Behind the (Writing) Scenes with…
Barbara Blackburn, Western New York Branch
Cooking Up Western Stories
From The Pen Woman, Fall 2019
How does a gal from east of the Mississippi end up as a Western cookery specialist? Being a writer who loves to cook helps.
For me, it all started with an herbal-heritage story that was revised to fit into Old West magazine. The editor encouraged me to submit other Western cookery stories. My information assembled from my Western vacations provided many story ideas. Now, I’m not looking for competition, with the limited supply of Western magazines on the market, but here are some ideas for writing and selling cookery stories, and maybe even writing a cookbook.
When reading Western fiction and nonfiction, don’t let a food reference pass you by. A reference to the Basques, with a mention of serrano ham or chilendron sauce, opens up a story of Basque cooking. To get the complete picture, you should not only study Basque cooking in the American West, but Basque cooking in the French and Spanish Pyrenees.
Make sure that you know the background of all the culinary terms, using your own sources and those of the library. A visit to a museum in Nevada, where there was a display on the Basques, motivated me to do a story on the zesty cooking of the sheepherders.
The ideal situation for a food writer is to make contact with people who have recipes to share. If you don’t have your own “recipe of the month” column for which you receive authentic recipes, place an ad in a magazine, or write to other Western writers querying them about recipes. When you do receive such recipes, you must test them, making needed corrections, but keeping as close to the original as possible. Follow the recipe from scratch before you modernize it in any way. But be careful so as not to take away from any original literary charm. You want to make sure that your recipes are workable as well as readable. Always give credit to the source of the recipe.
As time goes on, it becomes more difficult to obtain first-hand sources, so that you may rely more on second-hand ones. If you are going to use someone else’s recipe that you take from a book protected by copyright, you must cite the source. When dealing with recipes nearly a century old, there is, of course, no problem. To call a recipe your own, you must make some changes, with ingredients and procedures that were available to the old-fashioned cook.
When doing a recipe on buffalo, I used as a base one from a well-known cookbook, but by the time I had finished with the buffalo roast, it was my own unique recipe. Remember that the frontierswoman used what was available. This playing of “Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard” led to some tasty recipes. When substituting, and you can’t get a blackbird for blackbird pie, you might use other small game birds, but I don’t think you should substitute shortening for lard or margarine for butter. And you would never use artificial dairy products.
Once you have found a good personal source, ask that person to help you with other recipes. Always keep him or her in mind when you can’t find recipes for foods you meet in your reading — like “Spotted Pup” and “Huckdummy.” Try to write in natural sounding language and not in abbreviated form. Old recipes may look simple because a lot is left out. The pioneer lady filled in much with her knowledge and imagination.
If you are going to cook the way they did a century ago, keep the ingredients available. Grow your own herbs and work with natural ingredients. Forage for wild greens and weeds for food. This will give you a better feeling for your articles.
Writing food articles is a fascinating way to study history — and a tasty one, to boot. You can take one particular food and trace its evolution. For example, take the famous Election Day Cake, popular in the Old West, but originally baked in England. Always be on the alert for new stories to expand your culinary history. When reading about railroads in the Old West, you might be inspired to track down the kinds of food they served on board and at the stations.
Barbara Blackburn’s monthly culinary articles appear in Western New York Family Magazine as “The Kiddie Gourmet.” She is the vice president of the NLAPW Western New York Branch and teaches cooking classes for Williamsville schools.