The thing about buffalo is, they’re awfully big, so even if you’re really hungry, you don’t want to hit one with your car.
Not that there are many places this can happen, but southern Colorado is one of them. (The photos on this page are from a trip to the Great Sand Dunes in 2001.) I just love that sign. How many of those can there be in the world? Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle this summer I saw a road sign warning about feral pigs, which comes close but no cigar. Never mind roadkill, though. To get our fill, we just go to the store.
In this part of the world, buffalo meat is pretty much a staple at Cid’s, the local organic food supermarket. We can get ground buffalo, steaks, hot dogs, stew meat, you name it. The hot dogs are especially tasty and juicy, thanks to the spices and whatever else they put in there. This stands out because buffalo is very lean. For all its inherent goodness, it doesn’t have quite the appeal of a nice scorched, greasy hunk o’ beef unless you doctor it some.
I like to make what my wife has all-but-surrendered into calling “buffalo slop,” after my invention. All that is, is a so-called sloppy joe concoction using ground buffalo instead of beef: buffalo, chopped onions, barbeque sauce, worchestershire sauce, beef stock or water, salt & pepper, powdered garlic, a spoonful of brown sugar, whatever you want. I’ve seen plenty of cow slop in my day, so in this case “buffalo slop” seemed the perfect appellation: too nasty to use, too hard to forget. Besides, who the hell is “Joe”?
But that can get a little old. My latest favorite buffalo dish is buffalo meatloaf. I use a recipe my wife gave me for regular meatloaf, which means most of the same ingredients above plus a little dry mustard, bread crumbs, and an egg… and my secret ingredient, at least two slices of uncooked bacon cut up nice and small. The bacon makes it, brothers and sisters. Oh, and be sure to slather plenty of barbeque sauce on the top before you put it in the oven. Can’t have too much barbeque sauce, especially not with buffalo.
Either one of these concoctions is perfect eaten cold out of the refrigerator with a spoon. This may provoke a “Don’t you want to heat that up?” or “Aren’t you having something with that?!?” but single frontiersmen need not be concerned.
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I love buffalo burgers; now I may have to try buffalo slop.
Great sign! Have you seen this one on I-70 somewhere between Denver and Glenwood Springs? “Eagles on Highway” Where else can you see a sign like that?
Beth in Taos
No, I haven’t seen that one! Wow…
One of your very best columns; I’m not at all prejudiced!
Kathy
Not your mother’s meatloaf… I substitute ground buffalo for the beef…secret ingredient is sage…and a nice piquant sauce on top instead of BBQ sauce…really yummy
i recommend trying pickapeppa sauce in place of the bbq on your meatloaf. i’m about to broil a lamb chop slathered with it. can be found in taos at smiths, top shelf on the condiments aisle. yummm!
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