Cowboy Beans

In the southwest there is a tradition of cowboys. In the 1800s, one out of every three cowboys was a Mexican vaquero. In the 1400s, crillos (Spanish-born Americans) and mestizos (mixed Indian-Spanish) crossed the Rio Grande river to take advantage of the wide open land that is now the southwest. These crillos men were called caberellos, it comes from the Spanish word for "horse" and literally means gentleman. The many mestizos men that worked under the caberello were called vaqueros and did the brunt of the work.

All the skills and traditions of the American cowboy come from the vaqueros. The caberellos and vaqueros were a proud people and even today families can trace their linage to some of the first caberellos. At first, the vaqeros were hired to drive cattle between Mexico City and New Mexico, and later between Mexico City and Texas. In Spanish, vaquero literally means cowman. In English, they were demoted to cowboys. In 1821, the first white settlers came into the territory to settle. The cattle was literally roaming free and all the new settlers had to do was round it up. Learning from the traditional vaqueros, more and more settlers came and took up the title of cowboy. Even through all these years, the culture of the cowboy has retained a lot of its core valves. When the vaqueros were herding cattle, they ate what was left for dinner and any food they could find. Usually, there would be beans and maybe a little meat left over from the night before (National Geographic).

Cowboy (Vaquero) Beans:
1 teaspoon lard or vegetable oil
4 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 fresh jalapeño or serrano chiles, stemmed and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups Frijoles and bean broth
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Chopped fresh cilantro

Heat the oil and fry the bacon and onion together in a skillet over high heat until the onion is golden. Add the chiles and the garlic and continue cooking for a minute more, until the chiles are softened. Stir the cooked mixture into the soup pot or crock-pot containing the frijoles, with the bacon grease, if desired. Add the salt and cumin and simmer for 10 minutes or more to combine the flavors. Serve in a bowl, garnished with cilantro. Recipe from The Tex-Mex Cookbook page 26.

This recipe was tons of fun to make, and it was delicious! I did add corn tortillas to the mixture which made it even better in my opinion, but the bites without the corn tortillas were awesome as well. The beans were quite spicy, and if you don't like bacon don't add it. I barely noticed the bacon and it didn't seem absolutely necessary, but it was part of the original recipe. While eating I could totally see the cowboys getting up, eating their breakfeat of beans and the plains of Texas in the background. If you are looking for a wonderful breakfast/brunch with a kick this is definitely a great recipe.