Cowboy Cook From New Mexico Hooked His Star To A Chuck Wagon

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - You might say Ed Parsons had a feverish wish to make his living from the back of a chuck wagon.

Yep, that's chuck wagon as in Wild West - the wagons that were equipped as kitchens for feeding cowboys.

"I woke up one day at 2 in the morning," Parsons says. "I had a fever of 102, and the idea for the chuck wagon came to me."

He would find an authentic chuck wagon, restore it, cook off the back of it and turn it into a catering business. Sure, Ed, you might be saying. But Parsons made it happen.

First he found the chuck wagon, a late 1800s model, in Sandia Park. It's a "Bain," sort of the Cadillac of chuck wagons, Parsons says, "but not the Lincoln."

Then he plugged into the chuck-wagon circuit. The what?

Yep, there's a dedicated group of chuck-wagon enthusiasts in this country who get together, set up authentic camps from the 1800s, and hold Dutch oven contests, cooking in pits in the ground.

All the equipment on the wagons, including cooking utensils, has to be from the period, either antique or antique reproductions.

After 14 years of competing and catering part time from the chuck wagon, this year Parsons and his wife, Dawn, were able to make a go of the business full time.

They cater events from 40 people to as many as 600 - weddings, parties, cattle drives, hunt camps, trail rides, family reunions and church gatherings.

On a recent day, the two took the chuck wagon to a party organized by some parents who home school their children.

"They want an instructional for the kids, so we're going to cook some cobblers in some Dutch ovens," Parsons says. "Kids get really fascinated with how simple things are - cooking over a fire."

The couple just came away the winners in the best-meat category at a competition in Ruidoso, "The World's Richest Chuck Wagon Cookout," also called the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium.

Forty-one wagons from New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and California competed. The Parsonses won for their chicken-fried steak, made with beer and buttermilk.

"They give everyone the same cut of beef," Dawn Parsons says. "But it was about 30 pounds of unidentifiable meat, and each cook is to prepare it any way he likes. But the ingredients have to be those that conceivably could have been found on the wagon on the trail."

With the 20 pounds of beans they were given, the couple made "cowboy beans," with jalapenos, ham hocks and their "secret spices."

The 30 pounds of potatoes they received were sliced, parboiled, deep-fried and seasoned with a secret chili powder-spice mixture. About 3 pounds of onions were sliced and placed in between each chicken-fried steak in order to keep the crust intact and to give it a very mild flavor of onion.

And the 5 pounds of dried apricots?

The cooking duo hydrated the fruit in bourbon and cooked it for about six hours in a Dutch oven on an open fire with brown and white sugar and cinnamon.

After cooking it down to make a cobbler filling, they added a hazelnut crust.

For Parsons, it's a fulfillment of a boyhood passion. While he's worked in the trucking industry for 23 years, his true love was cooking.

"When I was in Boy Scouts, everybody else wanted to do the knot-tying, and I wanted to make the gourmet stuff," he says.

His initial investment of $1,000 in his chuck wagon has paid off. "I worked it so much, I've had to restore it twice," Parsons says.