Why Do Cowboys Have Good Food In The 1800's

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A Taste of The Trail: Good food can bring people together in a lot of situations. Has good food ever cheered you up or made your day better? In this case, cowboys from the 1800s were highly dependent on quality meals. Good food was a possible make or break in being a cowboy helping with cattle drives in the mid-to-late 1800’s. Food quality has a huge emphasis on the cowboys’ morale in different ways. As stated in the paragraph above, food quality was very important to cowboys in the 1800’s. The article, “The Cowboy’s Home on Wheels”, talks about a man named Charles Goodnight who finds a solution to cold, unappetizing meals for cowboys. He created the chuck wagon, which was a mobile kitchen used for months of cattle drives out on the range. …show more content…

Whether the men knew it at the time or not, food was the bridge to happiness during cattle drives. Furthermore, “The U-S-U Range” poem demonstrates how the quality of food affects the cowboys’ morale in a different way. The poem states in line 25, “And set down to supper and begin to complain.” This sentence infers that the food is not very good and that the cowboy is not looking forward to eating it; therefore, having an effect on their overall mood. To contradict this, line 20 reveals that the steak is good compared to the other food by saying that the “U-S-U steak cooked up very nice.” Lastly, in stanza 5, the poem talks about how cowboys must work no matter the weather and must wake up to cold beef and U-S-U steak. Thus, the cowboys cannot look forward to a nice meal even in the harshest conditions, which can certainly take a toll on their overall morale. In conclusion, cowboys from the 1800s relied heavily on the invention of the chuck wagon and the quality food it provided for them. Without the help of Charles Goodnight, cowboys would have been eating boring, distasteful, cold food. That undeniably would’ve been nothing to look forward to at the end of a long day. Looking back at the history of the chuck wagon and cook position, it has proved nonetheless that a cowboy could depend on them for happiness, useful commodities, and of course,

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