fea I >. • - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

CHUCK WAGON COOKIN'
by Stella Hughes
Cattlemen's
Barbecue
Afriend once said of me, "The
trouble with Stella's recipes is
that they all start with: first
butcher a beef!"
I deny that, however, it's not a bad
idea if you're planning an outdoor feast
for several hundred people.
Each summer for the past 25 years my
husband, Mack and I have helped "put
on" the barbecue for the Greenlee
County Cattle Growers annual meeting
in late August. Three hundred members
and their guests attend. Preparing meat
for that many requires community
effort. Where we live on Eagle Creek
(over 40 miles from the nearest town),
there are a group of closely-knit
ranchers who believe in the goodneighbor
policy, and all pitch in and
help.
We barbecue deep-pit style, so you
don't need a lot of expensive equipment
or unnecessary gadgets. Nor do you
need to spend a lot of money on constructing
elaborate outdoor grills or
ovens. All you need is space, a shovel
and the man-power to dig the pit. The
one we use was dug years ago, in good
hard clay. The pit is four feet deep, four
feet wide and eight feet long, and has
neither rocks or cement on the bottom.
Nothing could be more simple or less
costly.
The coals and ashes from the previous
barbecue are allowed to remain in the
pit until just prior to using again. If it
has been an unusually wet summer, it
may be cleaned out a few days earlier
and allowed to dry.
Usually it takes about a cord of good
dry oak, cut in four to six-foot lengths,
with none larger than a man's thigh.
The afternoon before, Mack starts the
fire in the pit and feeds it continuously
for six to seven hours, or until there is a
12 November, 1981
Above left: Two neighbors assist in uncovering the beef pit. Above right: Mack
Hughes lifts the bundles of barbecued beef from the pit after 18 hours.
bed of red-hot coals at least two feet
deep. During this time, ranchers gather
to swap lies, discuss the rainfall or cuss
the lack of it, swig cold beer kept in ice
coolers or drink scalding coffee from tin
cups. It's a good time to catch up on
visiting. Soon fall roundups will start
and no one will have time to while away
a lazy afternoon just gossiping.
We barbecue
deep-pit style, so you
don't need a lot
of expensive equipment or
unnecessary gadgets.
While the fire is dying down to
glowing coals, the ranch women have
been preparing the meat, seasoning the
roasts with sliced onions, slivers of
garlic, salt, pepper and dashes of liquid
smoke. For years the cattlemen
butchered their own beef, and roasts
were cut from both front and hind
quarters, and the ribs were used.
In the last few years meat has been
purchased in rolled, boneless roasts,
wrapped in netting. Much time and
labor is saved this way and the meat is
delicious.
After seasoning the meat, each roast,
weighing about 20 pounds, is wrapped
in extra heavy foil. Then the bundles of
foil-wrapped meat are put into wet
burlap sacks, folded over and tied
securely with baling wire.
When the coals are just right and all
bundles of meat ready, sheets of
corrugated iron are laid directly on the
hot coals, slightly overlapping. We put
the bundles of meat in quickly,
arranging them either a few inches apart
or barely touching. We never pile them
on top of each other. Two more sheets
of corrugated iron are placed directly on
top of the bundles of meat, making sure
all are covered. Shovelers begin
throwing in the dirt. Several men