Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm Sam Arnold.

Back for frying pans west.

And tonight we're going to talk about fish in the early day west.

We're going to give you a number of different recipes, one of them from Taos Pueblo that's very near Santa Fe, north of Santa Fe in New Mexico.

This is a recipe that was given to me by Mary Schlosser, who is a Taos Indian, and it's a minted trout.

We're also going to do some of the recipes using fish that came from the Mexican influence, both in Southern California and in Old Mexico itself.

We're going to do ceviche, which is a lime fresh lime juice.

We might call it cooked fish cocktail.

And then we're going to show you a shrimp and oyster dish.

And then a couple of the early Western drinks, pinole, which is found in New Mexico in early days and also switchel.

I've had some people write in and ask, where did I get my boots and what kind of boots are they?

These are called drovers boots.

And a drover, of course, was a man that that was the freighter.

And he would sit up on a high box on the freight wagons in the early days, and he used the square toe in order to use the brake.

And of course, this high cap was used to keep the, the dirt and dust, manure and all of the rest that came back onto the driver from getting down into his boots.

They're very comfortable boots.

These these were made by a little bootmaker down in Fort Worth, Texas, and they're called drovers boots.

Very comfortable.

Good for motorcycle riding, too.

If you like to ride a motorcycle, let's go over to the cooking set and we'll show you how we do the minted trout.

This is a good dish when you have a mint bed out by your yard.

It's it's not a sweet dish.

You take first a couple of.

Rainbow trout and I've got two fellows in here.

Now these are already boned.

And you can buy these in the store already boned.

Or if you just catch them yourself out in the woods, why, you can bone them after you cook them.

Frankly, I like them with a bone in.

I think it gives them a better flavor.

You use bacon, and I picked some fresh mint out of the bed.

I'm going to use that with the with the trout.

Now, Mary said, if you'll take fresh mint and lay it inside the cavity of the trout, and then lay some on the outside.

Then wrap this with bacon.

Now, like most fish, the.

Time element for cooking these is very, very short.

It only takes a few minutes to cook a trout.

And.

And a good timing method is to utilize a piece of bacon on it.

Because when the bacon is done and crisp, why the trout is finished, just you can rub a two and it gets some of the flavor of the mint onto the trout.

Then wrap it again with bacon.

And put it in your pan.

Then if you take your.

Take this and put it in underneath the broiler, the the mint does not give it a sweet flavor at all.

It gives it a kind of a very strange herbal taste.

And we'll stick it in there and let her cook.

That's all there is to it.

Very simple.

But you have to be quite careful that the bacon doesn't catch on fire underneath the broiler.

And that's something that I inevitably forget here when I, when I get to cooking other things.

Why, sometimes the broiler spurts out.

Fire and flame is a sign of a real professional.

Now I'm going to do a quick dish.

And this is the ceviche cocktail.

Now ceviche you can use any type of.

Let's see here.

You use any type of of a white fish.

And if you just take this and cut it up into bite sized pieces.

This will stay good almost indefinitely.

Because it is some people say it's cooked by the lime juice that that is used in it.

The it pickles it really.

And see.

I think perhaps you can see better if I, if I use it here.

This knife I'm using, incidentally is a green river knife.

And it's one of the handiest things in the kitchen.

It's knife that's made by the Russell Company in Massachusetts.

And it was the earliest knife on the American frontier.

I should amend that.

It was certainly the most widely sold in back in the days of the 1830s and 40s.

In fact, an English traveler by the name of Ruxton, who wrote journals for Blackwood's Magazine in London back in the 1840s, said that the knives used by the hunters and trappers are called green River knives, and have that name stamped upon the blade and the the mountain man term for doing anything really effectively was to do it up to the green River and right, right about in there.

You probably can't see it, but it says Jay Russell Company, green River works.

Chop this up into bite sized pieces.

This happens to be some snapper, but any type of white fish will do very well.

And we'll throw it all back into this pot and put in about three bay leaves.

That's the laurel leaf three got for their.

Then these are called jalapenos.

And they are really really really hot.

I'm going to take a look at this trout for just a moment and see whether that is broiling.

Yeah.

It's just bacon's just beginning to brown.

We're all right.

For another couple of minutes I will slice down this jalapeno into little slivers.

And that's just used to give it give the ceviche a good flavor.

You don't ever don't eat it.

You eat the fish.

And put two of those peppers in there.

I have a friend in El Paso by the name of Cleofus Kairos.

and he's a delightful older man in his, I guess, Cleo is probably in his 70s, and he always carries a plastic bag full of these jalapenos with him whenever he travels.

He he uses these for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner.

Now take our garlic.

And a couple cloves of garlic.

