PREFACE<br > The mo~ h"equenf question asked of me is how I became interested in food and drink of<br > the early West. Though I ve always had an adventuresome palate and enjoyed amateur<br > cooking， the serious beginning point came in 1962， I d bought some land in the foothills<br > southwest of Denver. By sheerest chance， I came across a picture of Bent s Old Fort， an historic<br > fur Irade fort of early Colorado. It looked like a castle， made of adobe bricks. The idea of<br > living in a fort fascinated me， and shortly I began construction of a full-sized replica to serve<br > as my home. Within a year it was completed， but， in order to pay the large mortgage， it was<br > decided to turn a large part of the building into a restaurant.<br > Jumping into the restaurant business was an education. I really had to learn to cook. This<br > meant cooking for several hundred persons al a time， My research into the history of Bent s<br > Fort and the fur trade brought me to reading over 2，000 journals and diaries of the period.<br > Sure enough， one of the most written-about Iacets of life in those days was mealtime. Possibly<br > the mosl outlandish recipe was "mouffle7 This is boiled moose nose. I had asked my game<br > purveyor in Montana to save me some moose noses， for I had read about a favorite dish of the<br > French-Canadian trapper culled "mouffle~ and I was determined to try it. The noses arrived，<br >each about three feet long and covered with thick hair. According to the recipe I d found in<br >Canada， the cook was instructed to put the nose on a stick and hold it over the fire until the<br >hair burned oil. I built a fire on the courtyard of The Fort， and that evening customers walking<br >by sow me roasting a long， ugly， hairy nose over the tire， The smell was hideous. Later I<br >brushed it clean with a wire brush and soaked it overnight in salt water to remove any burnt<br >hair flavor.<br > The moose nose was then boiled with a bit of onion， bay leaf， peppercorn and salt. It<br >turned out to be dull in flavor， extreh~ely bland， and somewhat like a pickled pig s toot in<br >consislency. I put it on the menu tar SI.50 per portion， served cold， sliced， and with a piquant<br >sauce. One evening a disbelieving guest wagered Sl00.00 to another that the "boiled moose<br >nose" on the menu wasn t really moose nose. He lost.<br > Remember too， that cooking isn t a science， It s an art lhat comes from a familiarity with<br >the characteristics at your ingredients combined with your own creative touch， Recipes are<br >only like roadmaps--how you travel and where you end up depends on you. Good luck..，<br > Sam Arnold<br >