For 38 years, Kent Rollins—selected as the “Best Cowboy Humorist and Storyteller of the Year” by the Academy of Western Artists in 2002—has taken his 1876 Studebaker chuck wagon and handmade wood-fired stove, nicknamed “Bertha,” to working ranches across America.
“I’m on vacation every day,” said Rollins in a recent interview with The Epoch Times about his life as one of the last “cookies,” as ranch cooks are called, to actually work from a chuck wagon. “My dad told me, ‘Find a job you like to do, do it better than anybody else [and] you’ll never have a ‘job.’”
The modern-day Will Rogers, whose chuck wagon feasts, storytelling, and down-home charm have turned him into a YouTube channel star with over 3.3 million subscribers, will debut a new frontier cooking series, “Cast Iron Cowboy,” on the Outdoor Channel Sept. 29.
“We wanted to highlight the American cowboy and the ranchers all across the nation and the different ways that they might raise beef, the conditions that they’re in, and highlight their family history and usually either use their beef or a recipe that’s been in their family a long time,” said Rollins, whose wife Shannon helps run both the culinary and content side of their business and is often seen alongside him.
The Ranch Life
Growing up on a cattle ranch along the banks of the Red River near Hollis, Oklahoma, Rollins got both his early cowboy education—helping his father with the cow and calf operation—and his cooking inspiration, spending time after church with his mother and grandmother.
“We didn’t have a whole lot, but we never went hungry,” said Rollins while fondly recalling his mother’s casseroles, homemade bread, and desserts made with fruit from their own trees. “My mother was a cook that taught me that you cook what you love for the ones you love. When we’d gather around the table, she’d always tell us before we blessed it, ‘It would not be the legs of the table that hold it up, it is the family gathered around it.’ And we still carry on that tradition today on ranches because those folks become me and Shannon’s family.”
Blending live-fire cast iron and Dutch oven cooking with storytelling, cowboy wisdom, and the history, people, and traditions of working ranches across the country, “Cast Iron Cowboy” Season 1 takes Rollins and Shannon to eight ranches across Wyoming, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Texas, each celebrating the enduring spirit of the American range.
“The old cooks going down the trail, cooked in the same environment and methods that we use,” said Rollins. “We just have a whole lot better groceries than they did.”
Each episode shares with viewers the soulful meals that have fueled ranchers for generations, while capturing the grit and hospitality of life on the range.
“There’s still a lot of ranchers in the United States,” said Rollins. “We were on ranches—some of them were 150,000 acres, some of them were 40,000 acres. It is a very beautiful place to be, and you meet some of God’s greatest people.”
Many of their cooking video fans come not just to learn how to turn the recipes into a satisfying supper but to learn about the ranch and cowboy life.
“I did an interview one time with a lady in Chicago and she said, ‘Your kind of people are vanishing.’ And I said, ‘No ma’am, you just can’t see them from the interstate.’ There’s a lot of great people out there still carrying on a tradition that has been in their blood, from their father, their grandfather, and still doing it the old-fashioned way.”
In the premiere episode, filmed at JA Ranch in Claude, Texas, Rollins and Shannon fire up Wagon Wheel Steaks with Mushroom Gravy, Armadillo Eggs and Bread Pudding with Whisky Cream Sauce over hot coals while sharing JA ranch’s rich history as the birthplace of the first-ever chuck wagon or as Rollins calls it, “the first meal on wheels.”
Beyond the Ranch
When Rollins steps away from the chuck wagon, what’s on the menu?
“Well, it might surprise you, Shannon got me hooked on it a long time ago—sushi,” said Rollins, who sounds just as surprised about it himself. “The number one reason is you ain’t got to build a fire to cook it and there ain’t many dishes to wash when you get through. It’s always on the radar.”
Rollins’s YouTube channel popularity has also put him on the radar with other chefs, leading to spots on numerous Food Network shows, including “Throwdown! with Bobby Flay”—where he beat Flay and “Chopped Grill Masters.”
“I always like a challenge,” said Rollins. “If you don’t get challenged in life, you never change. You never adapt. And I always embrace it.” His wife, he said, believes that’s the secret sauce to why he does so well on the cooking competitions.
Now that he’s launching on the Outdoor Channel—where a second season is already underway—Rollins is setting some new goals.
“We have so many servicemen and women and veterans that watch our [YouTube] channel, and we owe them so much,” said Rollins.
He said he wants to go to “military bases and cook them folks some food.”
“Most of all, just tell them how much we appreciate them. We need to give back. The good Lord has blessed us more than we ever deserve. I told Shannon a long time ago, ‘We don’t just have a cooking channel on YouTube. We have a life channel.’”
