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Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week November 14 & 21, 2005 for Thanksgiving

Arthur Chapman lived and wrote in Denver for a number of years. His newspaper poem "Out Where the West Begins" brought him to fame. Here, he versifies the Dutch oven.

(Above)  Biscuit being baked in Dutch oven.  Cattle ranch near Spur, Texas. May 1939.  Credit:  Library of Congress, Prints and Photos Division, FSA-OWI Collection, Reproduction Numbers:  LC-USF33-012229-M1 DLC (black & white film nitrate negative).  (Left)  James Emmerling of Hugo, Colorado, cooking beans in Dutch oven.  May 31, 2008.

The Old Dutch Oven Some sigh for cooks of boyhood days, but none of them for me ; One roundup cook was best of all --- 't was the X-Bar-T. And when we heard the grub-pile call at morning, noon, and night, The old Dutch oven never failed to cook the things just right. 'T was covered o'er with red-hot coals, and when we fetched her out, The biscuits there were of the sort no epicure would flout. I ain't so strong for boyhood grub, 'cause, summer, spring, or fall, The old Dutch oven baked the stuff that tasted best of all. Perhaps 't was 'cause our appetites were always mighty sharp --- The men who ride the cattle range ain't apt to kick or carp ; But, anyway, I find myself a-dreaming of that bread The old Dutch oven baked for us beneath those coals so red.                                         --Arthur Chapman Reprinted from Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses by Arthur Chapman. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917.