First, Catch Your Buffalo

What has kindled the impish glint in the eye of this hearty buckskin-clad fellow? It’s our talk of a rare delicacy, buffalo tongue (“Boil two hours with peppercorns, a little minced onion and a bay leaf--delicious!”)

“It’s said that Jenny Lind and Ulysses S. Grant dined on this tender, fine-textured meat at Delmonico’s,” he tells us, “and I would ask for it for my last supper. That would delay my execution because no one would know where to get it.”

We’re visiting with culinary historian Sam Arnold in the stockade courtyard of The Fort, his high-walled adobe restaurant near the base of the Colorado Rockies. This enfant terrible of Old West cuisine serves sliced buffalo tongue at The Fort; he has also served roast prime ribs of buffalo--to Julia Child, for one. “She loved it,” he says. (Buffalo, low in cholesterol and fat, is commercially ranch-raised these days.) And his restaurant menu regularly features pickled devil’s claws (an okra-like pod), Texas rattlesnake cocktail, elk and buffalo steaks, Rocky Mountain oysters (we warned you he’s a rascal) and “trade” whiskey, which is spiked with old-fashioned black gunpowder, red pepper and tobacco.

This is a small but choice sample of the hundreds of lost dishes the Yale-educated researcher has uncovered in dusty diaries, letters and cookbooks left by the men and women who traveled the Santa Fe Trail, a vital freighting route to the West from the 1820s through the 1870s. The wagon trains gathered in Independence and later in Westport (now part of Kansas City), Mo., crossed Kansas to the Arkansas River, and went on to Bent’s Fort--an early Colorado fur-trading post near La Junta--before turning south to Santa Fe, N.M. Sam Arnold’s restaurant is a full-scale, painstakingly researched replica of Bent’s Fort.

While working on plans for a family home in the 1960s, Arnold, then a Denver advertising man, became intrigued with a period drawing of the sprawling adobe landmark that had been destroyed in 1849. He got the idea to build a full-scale reproduction near Morrison, a 20-minute drive from Denver.

To bring 13,000 square feet of history to life, he brought a 25-man crew up from Taos, N.M., to make 80,000 clay and straw adobe bricks (each one weighing 45 pounds) at the site. He had the beams hewn the old way, with drawknives, foot adzes and hand planes. He had the floor made from a traditional mixture of earth and ox blood and ordered furniture patterned after New Mexican antiques.

To keep this gargantuan undertaking from becoming Arnold’s Folly, he turned the place into an upscale Wild West restaurant--and his 30-year trek through the history and cooking of the pioneers had begun.

All through his long period of sifting through records and poking into out-of-the-way places, Arnold--who holds the prestigious Award of Merit from the Western History Association--has shared his penchant for interpreting food as history with a wide audience. From 1968 into 1985 he cooked and chatted over the campfire in his public television series, “Fryingpans West.” Later he delved deeper with his lively book, “Eating up the Santa Fe Trail” (University Press of Colorado, 1990). The recipes, some frankly better in the telling than in the eating, reflect the lives of those who rode the historic Trail.

The freighters, for instance, were hard pressed for variety, so they supplemented their Spartan stores of flour, beans, cornmeal, coffee and salt pork by hunting buffalo as they went.

“Every inch of wagon space had to count, since their cargo of buttons and linsey-woolsey, pots and pans, and guns and powder was worth a load of precious furs and silver at the end of the Trail,” Arnold explains. “Hard goods were so much in demand in the West that you could bring a 25-cent bottle of whiskey on the trip, drink it along the way and sell the bottle for 50 cents.”

Those coming later to settle on the land brought more versatile larders, and their recipes reflect it. A typical wagon might carry one barrel of flour, 150 pounds of salt pork or bacon, 100 pounds of dried hulled corn, 25 pounds of apples or peaches, vinegar, a barrel of molasses, and a keg of beef suet as a butter substitute. While at Bent’s Fort, the outpost of civilization, trappers and traders, Indians and Mexicans feasted on expanded menus that included fowl, sheep and goats, primitive mint juleps and Bent’s water biscuits, made by a family member in Massachusetts.

Arnold has recorded, cooked and tasted hundreds of recipes left by the trappers, traders, settlers and soldiers as well as the Indian tribes and Mexican villagers the travelers encountered along the way. His files bulge with examples of pioneer ingenuity, some fit for today’s kitchens, others essentially historical oddities. Among the latter: St. Jacob’s soup (pork and potatoes) from a member of the Mormon Battalion and New Mexican trotter posole (hominy and pigs’ feet).

The insatiable cook has curbed his curiosity once or twice. He has drawn the line at dog stew, for example, though his research shows it a favorite of 19th Century Plains Indians. As for “salt pork and mashed peas for one hundred men” (from an Army cookbook), he doesn’t have the right pot.

