Published: May 21, 2009 10:01 pm      

Camp bread from a cowboy’s skillet

I am not much of a cook. I had a brother who maybe cooked the best wild game dishes anywhere, but none of it rubbed off onto me. Oh I like to cook. I often find myself cooking for the camp. But I lack creativity. Beyond a few basics like stew, hash, grits, gravy and anything fried, I go by a recipe and hope for the best, which usually does not describe the results. My best work comes from cans.

I am always collecting recipes and I have a thick file. I won't live long enough to try them all, even once each. But I go through them once in a while, my mouth watering and lips smacking, and I promise myself I'll get around to trying them. But I never do.

While perusing the file one day, I found a folded piece of notebook paper. When I unfolded it a flood of memories came back like an old friend from the past. It was a letter from a fellow I spent some time with in Mexico on business. Among many conversations, we had talked of ranches and cowboys and food. He told me he had a recipe from Mrs. Dick Kleberg (they pronounce it CLAY-burg in Texas) which she got by watching the cowboys on the King Ranch do their trail cooking. I asked him to send me the recipe and here it was in my file.

The biggest



Captain Richard King started the King Ranch in 1853. Unless there has been some recent mergers of ranches, it remains the largest ranch in Texas; almost a million acres. When I first saw it from the highway, there was only one tiny gas station and store in the little town of Rivera along the eighty mile stretch from Kingsville (named for the family) to the lower Rio Grande Valley. Most of this long stretch is King Ranch country.

During its early history, the Kleberg family obtained the King’s ranch. Kingsville is the county seat of Kleberg County. Get the picture? Actually, when I had business at the ranch in the seventies, the working headquarters was in Kenedy County to the south, almost all of which is King Ranch land. This is mesquite country. It supports rattlesnakes, beef cattle, bob white quail, horses, huge deer, coyotes, javelinas, wild turkeys and cowboys - roughly in that order as to numbers.

The ranch house was tucked away in thick mesquite well off the highway. Typically, it was surrounded by bunk houses, sheds and horse barns. I have seen cowboys on horseback a day's ride from the ranch. I never stopped to talk with any of them, as cowboys usually don't talk much. Besides, they wear hogleg six shooters and I always felt that would put a strain on my side of any conversation.



Good eatin’



Mrs. Kleberg had seen these fellows make "camp bread" and she wrote down a recipe. The bread has been made on the trail for generations and I suspect with over a hundred years of perfecting it, this bread is stomp down good.



10 cups flour

3 t. salt

4 t. black pepper

2 t. sugar

4 T. lard

4 1/2 cups water (Mrs. Kleberg uses 4 cups water and 1/2 cup evaporated milk) Sift and mix ingredients together. Have water luke warm, dough is rather dry. Allow dough to sit 15 or 20 minutes. Roll out into thin rounds and cook in a hot greased skillet or Dutch oven, pricking with a fork and turning



There it is; straight from the chuck wagons on the dusty trails of South Texas. Some day I'm going to get around to cooking this camp bread. But in case my plans outlast my days, I close my eyes and mix it all together out there under the stars, set the heavy iron skillet on the coals, lie back with my head on the sweaty saddle and smell that camp bread bake. A coyote howls. A longhorn lows. Suppertime is almost here.