truly American culinary offerings, head to your local supermarket, go to the produce section and among the specialty items, look for a dirty, furry white carrot. This is salsify. The Lewis and Clark expedition were struggling to climb over a rugged mountain range when they nearly starved to death. Sacagawea foraged for wild plants and kept the entire expedition alive. The Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho are named after this ordeal and the food Sacagawea discovered. Peel the salsify like a carrot; then dice or slice the white vegetable real small. Cook the salsify in butter with some salt, pepper, and a few green onions. You have just prepared one of Merriweather Lewis’ favorite dishes and one Sacagawea used to cook for him regularly.
Western cuisine really got rolling with cowboys, cattle drives and chuck wagons. A cowboy who was a good cook was considered good for morale. The cook for a cattle drive was rewarded with two shares of the profits and excused from all other camp chores. Some camps were deprived of anyone knowledgeable in the culinary arts and in such outfits, men took turns driving the chuck wagon. The quickest way to become the new chuck wagon cook was to complain about the food. In his book A Corral Full of Stories, Joe M. Evans tells the anecdote of a cowboy careful not to become the new cook, “These biscuits are burnt on the bottom, raw in the middle and salty as hell — just the way I like ’em.”
The great western artist, Charlie Russell wrote about his favorite campfire cook, “Chef Bill was one of the most rapid cooks known in the West. He hangs up a bet of a hundred dollars that with the use of a can opener, he can feed more cowpunchers and sheepherders than any other cook west of the Mississippi. There are never no complaints about the meat either, for this cook’s as good with a gun as he is with a can opener.”
Cowboy cuisine relies on the five pillars of campfire cooking; coffee, beans, meat, sourdough and stew. Of these five, it was agreed that coffee was the most important. According to Ramon F. Adams in This Is The West, the best cattle drive coffee is made like this “Take one pound of coffee, wet it with water, boil it over a fire for thirty minutes and throw in a horseshoe. If the horseshoe sinks, put in more coffee.” There was an old cowboy poem about coffee which proclaimed the following virtues:
Black as the devil
Strong as death
Sweet as love
And hot as hell
Examples of the finer culinary arts could usually be found in gold rush boom towns when suddenly wealthy prospectors were willing to pay top dollar to sophisticate their palates. During the 49er era in San Francisco, the price per pound of frog legs jumped through the stratosphere. Entrepreneurs began to stock western streams, marshes, and lakes all across the west with the much larger Eastern bullfrog who had more meat on the bone. These amphibious carnivores soon cannibalized many native frog species. Within a few years after being published, the frog who starred in Mark Twain’s famous short story, The Jumping Frog of Calavaras County had become extinct; between the nouveau riche prospectors and the larger imported frogs it was eaten out of existence.
Western restaurants frequently based their cuisine on foods that were readily available. Among the favorite delicacies were lamb fries and Rocky Mountain oysters (sheep and steer testicles) which were lightly seared in a pan and heated gently until they popped. Rattlesnake meat was said to taste like chicken. Many frontier restaurants specialized in game. Back when Chicago was the end of the railroad lines and the beginning of the frontier, one establishment’s menu contained leg of mountain sheep, ham of bear, venison tongue, loin of buffalo, boiled trout, wild goose, gray squirrel, and succulent antelope steak served with mushroom sauce.
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were known to frequent the Occidental Saloon of Tombstone which boasted of such savory temptations as cream fricassee of chicken with asparagus points, and brazed ducks of mutton with chipolata ragout. The menu proudly proclaimed, “And we shall have it or perish. This dinner will be served for fifty cents.” Dinner offerings in Tombstone ran the full gamut from the finest French chefs to a restaurant named The Can Can because all the food came out of cans.
The Russ House, owned by Nellie Cashman, was located on the corner of Fifth and Toughnut. The tiny Irish woman was a famed prospector and explorer. She also ran boarding houses, founded hospitals, rescued the lost, and was known to help out a down on his luck prospector with a grubstake. Nellie Cashman was beloved and revered from Baja to Nevada, Arizona to Alaska, she was known as the “Frontier Angel.” In the southwest, vegetables other than corn and squash were rare but red beans were so common they earned the nickname “Arizona strawberries.” One of the customers at the Russ House, a man new in town and unaware of Nellie Cashman‘s sanctified reputation, began to complain loudly about the beans. A miner rose from his table and pulled out his gun. “Stranger eat them beans.” the miner commanded. “And like them,” he added with a smile.
The arrival of the railroads brought a new type of clientele to the southwest. Fred Harvey started a string of elegant dining establishments; welcoming railroad tourists to enjoy the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Native American pueblos of the southwest in comfort and style. The infamous Harvey girls became an icon symbolizing independent women. The Fred Harvey gift shops also jump started a renaissance of Native American art. Englishman Fred Harvey had a vision of gourmet dining and impeccable service being offered amidst incredible scenic splendor. It was a recipe for success. The first Harvey House opened in Topeka Kansas and when Indian chiefs Spotted Dog, Red Tail, and Fast Bear sat to lunch at the counter, the resulting publicity started business with a bang. The second restaurant opened in Florence, Kansas and the local citizens were shocked when French chef, Konrad Allgaier was hired away from Chicago, at twice the salary of the regional banker. The people did not believe that any cook could be worth that kind of money — at least until they tasted what chef Allgaier did with the wild game of the prairie.
Harvey followed the Santa Fe railroad line and had soon opened two prominent Harvey houses in Arizona, one in Winslow and the other at the Grand Canyon — the famous El Tovar. During World War II, the Harvey Houses shifted their business to feeding the trainloads of troops being transported across the continent. No train stop diner fed more soldiers during World War II than the La Posada Harvey House in Winslow.
One of the trademarks of a gentleman is the ability to discern good liquors and quality cigars. My favorite historical Arizona gentleman’s club was the legendary Owl’s Club in Nogales. The Owl’s Club was located in both Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. This allowed members to stroll across the room, crossing the international border, purchase some fine liquors and good cigars, and then walk back across the room, crossing the international border without leaving the Owl’s Club or having to pay tariffs and duty taxes. Of course, I don’t smoke cigars and can’t tell good brandy from rot gut but then again I am not accused of being a refined gentleman very often either. The one thing I can say for certain is that all this writing about food has made me very hungry. It must be time for lunch.
