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Galloping Gourmet Eating and Drinking with Buffalo Bill

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Steve Friesen explores the evolving role of eating and drinking in Buffalo Bill’s life (1846–1917).

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The speaker expresses a long-standing interest in food history and shares insights from their experience as director of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave for over 22 years. They highlight Buffalo Bill’s surprising connection to culinary history, particularly noting that he opened the first Mexican restaurant in New York City in 1886. Researching at various archives, including the Buffalo Bill Museum and newspapers.com, they uncovered significant details about Buffalo Bill's dining habits and how he catered for his Wild West shows.

Buffalo Bill, known as an iconic figure of the American West, started his career hunting buffalo and providing meat for railroad workers, earning his nickname. He transitioned into show business by creating the Buffalo Bill Wild West show, which was popular both in the U.S. and Europe. His culinary experiences were enriched through dining with dignitaries and celebrities, showcasing fine dining that influenced his approach to meals during his shows.

The speaker emphasizes Buffalo Bill’s commitment to providing excellent meals for his cast and crew, even claiming they had some of the best dining experiences at the time. They reference his efforts to maintain a good reputation, contrasting the misinformation surrounding him about his treatment of buffalo and Native Americans, as he advocated for their rights.

Buffalo Bill's legacy includes influencing American dining culture, illustrated by the presence of Buffalo Bill-themed steakhouses in the U.S. and abroad. The discussion suggests that Buffalo Bill's love for food and his efforts in the culinary realm are an important yet often overlooked aspect of his impact as a historical figure.

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Well, I've always had an interest in food history,

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and for the last 20, well, more than 22 years,

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I was director of the Buffalo Bill Museum

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and Grave up on Lookout Mountain.

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So it was kind of a, a intersection of two interests,

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interests in Buffalo Bill and interest in food.

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Um, one does not ordinarily think of Buffalo Bill and food.

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You think about the,

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wild West shows the Pony Express Frontiersman kind of thing.

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But the more I delved into this, the more I realized

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that he was definitely a foodie.

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All of this started though when I was, informed

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that he opened the first Mexican

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restaurant in New York City in 1886,

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which was like a total, wow.

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I didn't realize it. A friend of mine told me about it,

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and I'm like, I, I gotta check into this.

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And that just sort of opened up the floodgates, if you will,

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for a great deal.

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More information. I had the advantage

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that there was a nice size archive

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and a lot of artifacts at the Buffalo Bill Museum

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and Grave, where I did much of my research.

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Photographs of people dining, for example, artifacts

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that were old menus that they used in the Wild West

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to celebrate 4th of July, for example.

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Uh, there are other wonderful repositories,

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the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

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I did research there, the Denver, public libraries,

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Western History Division.

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I even went to, Yale to visit the Beneke Library

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where they had some good information.

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Mm-Hmm. So there's a fair amount out there.

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One of the best ones is newspapers.com.

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I have to say, I was getting some absolutely amazing

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articles about Buffalo Bill by visiting newspapers.com.

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So for people that are out there doing research,

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if you haven't used it

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or considered using newspapers.com as a source material,

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it's, it's wonderful and it's very accessible.

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So I just wanted to kind of throw that part in,

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because I know there are a number of people

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who are doing research, academic work of various kinds

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who watch this, this program.

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And I wanna wanna throw that out if I think a lot

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of them might be aware of those sources.

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But those are really wonderful ones.

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Buffalo Bill is one of the better known, maybe one

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of the best known characters

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of the American frontier, the American West.

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He started out as a, a young man, worked.

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Uh, some people, it,

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it's a bit controversial whether he worked in the Pony

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Express, but I feel he did.

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He, was a scout.

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Uh, he got his name Buffalo Bill, hunting for the railroad,

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providing meat for the employees and the workers,

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and they gave him a nickname Buffalo Bill.

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He was so good at it.

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Uh, eventually, people started,

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writing Don Dime novels about him,

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and he was in the news quite a bit.

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And, at some point he was convinced he should go into

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show business and, went into show business

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and started the Buffalo Bill Wild West, which,

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Uh, promoted the old West

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and certainly made him a famous person

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throughout the United States.

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He took it to Europe. And it's always interesting when I

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visit Europe, how many people actually know about Buffalo

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Bill There, spent a, a number of,

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of several years at various points in Great Britain

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as well as on the continent.

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So he, he's really one

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of our best known American characters.

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I think if you would go to Europe

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and say, who do you know in terms of a famous person in,

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in the United States, they might very well say Buffalo Bill.

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Now food. You had asked about the food part.

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Uh, his introduction to, dining was,

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of course, as a young man.

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Of course, he ate at home and that kind of thing,

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but at some point when he was out doing guiding,

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he would lead some buffalo hunts

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and work for the, for the Army.

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He took General Sheridan

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and some dignitaries from New York on a buffalo hunt.

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And what he found out was, while they were eating wild game,

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they had their own chefs along

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and they were preparing rather fancy, full dishes.

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So you would have buffalo bill loin

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with champignons, with mushrooms.

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And, so he was introduced in that way

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to a little finer dining,

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when he was out using the wild game.

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Then he went to visit them in 1872, a few months

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after he had had dining out on the, on the plains,

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and he went to New York City.

