Here's a look at frontier cowboy recipes and trailside cooking.  Did you know that a ranch's cook shack was a private realm ruled over by a cantankerous master cook?  He was a permanent member of the outfit and wielded even more power than the itinerant cooks who filled in on western cattle roundups and on the trail. He slept in the cook shack rather than in the bunkhouse, and he made certain the hands showed proper respect - which he sometimes enforced with the broad end of a skillet. The cowboy cook's authority lay in the fact that he provided one of the single most important elements, along with sleep, that a cowboy both cherished and needed. And the food had better have been top notch, otherwise, top hands wouldn't work for such a place.  Below are some terrific authentic western cowboy recipes.