Galloping Gourmet

Silver Medal Winner for the 2024 Will Rogers Medallion Finalist for the 2024 Colorado Book Award Galloping Gourmet explores an unfamiliar side of a familiar character in American history, William F. Buffalo Bill Cody. In this entertaining narrative Steve Friesen explores the evolving role of eating and drinking in Buffalo Bills life (18461917). Friesen starts with Buffalo Bills culinary roots on the American Plains, eating simple foods such as cornbread, fried yellow-legged chicken, and hardtack. Buffalo Bill discovered gourmet dining while leading buffalo-hunting expeditions and scouting. As his fame increased, so did his desire and opportunities for fine dining: his early show business career allowed him to dine at some of the best restaurants in the country. Friesen examines the creation of Buffalo Bills Wild West Show in 1883, in which Cody introduced his diverse cast of employees to dining that equaled Americas best restaurants. One newspaper reporter observed that Colonel Cody displays no more care about anything than the proper feeding of horse and man. Cody opened the first Mexican restaurant east of the Mississippi and introduced American foodways to Europe. Equally comfortable eating around a campfire on the plains or at Delmonicos in New York City, he also dined with leading celebrities of his day. In the final section Friesen addresses the controversies surrounding Codys drinking, his death, and his ongoing culinary legacy. Galloping Gourmet includes an appendix of more than thirty annotated period recipes.