Spirit of the West: Cooking from Ranch House and Range [Hardcover]

Beverly Cox (Author), Martin Jacobs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 1996

Spirit of the West presents an enticing array of hearty dishes rich with robust flavor and color. Authors Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs extend a gracious invitation to join in this delicious roundup of recipes from the American West.

More than 100 recipes provide dishes that satisfy even the most demanding appetites. Breakfast prospects include Pecan Bread with Chokecherry Jelly, Potato Doughnuts, Buttermilk Pancakes, and the old prairie standby, Cowboy Coffee. After a long morning in the saddle, real cowboys can tuck into a Bowl of Red with Sourdough Biscuits or Kansas Fried Chicken with Authentic King Ranch Beans. Come and get it at a dinner smorgasbord of Mesquite Smoked Turkey, Prime Rib of Beef, and Pot Roast with Dumplings. Special occasions demand special chow like a Cream Can Supper (the Western Frontier equivalent of a clambake complete with sausages, corn, and potatoes cooked together in a milk can).

Behind this hearty food lies a rich heritage influenced by the cooking techniques of the native American and Mexican peoples. Ranch house cooking has been further enriched by the many ethnic cuisines brought to the region by its settlers. Photographs feature objects inherited (like many of the recipes) from the authors' forebears to illustrate this entertaining glimpse into the foods that fed the American West.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While Cox and Jacobs (Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking) do a fine job of gathering recipes for the foods cowboys ate, the cowboy diet will excite few modern palates. What readers will enjoy, however, is the background. The authors cover the various eras that transformed the West, and Cox tells a few tales about her versatile great-grandmother, who, when she wasn't patrolling her land with a shotgun when the U.S. Army tried to claim it, found time to invent Grandma Ketcham's Macaroni Casserole. The first and last chapters?on vaqueros, or Mexican cowboys, and modern dude ranches, respectively?provide the freshest recipes for such dishes as Eggs Baked in Red Chile Sauce, El Pato Mexican Rice and Eaton's Ranch Oatcakes. The remaining chapters, e.g., "The Homesteading Era," rely heavily on lard and use scant fresh produce, since little beyond cabbage was available to cowboys. This leads to interesting experiments such as Sonoran Beef Jerky, Fried Apricot Pies made with dried apricots, a No-Egg Squaw Cake using kidney fat, Two Old-Fashioned Taffies (requiring the two-person pulling method), Sourdough Hotcakes and Potato Doughnuts. Literary Guild selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Cox and Jacobs are the authors of Spirit of the Harvest (LJ 11/15/91), which focused on North American Indian cooking. Now they look at the cowboy culture of the early West, the big ranches, and the homesteaders, with a brief final chapter on today's dude ranches. They start with the vaqueros, the Mexican predecessors of the American cowboy, and then move north. Cowboy Coffee is here, as are Biscuits on a Stick, but most of the homey recipes are more appealing than those few that have been included more for the sake of curiosity or authenticity. Jacobs's striking photographs illustrate the text, Cox's headnotes are readable and informative, and Western historian David Dary provides additional background in the chapter introductions. There have been a few scattered titles in this area, but none on this scale; recommended for regional libraries and other large collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Artisan; First Edition edition (January 10, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885183216
• ISBN-13: 978-1885183217
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #345,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm up your Kitchen!, August 15, 2000

By 

Teresa Carlile (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spirit of the West: Cooking from Ranch House and Range (Hardcover)

Give your kitchen a shot of true blue ranch cooking with this wonderful book. This extraordinary informative and practical book will win new friends among cooks everywhere, whether experienced or new to the kitchen. Spirit of the West cooking is to be valued chiefly for its "heirloom" dishes. Treasured heirlooms that come down to us from a day when hard physical labor and a need for thrift made chuck-wagon cooks provide satisfying, hearty, filling meals. Rich simmered soups; old fashioned pot roast with dumplings, hot puddings and wonderful baking recipes will take you on a nostalgic trip to the days when homemade breads were a part of everyday life. The Spirit of the West cookbook has the best of the old recipes, easy to prepare with step-by-step instructions attuned to yesteryear's simpler, more informal approach to mealtime. Once you have tried just a few of the recipes, you will understand why generation after generation of good cooks has shared with confidence and assurance their best cooking. Use the full-color photographs for inspiration; then turn your kitchen into the most welcome place in your neck of the woods.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Home-Style Ranch Recipes, May 5, 2003

By 

Serene (Marina, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spirit of the West: Cooking from Ranch House and Range (Hardcover)

Spirit of the West is a fantastic cookbook, chock full of great Ranch-Style recipes and home-style food. It is the IACP Cookbook Award Winner, and once I opened it, I could tell why! Its filled with some great recipes, tantalizing photos and accompanying stories.

My particular favorites are Quichelna Cattle Company's Rum ribs,Abuelita's Chicken Soup,Flour Tortillas, Way Station Pot Roast with Dumplings. I'm looking forward to trying the biscuit on a stick and Mrs. Swan's White Cake! YUM.

Fans of cookbooks and western cuisine are sure to appreciate this cookbook. The photos are huge, tasteful, and numerous, and the recipes offer a delightful mix of western and Mexican inspired food. Just reading this cookbook makes me hungry. =-)