END OF TRAIL EATS

Kansas cowtown – where Texas cattle drovers and eastern buyers collide.

End of Trail Eats: Cowboy-Approved Recipes from the Cowtown Café to the Saloon by Natalie Bright

**2025 Will Rogers Medallion Award GOLD** First Place Winner for Western Cookbook

Debra Murphy, Editor / TwoDot Books (Globe Pequot) / Pages: 172 • Trim: 7 x 10978-1-4930-7699-4 • Paperback • April 2024 • $24.95 • (£18.99)978-1-4930-7700-7 • eBook • April 2024 • $23.50 • (£17.99)

“Unique, illustrated throughout with B/W historical photos, End of the Trail Eats: Cowboy-Approved Recipes from the Cowtown Cafe to the Saloon, with recipes that range from South Dakota Farm Pancakes, Homemade Hot Sauce, Chocolate Pound Cake, and Sweet Onion Corn Bread, to Simple Hash, Turnips and Pork, Arizona Pot Stew, and Traditional Whisky Toddy, is a very special and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, family, and community library cookbook collections.”

—Midwest Book Review

History Cookbook or Cooking History with authentic recipes and Kansas Cowtown lore.

Join me for a chat with Bobbi Jean and Jim about all things old West and ranch food, plus the history of the cattle trails. Watch the Video Now on LA Talk Radio

What Readers Think

“Folks across the country don’t really understand the West. Natalie Bright has brought the real West alive and made a bridge between the real people of the West through the food they ate and adaptable recipes we can make in our own kitchens. It’s more than a cookbook, folks.”

Michelle Ferrer

“Wow! I just received my new, unique cookbook today! It is loaded with wonderful recipes, but what makes it extra special are the stories, photos, and history of the Old West included throughout the book. It’s easy to see why it is a #1 New Release on Amazon.”

Jan Starnes

“…another wonderful cookbook that combines great eats and lots of stories, anecdotes, and lore of the Old West. Who knew Bat Masterson had a penchant for hot dogs? Just reading the Pot Roast and Sour Cream Gravy recipe, dated 1891 and credited to a hotel in Denver, made my mouth water, and I’m a sucker for a good cornbread recipe, of which there are several.”

Rocky Gibbons

Trail-weary cowboys, cattle barons, railroaders, and townspeople collide in Cowtown where the dining table is central to savory food and business deals. Archival photographs, authentic dishes, old-time remedies, firsthand accounts, and Old West lore come together in this unique book.    Discover the iconic taste of the American West and the tales of a thriving Cowtown. Rivalry was fierce and entertaining the drovers was crucial. Independence and grit rules where enterprising minds could profit. As the saying goes, “No sheriff west of Newton—no God west of Dodge.”

Life in the saddle tested the toughest men on the trail and the food they consumed during the greatest controlled movement of Texas Longhorns was equally as hearty. Tired of beans and sourdough biscuits, dining establishments located at the railhead shipping points swarmed with trail-weary wranglers eager for a fine meal. This is authentic and original trail driving cooking at its finest. No matter where you are, whether a campsite pit, grill, or home stove using your grandmother’s best cast iron, these recipes are suitable for the modern kitchen.

Discover the iconic taste of the American West with these 80 wrangler-tested and approved recipes from mule-powered chuck wagons to Cowtown cafes. In End of the Trail Eats, I have compiled a collection of dishes from ranch kitchens, saloons, supply stations, Cowtown cafes, and cook shacks. Sprinkled with archival photographs, Old West history, first-hand accounts, and profiles of the people who made the great Cattle Trailing Ear a reality.

Contents

• Introduction to: Indian Nation
• Introduction to: Arbuckle’s Axle Grease
• Chapter 1: Breakfasts and Breads
  • Singing Cowboy’s: Truth or Legend?
  • The Trails
• Chapter 2: Main Dishes–Beef
  • Bat Masterson and the Prairie Dog
  • Doan’s Crossing
  • Sunday Dinner at the Pacific Hotel
• Chapter 3: Main Dishes–Pork and Fish
  • Business Town
  • The Most Beautiful Woman in Dodge
  • The Peacekeepers
• Chapter 4: Soups, Stews, and Sides
  • Let’s Entertain Them
  • Whiskey
  • Abilene, Kansas: A Wide-Open Town
• Chapter 5: Gravies and Sauces
  • Fruit Preservation
  • Hole-in-the-Wall Pass
• Chapter 6: Sweets
  • Cowboy Gear
  • The Union Pacific Hotel, Abilene, Kansas
  • Gamblers and Good-Time Girls
  • Drovers Cottage
• Chapter 7: Cowtown Remedies
  • Stockyards and Packing Houses
  • Devil’s Rope