CHEYENNE — There’s nothing quite as country as biscuits and beans with chicken fried steak and cobbler. For those competing in the Cheyenne Frontier Days Chuckwagon Cookoff, there’s also nothing quite as true to their craft.
Framing the eastern edge of Old Frontier Town, seven chuckwagons have set up camp, doing what they do best, cooking classic Dutch oven High Plains cuisine.
Jim and Susan Patrick, last year’s winners, have returned to Cheyenne Frontier Days with hopes of again claiming first place. But even when you know your recipes well, you can’t ever assume there isn’t room for improvement, Susan told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
“We’ve continually tried to improve our recipes,” Susan Patrick said. “You can’t count on keeping something and trusting it’s going to be right.”
Battling the elements and working with the temperamental coals and quick-to-heat Dutch oven adds several layers of difficulty for these chefs. Even if the Patricks can’t repeat last year’s win, the couple drove down from South Dakota for more than just the competition.
They’re passionate about the community and the sense of authentic history that the chuckwagons demonstrate.
“It just takes special people to do this,” Jim Patrick said. “It really makes it better when people appreciate it so much. We have people come by here all the time that say, ‘Man, I’m so glad you guys are here. This is our favorite part of Cheyenne Frontier Days.’”
Chuckwagons have historically been a huge part of cowboy culture, sustaining ranchers as they drove herds up and down the western plains.
“The chuckwagon, you could say, was a huge part of the origin of Cheyenne,” Jim Patrick told the WTE. “There were cattle drives coming through and taking those cattle from Texas up the trails. Cheyenne was a cow town, and I think the important thing for people to know is that these chuckwagons are very much a part of the history of this whole area.”
Now, chuckwagon cooks travel the nation, competing and sharing the history of their craft, including at CFD.
Friends of the Patricks, Leon and Cristy Fischer, spent Thursday afternoon testing recipes for Saturday’s competition. As treasurer of the board for the American Chuckwagon Association, Leon is also passionate about the history of the craft.
“Our mission is just to preserve the heritage of the cattle drive chuckwagon (and its) history; keep it alive,” Leon said.
Amid the hustle of CFD crowds, Susan Patrick took the time to come over to the Fischers’ chuckwagon to share some tips she’d learned this week, joking that in return she wanted to know what they’d learned.
“We’ve been blessed by welcoming people to cook with us,” Susan said. “(People) we didn’t know at first, but (people) coming open to the adventure.”
The Patricks invited total strangers to join their team last year, contributing to their win, Susan told the WTE.
Amid dreams of western landscapes and lassoing cattle from atop a horse, high-quality food hardly makes the picture for images of the West. Despite western food’s dubious reputation, the chuckwagon cooks can turn any skeptic into a lifelong fan.
“To me, you can’t beat food cooked outside; that’s just the best part of the whole thing,” competitor Jimmy Smith said. “So far, we ain’t had nobody back up from it. Everybody we cooked for last Saturday talked about how good it was.”
Smith and Dan Laster are returning this year after coming close to winning last year, Laster told the WTE.
“We’re just gonna have fun and do our best cooking,” Laster said. “I just feel good about it. Got a good, strong team.”
Laster’s grandkids have learned how to cook chuckwagon style, as well. He and Smith’s families are a big part of their team and the CFD experience. Laster and Smith have been coming to CFD for about five years; Laster’s been chuckwagon cooking for 15.
Tina and Mike Stallard were volunteered by Tina’s brother to be the head cooks of his chuckwagon. Twenty years later, the couple are still putting in elbow grease to feed hungry tourists and show off their best breads, beans, meats, potatoes and desserts.
“These people are impressive,” Tina Stallard said. “It’s a lot of work, and some of them are even older than us, and they come out here, they put these things up, and they cook. I mean, it’s a challenge, because not only is it the weather, it’s the coals, the wood, things don’t work.”
It takes a special type of person to endure the added heat of the charcoal fire during the summer months on the western plains, several cooks told the WTE. Whether it’s wind, hail, dirt or heat, chuckwagon cooks are at the mercy of the elements. Most of the time, they know exactly how to handle it, and if they don’t, their peers are often ready to show them tips and tricks to help.
As seen on “Guy’s All-American Road Trip” with Guy Fieri, Debbie and Rich Herman’s 2 Mules Chuckwagon has become a popular tourist destination in Cody, Wyoming, but they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are today without the help of their community.
In their first year at CFD, their chuckwagon took a fall off their trailer, damaging it. In order to deal with the dings and scratches, they had to receive special permission to arrive late to set up.
When they arrived, they were met with a wave of smiling new faces that were more than happy to help them set up.
The Hermans have brought their chuckwagon specialties to CFD, hoping to place in one of the five food categories, but more than that, they’ve returned to cook with their friends.
“It’s a learning process, and it’s also sharing the passion that you have with other like-minded people,” Debbie Herman told the WTE. “It’s a community. It’s just like barrel racers or team ropers or anything else, you have a little community with those passions.”
Rich Herman has been passionate about cooking his whole life and naturally progressed from cooking while camping up to chuckwagon cookoffs. Though he has his recipes down now, he does his best to constantly improve, and started his cooking career with several accidental burns and failed attempts.
“The biggest thing that people do is, the first time they try it, they burn it, and then they sort of give up,” Rich said. “... I haven’t burned anything in a long time, but starting out, I would burn stuff or it would be undercooked. That’s the thing, you just work with it, and pretty soon you figure (it out).”
Rich keeps his recipes in a rustic brown leather-bound book, a gift from his and Debbie’s son. Pork and peach dishes are followed by corn recipes, and if tourists take the time to ask, Rich will show anyone his recipe book.
While many of the competitors have come to enjoy CFD with like-minded peers, the competition does provide some validation for the chefs.
“People always tell me how good (my food) is, and so I don’t ever know for sure if they’re just being nice or if it’s really good,” Rich said. “We come here and we cook, and when the judges place you, (it’s like) a little street cred(it).”
No matter the outcome of the competition, several competitors told the WTE that this event wasn’t about the money or the awards. It is about a shared passion and getting to educate and support others.
“It’s knowing that what you’re doing can add some value to other people’s lives or their knowledge,” Debbie Herman said. “(It’s) taking care of people, no matter who they are.”
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