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And there he was introduced

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for very fine dining Del Monaco's.

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He ate at a number of banquets and things,

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and this was sort of the beginning of his exposure

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to the gourmet experience, something that he carried

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with him through the rest of his life.

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Culinary roots. Well, in terms of culinary roots,

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certainly earlier on he was hunting buffalo.

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He was eating wild game sage, he and things like that.

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But later on,

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basically he is following the railroad with his shows.

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And at the show, he is creating meals,

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or he's in charge, if you will, of creating meals for

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as many as a thousand members of the cast

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and all the support personnel.

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And they have to provide breakfast, lunch,

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and dinner for everyone.

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So he has a whole crew of cooks.

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He has a massive range wagon, they called it,

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which consisted basically

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of eight wood-burning stoves connected together.

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This was such a fascinating thing to the people at the time

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that you would have articles in newspapers,

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remarking on this rather unique culinary experience

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that Buffalo Bill's employees had.

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And they even said

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that the employees at Buffalo Bill's Wild West eat as well

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as any diner at the best restaurants and Boston or New York.

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So he was very dedicated to ensuring not only

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that he enjoyed good foods,

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but the people who worked for him.

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And they were very satisfied actually.

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Uh, the folks who worked in Buffalo Bill's Wild West were

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very loyal to Buffalo Bill

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because he took such good care of them.

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One of the things he did was also host various dignitaries

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and do special meals.

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He, treated Thomas Edison to a very special breakfast.

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When the show was in Paris.

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Both Edison and Buffalo Bill were there

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because of the exposition they were holding.

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That was the exposition where they opened the Eiffel Tower.

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Buffalo Bill and Thomas Edison were among the first

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to go into the Eiffel Tower once it was open.

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But he had this wonderful meal,

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and Thomas Edison later on said that his breakfast,

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it was sort of a brunch,

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that he had at Buffalo Bills was one of the high points

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of his visit to France,

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which is high praise when you consider

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how people talk about the culinary, history

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and the delights in France, that Buffalo Bills would've

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provided one of the best for Thomas Edison.

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He dined with many celebrities over the years.

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He hosted them there. He visited them in their homes like,

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Oscar Wilde.

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He had tea with Oscar Wilde.

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He hosted presidents, ate

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with Theodore Roosevelt a number of times, as a,

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as a leading member, certainly one

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of the most popular members of,

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of the American public at the time.

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He had those opportunities.

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And so he dined well, and he hosted people and,

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and gave them a very good experience at his show from 1873

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to 1883, he actually had stage shows.

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They were kinda like melodramas.

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He would appear in opera houses

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and places like that all across the United States,

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traveling by train, of course.

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Um, and during that time, he was always dining in hotels

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and dining in the better restaurants.

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So he had that background of, of fine dining

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when he started his Wild West in 1883.

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It wasn't the sort of thing he was going to quit, though,

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once he created that.

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And as I said, he treated his people very well.

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They ate very well. They consumed mass quantities of beef.

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You could have breakfast of steak, lunch,

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steak, dinner, steak.

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And indeed, the American Indians who were part

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of the show usually chose to have steak every day,

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every meal,

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because that was the kind of meat that they preferred.

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So, he's, he's traveling around the United States

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by train, hitting every major metropolitan area.

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Uh, there are articles being written about him.

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He has his show begin at a time when

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American marketing is just starting to open up in big ways.

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And one of the most masterful marketers

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of the time was a guy named John Burke, who worked

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for Buffalo Bill, and he made sure

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that the newspaper, reporters were well fed,

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came to the show, wrote about not only the show,

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but often they were right about

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The dining at the show.

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So this added to Buffalo Bill's, notoriety

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or added to his fame when he went to Europe.

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Again, people in Europe were amazed

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by this Wild West show experience.

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And when he returned from Europe

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because of his popularity in Europe, his popularity

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of course increased in the United States.

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And it was just kind of like a snowball,

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really facilitated by the growth

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of the American media at the time.

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One of the concerns, those of us

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that are Buffalo Bill historians, if you will have,

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is there is so much misinformation about him.

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He's getting blamed for everything from, the decimation

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of the buffalo to abuse of the American Indians.

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None of that really happened. That was not Buffalo Bill.

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Buffalo Bill spoke out on behalf

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of the Buffalo in saving them.

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He worked for the, the rights of the American Unions

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and will help them meet with people in Washington and,

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and plead the case for getting more rights to,

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to be who they were.

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So, that's a main thing.

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And then to add this extra dimension as well

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to Buffalo Bill is a person who enjoyed fine dining

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and certainly dining

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and eating well, I would say is a major thing

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for people in America.

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And to know that Buffalo Bill shared that interest

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with people of today

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and in fact influenced some of the ways we dine today.

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The popularity of Buffalo Bill is such

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that you'll find Buffalo Bill Steakhouses all over the

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United States, and in fact, you'll even find

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restaurants named after Buffalo Bill in Europe as well.

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It's a legacy of food in addition to the legacy

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of the Wild West shows, which laid the groundwork for rodeo,

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the Lyle West shows, which also

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promoted the American West all

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around United States and Europe.

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So it's just one other dimension

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that I hope people will learn about and enjoy.

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I.

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