Do the trick for flavor.

Very often if you take a knife and score your garlic, then it allows the oil to come out much better.

Another.

Another technique, of course, is just to squash it with a knife.

Now we've got that.

Now just score this.

That way you can pull the whole thing out, but it releases more more of the flavor of the garlic throughout and drop that in.

Now, if you can get what they call Chinese parsley or fresh coriander.

And it is very, very good in many, many salad type dishes or, or fish dishes, if you can't get that, you can get always get the coriander seed, either powdered coriander or.

The whole seed.

I got these beautiful big limes and these are those funny ones that have no seeds at all in them.

And you need to squeeze four of these because you're going to use the lime juice to pickle your fish.

These are just full of juice.

Beautiful things I don't.

It's only been recent years that I've seen these limes that are completely free of seeds, and they're beautiful things.

They're fairly expensive in the supermarket.

I believe that I paid something like about $0.12 a piece for them, but they're well worth it because they're just juicy and beautiful.

In many of the very fancy restaurants in Mexico, Say, I better, better check this trout again.

I hear it sizzling.

The bacon is brown.

I'll turn them over.

You can smell the mint coming up out of it too, and it gives it just an absolutely wonderful, wonderful flavor.

Bacon is just getting nice and brown.

And these small trout are almost done with the with the heat of the glass on the bottom of it.

You sometimes don't even need to turn them because they'll cook from the bottom as well.

Get back in there for just a little shake and leave the door slightly open so we can hear what's going on.

Let's see.

I've got juice of four.

Limes is plenty if you have these big fellows.

Boy, would make good limeade too.

Pour this over.

There we go.

And mix half a cup of olive oil.

And a half a cup of regular salad oil, so that you have essentially the sourness of the the lime tha does the pickling job and the pepper.

And there's no, no salt that you can add a little bit if you, if you want to.

But the flavor of this fresh coriander and the bay leaf.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot one other thing that goes in.

And that is the olives.

That's a bottle or small bottle that you can buy store about a cup of olives.

And it makes a very attractive dish with all of the colors of the green and the red of the olives.

You just set that into your refrigerator and, and let it stay there for, oh, you can let it marinate for about 3 or 4 days.

And it's just great.

The longer it marinade of course, the better it is.

The fish doesn't of course get bad because it's been it's been pickled.

And the little bit of garlic in it is great.

Well I'll get the trout out now and show you the finished product on that.

Look at that.

The bacon there is all brown and crisp and it's very tasty.

Now I'm going to show you another dish called shrimp & oysters Mexican It's an easy one to do.

You simply get a batch of cooked shrimp and some of the frozen oysters, the California or the West Coast Olympia oysters, I should say, are very good to use.

These have a fine flavor.

The uncooked shrimp go into a bowl and you use.

Oh, maybe 5 or 6 good sized shrimp or seven.

Depends upon however many people you have.

The amount is not critical to the taste of the dish and put these uncooked in there.

And then about a cup of oysters.

Mix those together, put it over the top of the shrimp because they all cook at about the same rate, and then pinch of oregano.

Oregano is that magic ingredient of most of the Mexican dishes.

And of course chili.

These are the the long chili pods as opposed to those others that we use in the ceviche.

These are called chili poblano or the big green pods.

And when these are allowed to get ripe, they turn red.

And those are the kind that you see hung up and hanging from the rafters of the houses in, in New Mexico and in Old Mexico.

We'll just cut some of this into little pieces.

My knife isn't sharp enough that I'll hack my finger open.

And spread some of this green chili.

And you can buy this either very hot and it's usually marked upon the can if you get canned ones.

Of course, fresh ones are just great, but you only get those in the early fall, late summer and early fall.

And then top that with some butter.

Little dollops around to the side.

A dash of garlic salt on the top of it and.

Pinch of that.

And that butter melts and you have a really fine, fine tasting dish.

And thats shrimp & oysters Mexican style.

The green chili gives it a great flavor of the basic chili pod.

It isn't just fiery hot.

In fact, these are quite mild.

And we'll put it in the oven and then let it cook.

Of course, the shrimp then turn red.

I put that in at about oh 450 or 425 in that vicinity.

Now, in New Mexico and in Old Mexico, you occasionally find very hearty drinks.

And one of these is called pinole.

And the way to make pinole is to take yellow cornmeal and roast in the oven.

For between 10 and 15 minutes.

You have to turn it very carefully and see that it doesn't burn.

After you have gotten your cornmeal put together.

And I took some over here, put it on a cookie sheet, and I roasted it just before we began the show here.

And it's sort of dark brown, has a real good, almost popcorn type of taste.

And I'll use this pot.