A couple of decades ago, in a which-came-first turn of events that makes Sam Arnold crow with delight, the National Park Service decided to rebuild historic Bent’s old fort on its original site near La Junta. (The word “old” was added in reference to the first fort, which William Bent destroyed; he built a new one nearby in the 1850s.)

“During the planning stage,” says Arnold, “the chief architect, who had seen a photograph of our place, dropped in for dinner and a chat about adobe.” Arnold promptly became unofficial adviser to the project, and when it was completed for the nation’s Bicentennial (and Colorado’s Centennial) in 1976, he was a consultant on the educational video still shown at the restoration.

The Park Service’s Bent’s Old Fort also uses costumed guides Memorial Day through Labor Day to interpret the past for visitors.

But at Sam Arnold’s Fort in Morrison--where the waiters uncork the Champagne with tomahawks--history speaks at the table.

INDIAN LAMB STEW

Navajo sheepherders provided much of the lamb for pioneer cookhouses. This particular adaptation (the original recipe begins, “1 whole lamb shoulder cut into fist size pieces”) was especially popular in 19th Century New Mexico. Sam Arnold’s restaurant also prepares it with beef or buffalo.

2 tablespoons oil

2 onions, coarsely chopped

8 cloves garlic, sliced lengthwise

1/4 cup flour

2 pounds lamb, beef or buffalo stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces

5 cups beef broth

1 tablespoon dried rosemary, crushed

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

3 potatoes, peeled and diced (about 2 cups)

2 cups (16 ounces) sliced fresh or frozen peaches

1 sweet red pepper, diced

1 cup cubed squash

1 cup corn kernels, cut from cob or frozen

1/2 cup chopped celery tops

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Heat oil in Dutch oven. Add onions and garlic and saute until light brown.

Place flour in bag. Add meat few pieces at a time and shake to coat. Add meat to Dutch oven and brown with onions and garlic. Stir in broth, rosemary, pepper and potatoes. Cover and cook slowly 1 hour.

Mix in peaches, sweet red pepper, squash, corn, celery tops, mint and cilantro. Cover and cook additional 25 to 35 minutes. Serve in large soup bowls.

Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

385 calories; 576 mg sodium; 98 mg cholesterol; 15 grams fat; 29 grams carbohydrates; 34 grams protein; 4 grams fiber.

COLCANNON

6 white boiling potatoes (about 2 pounds), peeled

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Salt, pepper

1/2 pound fresh spinach, cleaned, stems removed

Cook potatoes in large pan in boiling water until tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup potato water.

Place potatoes in bowl. Add butter and season to taste with salt and pepper. Mash with electric mixer or hand potato-masher, adding 1/4 to 1/2 cup hot potato water as needed to make potatoes fluffy.

Cook spinach in small saucepan with 1/2 cup water 4 to 5 minutes. (To microwave spinach, place in microwave-safe dish, add 2 tablespoons water, cover with plastic wrap, turning back edge to vent. Microwave on HIGH--100 percent power--3 minutes.)

Drain spinach well and chop. Mix spinach into potatoes. Place in greased 1 1/2-quart mold or 8-inch-square baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees 15 to 20 minutes. Unmold onto plate or serve from baking dish.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

141 calories; 56 mg sodium, 5 mg cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 28 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 3 grams dietary fiber.

CHILE-HONEY CARROTS

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup raspberry vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon ground red chile, mild or medium hot

4 cups sliced carrots, partially cooked

Heat water in 10-inch skillet. Stir in raspberry vinegar, honey and ground chile. Add carrots and cook over medium-high heat, stirring until glazed. Serve hot in preheated serving bowl.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

104 calories; 105 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 0 grams fat; 25 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 6 gram fiber.

SPIDER CORN CAKE

Pioneers baked corn bread in a “spider” or three-legged cast-iron skillet that could be set over hot coals.

2 1/2 cups milk

2 teaspoons vinegar

2 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 2/3 cups yellow cornmeal

1/3 cup flour

2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

Combine 1 cup milk with vinegar in small bowl to make sour milk. Set aside.

Combine eggs and sugar in medium bowl and beat until combined. Mix in sour milk, 1 cup fresh milk, baking soda and salt. Stir in cornmeal and flour, mixing until smooth.

Pour melted butter into 10-inch, cast-iron skillet, tipping skillet to coat bottom and sides. Pour in batter. Pour remaining 1/2 cup fresh milk over top. Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Serve immediately.

Makes 12 servings.

Each serving contains about:

156 calories; 266 mg sodium; 48 mg cholesterol; 5 grams fat; 23 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 2 grams fiber.