Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/34142
At least one rancher provided something they called pemmican, and we would call jerky. Back at his headquarters, he’d have a couple of steers butchered and the jerked meat dried over a smoky willow fire. Next he’d send a couple of men up into the mountains to pick huckleberries. Hundreds of small canvas sacks would be filled with the meat, a handful of huckleberries, and a bit of salt. Then the sacks were hit with a mallet so the berry juice would coat the meat. If a cowboy knew he’d be away from the wagon for long, he’d grab a couple of the sacks. The rancher’s grandson recalled, “It tasted pretty good, but you chewed a good long while.” Montana’s premier cowboy, Teddy “Blue” Abbott, had fond memories from the 1880s of canned peaches and tomatoes, hotcakes, bread and biscuits, writing, “I’d never seen such won- derful grub as they had at the D H S.” Canned tomatoes stashed in a saddlebag could provide food and drink to a cowboy who couldn’t make it back to the wagon when hunger struck. And dessert? Yep, even on the trail. Pies and cobblers could be made with dried fruit. One of the most memorable pie recipes can be found in Come An’ Get It by Ramon Adams. It wasn’t for the faint of heart —or digestion. It called for a quarter of a pint of apple cider vinegar and half a pint of water, plus “enough sugar to taste.” A good-sized lump of fat was melted in a skillet with a little flour. The vinegar mixture was added and boiled until it thickened, then it was poured into an un- baked pie crust. A lattice top was pinched on and then it was baked in a Dutch oven—a cast iron cooking pot with legs and a rimmed lid so hot coals could heat it top and bottom. Careful experimentation has revealed that “sugar to taste” is roughly a cup and a half. If you get past the first, throat-stinging bite, you have a tangy apple-pie treat. If it’s too much for you, there’s always cow- boy coffee to wash it down. Just remember to take the horseshoe out first. Montana native Lyndel Meikle is better at heat- ing iron on a coal forge than cooking, but her vinegar pie may be to die for. www.distinctlymontana.com 59