Be sure when you're making pinole that you do not use a glass Pyrex pan, because I did that one time and and I was warning everybody to be sure not to over overcook it or get it too hot, put it on too hot a flame.

And I did just that, and the whole thing exploded and dumped the cornmeal all over the place.

Now we'll take this.

And this is about two cups of cornmeal.

Make as much or as little as you want.

Messy.

Messy.

There we go.

And then you put in around a cup of sugar.

These are half cup measurements.

You're about about a cup of sugar and then cinnamon.

And just shake plenty of cinnamon in it.

Oh, probably half three quarters of a teaspoon of cinnamon into it.

Then mix your cornmeal, sugar and cinnamon together.

Add milk first a little bit to get it.

From being lumpy and do that added hot.

I'm sorry.

Add your milk cold because otherwise it'll lump if you if you put it right into hot milk while you'll you'll get a lump.

Stir that well and then add the rest of a quart of milk.

And put this on to a low heat.

And let it let it cook for about oh 25 - 30 minutes.

Your corn cornmeal has that great toasted flavor of sort of like popcorn.

And serve that as a hot drink.

Now, the haymaker switchel is another drink that came out from New England, the Haymakers, when the fellows would go out in the fields and and cut the hay, they usually would take a jug of this along with them.

And it's a very simple thing to make.

It's half a cup of molasses.

And brown sugar, about a cup of brown sugar.

Let's get a bit inside of here.

It's about a cup worth.

Then.

Ginger and ginger, you know, is used a great deal in the last century in drinks about teaspoonful of ginger and then ice.

Will drop a whole bucket of that in there.

They used to sometimes spike this with some apple jack and let's see.

Oh the last thing is vinegar.

And we'll take about a half a bottle or about a cup of vinegar into this.

I know vinegar doesn't sound good, but it actually gives you a nice refreshing bite when you when you make your beverage.

Then you just add water to the whole thing.

And mix it thoroughly.

It's.

A matter of individual preference as to how you like the ginger, but I prefer a good deal of it in there.

And that's a good summertime drink for the kids.

Kids really like this because it's sour, has sort of an apple apple flavor from the apple cider vinegar.

And and the molasses is sweet and it has a very, very fine flavor.

I think we better check on our shrimp and see how they're doing now.

It doesn't take too long to cook these maybe ten, 15 minutes.

Well, they're not quite done yet, but it's coming along.

Now.

We've put the recipes from the television series, the whole series together into a set of historical reference sheets and recipe sheets.

And you can obtain these by simply contacting the station.

These are at no charge if you.

However, want the whole set of all of the recipe recipes that are shown on the series.

This.

This has been put together in a little paperback cookbook, and it's called Frying Pans West, and you can obtain that by contacting the station to be more information on that later.

Now, the fish of course, was rare thing as far as seafood on an inland basis.

And yet I found a reference to oysters being eaten in Santa Fe on the 31st of October in 1846, and these, I doubt, very much came up from Mexico.

They probably were canned.

You may not know that canning process began around 1812.

It was a French invention, and by the 1830s and 40s canned goods was very, very plentiful.

Oysters, for example, were one of the major items of seafood in the whole United States.

I say the whole because before railroads oysters were brought west in barrels.

On the east coast they used to take the oyster, and they packed them with the mouths upward into a barrel, and then they would ice these as they came across the prairie.

At every stage stop, there was always an ice house, and they would ice these things and pour cornmeal and salt water down through the tops of the barrels.

Well, the oysters used to arrive fatter and healthier, happier, perhaps, when they got west than when they were pulled out of Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast.

Oysters also were much larger in the last century, a 6 to 8 inch oyster was considered an average sized one.

Today, of course, that would be really something to to get one that big.

The candidates for office used to have great big oyster roasts.

And and one of these was Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, for example, when he would campaign, as was typical in those days, the politicians would throw great big wing dings of free loads, and people would come in from miles.

All of the voters, and I think probably some of the election depended upon how how well they fed their constituents and how much alcohol they used to buy it by the, by the barrel or the hogshead & have big beer busts with oysters.

Oysters were put up in ketchup.

And you think of tomato ketchup being the only form of ketchup, but not so.

There are many kinds of ketchup, including oyster ketchup.

They also used to pickle oysters.

Oysters in that fashion were eaten by president Grant.

It was one of his very, very favorite dishes.

And in the cookbook, I have a recipe for President Grant's pickled oysters.

Also one for a catchup.

The fish per se.

Probably the most commonly eaten fish, was catfish.

These were very big on the Mississippi River, and some in the upper Missouri.

Well, that's so much for fish.

And I want to thank you for tuning in to Frying Pans.

West will be back next week with another show.

Good night.