Matt Braun's Western Cooking Book

Bestselling Western novelist Matt Braun brings home the hearty flavors, traditions, and lore of Western cooking in this collection of more than 100 mouth-watering recipes.

Publishers Weekly

Although Braun, an author of westerns, seeks to conjure up ``the fabled West of the frontier era,'' the results are uneven in the images and in the dishes served. Most of the recipes are designed for modern cooks but a few, notably the six-shooter (boiled) coffee, will be attempted only by the intrepid. The robust, meat-intensive collection liberally invokes chuck-wagon cooks and ``old-West cowhands'' with such dishes as bear steak, squirrel casserole and venison in the form of steak, roast and stew. Less rugged are langoustine soup, orange pork chops flavored with sherry and dry onion-soup mix and a ``bacon 'n' cheese pie'' that would be called quiche anywhere else. Although ``cowboys, for the most part, thought vegetables were for sissies,'' Braun does allow items like ``ol' fashion'' skillet corn, Red River green beans and creamed onions. Mexican influence appears in burritos de puerco, flautas de pollo and enchiladas de carne, while Native American input is evident in squaw bread and pemmican. A limited selection of fish dishes includes baked stuffed trout and fried catfish. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.)