Can It

The 'Rents and I love watching Gunsmoke.  I love it so much, that Diva Stacy and I usually watch an episode together every Sunday afternoon.  The other evening at supper, Dad and I started talking about the reality of the portrayal of cowboys on TV and movies; more importantly, what they ate and drank.  For instance, I'm fascinated by the cowboys that go into the Longbranch Salloon and order beer served in a mug.  I know they don't have a line of nitrous oxide going to the keg to keep it cold. But that's another topic for another day.   As I said, we were discussing what the cowboys ate while they were out on the trail, and we remembered seeing the cowboys eating something out of tin cans that they had to open with their giant hunting knife, which also doubled as an eating utensil.  I did some research about cowboys and canned goods, and here's what I found out:

The canning method was developed in Europe during the first half of the 19th century, and the first cannery in the United States was opened in Boston in 1821.  During the Civil War, canned foods were easy to transport and store as rations for the soldiers.  The Union Army soldiers enjoyed canned pork and beans, oysters and green beans. The Confederate Army were big fans of canned meat and vegetable stew.  I'm sure the Rebels would have loved Dinty Moore. 

The end of the Civil War brought the Western Expansion.  To compensate for the extinction of the buffalo, cowboys moved approximately five million Longhorn cattle from Texas between 1867 and 1887 in what is called the Cowboy Era.  During the time on the trail, the cowboys did in deed have canned goods.  Thanks to the transcontinental railroad, fruits and vegetables were able to be moved long distances to canneries and then the can goods were able to be distributed over the country. 

The cowboys ate canned beans, which they called "prairie strawberries," canned peaches, and canned tomatoes.  Cowboys called canned foods "airtights."  Canned tomatoes were the most popular canned goods out on the trail.  In fact, tomatoes were the first food to be canned.  The cowboys would drink the juice after eating the tomatoes.  The acidic tomato juice counteracted the ill effects of alkali dust that the cowboys inhaled on the trail. The chuckwagon cook (also known as "Cookie") would mix onions and other seasonings with the canned tomatoes to make salsa for the cowboys.  Picante sauce is still popular among working cowboys today.