Noted Texas writer and folklorist J. Frank Dobie (1888-1964) spent many nights around campfires enjoying meals of wild game. He offered a witty recipe for jackrabbit stew. “Put plenty of water in a pot. Put in a brick. Put in a dressed jackrabbit. Boil four hours. Remove jackrabbit. Eat brick.”
Texas Plains pioneers often relied on wild game for sustenance. Bison, the primary source of protein for Native Americans of the plains for centuries, also sustained early Anglo settlers. “The meat of the buffalo . . . had a much better taste than beef and was more easily digested,” remembered Panhandle pioneer Olive King Dixon. When wood could not be found on the treeless plains, meat was cooked over a fire of dried bison dung. But by 1880, bison had been hunted to near extinction.
To preserve meat, Native Americans and Plainsmen salted, smoked and dried wild game as “jerky,” edible for months without refrigeration. Methods of cooking evolved from campfires and Dutch ovens to open hearths and cast-iron wood stoves, which revolutionized home cooking and heating in the 1800s. Luxuries like cast-iron stoves were not common on the Texas frontier…