Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Cooking with Gus and the Captain
Popular novels and Orwellian telescreen programs such as Downton Abbey and even The Hobbit have inspired recipe collections. Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove has not yet led someone to write a goin’-to-Montana cookbook despite the popularity of the novel, the series, and then the spinoffs, including Return to Lonesome Dove, Andy Hardy Finds Love in Lonesome Dove, and Attack of the Zombies from Lonesome Dove.
And the reason is obvious: even the most indiscriminant gourmand might have trouble coughing up (as it were) a recipe for grasshopper or dog.
Much of the diet mentioned in Lonesome Dove sounds pretty good, especially Gus’ famous Dutch oven biscuits.
The book is strangely silent on why there is no Belgian oven, though.
Other comestibles enjoyed by Gus, the Captain, Indians, cowpokes, gamblers, Mexicans, Texicans, fur traders, mountain men, boatmen, bartenders, and, oh, entertainers include numerous dishes made from:
Beef
Pork
Buffalo
Chicken
Prairie chicken
Beans
Corn
Cornbread
Potatoes
Eggs
Onions
Plums
Catfish
Antelope
Molasses
Peppers
The favorite beverages, in order, appear to be:
Coffee
Whiskey
Beer
Water
Buttermilk
Pretty good eats, huh?
But when the individuals lost on the Great Plains on the trail from Texas to Montana are doing without, they dine on:
Badger
Crickets
Grasshoppers
Goat
Dog
Frogs
Possum
Rattlesnake
Horse
Mule
Squirrel
Crane
Pardon me, waiter, but could we please see the children’s menu?
With Blue Duck and his pals, the concept of children’s menu might mean something entirely different.
As Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt) says to Cole Thornton (John Wayne) in El Dorado, “This place’ll never be Delmonico’s.” Nope, not with grasshoppers and dog on the bill of fare.
No mention of eating a dove, though, either a gregarious dove or a lonesome dove.
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