Camp Cookie
Grant-Kohrs Ranch, Montana
2024
A chuck wagon demonstration complete with a camp cookie brewing coffee over an open fire they way they did back in the day. He certainly looked the part and was very knowledgeable about the job of being a camp cookie. I imagined him to be an old Montana cowboy who may have never gone on a drive with a chuck wagon but who would likely certainly know folks who did. Alas, on query he turned out to be a retired businessman from Alabama who was there on a volunteer gig with the National Park Service for the summer.
Here’s a song about the life of the cowboy as well as a mention of the camp cookie:
This is a great photo of the wagon & the cookie, even if he wasn’t as authentic as you might have wished. He must have studied with someone who cooked that way in order to be an effective demonstrator…maybe he gets practice during Civil & Revolutionary War reenactments.
He was authentic enough in terms of presentation. It was a surprising and interesting (albeit a bit disappointing in regard to bursting my idea about him) backstory about how he ended up doing that this summer.