Rattlesnake Recipes by “Dessert Holly” Ted and “On The Rocks” Mac is a small book on the art of cooking rattlesnakes. The book was published in 1950 and consists of recipes gathered from miners, cowboys, Calexicans, Imperialists, Nilanders, prospectors sheepherders, desert rats and Indians and of course form Ted’s and Mac’s own kitchen. Mac writes in the foreword:
“These recipes should all be tested and tasted and have been gathered by Desert Holly Ted and myself. Ted is the brains, who tosses around all the four bit handles for these titles and stuff with which these snake nite mares are concocted. I don’t use the big words too good, but I know a good snakemulligan when I taste one. We collect recipes day or night wherever we are.”
One example from the book:
BAKED RATTLESNAKE A LA CLOUD-BURST
You may visit the desert for years and never be fortunate enough to indulge in this gourmet’s delight but patience will be rewarded and eventually you can have your fill. During a cloudburst select nice, prime rattlesnakes floating by as you are trying to save your desert shack from washing away. Clean carefully but do not skin; Cut into pieces exactly a quarter of a yard long and stuff with the following dressing ( if you come
out with some short pieces sew them together with yucca fiber)
4 cups mesquite bread
3 sprigs Mojave stinkweed
1 pony sherry
1 pocketful grassnuts
2 horn spoons Argus onions chopped
1 cake pinon pine with pitch
14 leaves Panamint sage rubbed fine
1 teaspoon peppergrass seed ground
Sagebrush ashes to taste
Into a bed of cherry red greasewood root coals chuck the rattlesnake after having rolled each piece in a gob of mud left by the cloudburst. Bake two to three hours and crack open with prospector’s pick. Garnish with locoweed.
Download Rattlesnake Recipes here:
Rattlesnake Recipes
