Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Fifty five years ago, Arkansas writer Charles Portis wrote one of the definitive books on the American West.

True Grit.

Little did he know how famous the book would become.

Every American knows Rooster Cogburn, the meanest US Marshal.

John Wayne made him famous in 1969, and the Coen brothers brought him back with Jeff Bridges in 2010.

Let's meet my guest, Doug Farmwald, as we join the St. Joe County Public Libraries annual One Book, One Michiana to discuss True Grit and find out why the book still has legs.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

It's good to be back.

I'm so glad you're here.

We're eight or nine until One Book, One Michiana we've done together?

Yes, yes!

I think it is.

And you know, why do you think they chose this book and did you like it?

I was almost--I was almost amazed and wondering what?

True Grit?

How did you react?

I think they would--I think one of the reasons they chose it is because the Western myth resonates so deeply in American culture.

Even today.

You don't see as many Western movies out there as you used to, maybe in the 60s and 70s.

But all of us grew up on that.

And we all know, John, we grew up with John Wayne.

Kids are a little bit different today.

It's different, but we grew up on that.

And so that Western myth is very resonant.

And one of the things I've really liked about doing One Book, One Michiana is I've read so many books I would not have picked up otherwise.

Isn't that a great thing about One Book, One Michiana?

It really is.

And I'm the same way.

I never would have read all these short stories of Sherlock Holmes or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and I'm so glad I did.

85 00:02:16,259 --> 00:02:17,259 And that's another one.

That's where the--it's different.

Frankenstein, the book was so radically different from the movie that our knowledge about Frankenstein is mostly comes from the movie.

This, True Grit, was very, very different.

The book and--or the movie is taken almost verbatim from the book.

All the dialog that you hear, especially the best lines, are right out of the book.

Yes.

So it's a true literary event today.

And let's talk about--we're going to be out in the West there.

What are we going to cook?

We're going to do some chuckwagon food.

All right.

And what are you going to do?

So, I'm going to make red bean pie.

Oh, we can't wait for this.

Which is from an 1888 cookbook from the Old West.

Red Bean Pie.

I'm going to start by just mashing the beans and I can still talk while I do this.

It takes a little bit.

And so what else are you going to make today?

In the second segment we'll be making the Corn Dodgers, that Rooster and Mattie and La Boeuf relied on as they were chasing Tom Chaney.

Yes.

And they used it for food and for target practice.

They had rather more than they needed.

And so they were free to use some of that for target practice.

Yes.

And I'm going to be making what--a full pot stew it's called.

And I've been cooking some stew meat for about three hours.

And we're going to add some cut-up onion.

And I have garlic in here already, some celery.

And then, lo and behold, this chuckwagon recipe book says 'add one can of tomatoes, one can of peas, one can of green beans and one can of corn.'.

And I thought, Doug, they didn't have cans out there.

They did.

They had cans, you know, even canned food started to become popular and available really during the Civil War, OK, during the Civil War.

Which was not too long before.

This was set in the 1870s.

1870.

Right.

You know, Civil War ended 1865.

So tinned--usually tinned meat was where they first got started, but then they had vegetables as well.

And it was just a great way to make food accessible away from the cities because there was no real refrigeration anywhere outside the larger cities.

You still had ice boxes.

Yes.

And ice harvesting was actually a big business back then, even up in Michigan.

But--.

I remember, I remember.

On the front--on the frontier, they would have had none of that.

They had to make things that could subsist for many days.

So and I'm also going to fry some apples because they could carry apples for a long time.

And I will add a little cinnamon.

I'm not adding sugar, just butter.

It's going to be very simple.

We could take this on a chuckwagon trip or we could go camping with this meal and it would be fairly safe, wouldn't it?

Yeah, and these were simple--all meant to be simple meals with few ingredients and no real technique required because most of the chuckwagon cooks were not what we would call executive chefs.

That's exactly right.

So there were often former cowboys if, for one reason or another, couldn't really go on the trail anymore, maybe they were old or maybe they had an injury or some health issue.

But they could open a can and heat it up and make that coffee in the morning.

And so I'm separating some eggs now.

This is a can of mashed beans, and we're going to put in three egg yolks.

Do you want something for your--oh, you've got it.

You're all set here.

Excellent.

And the actual recipe in the book, it says to save the whites and make a meringue, which I found a little-- Fussy.

Incongruous A little fussy, but they didn't want to waste any of the food.

Yeah.

And meringue actually is fairly common.

As I was doing some research on this and was referred to by the Cowboys as Calf Slobbers on their pots.

I can picture that.

I wanted to ask you, why do you think the library chose this book this time?

At first, I was sort of flabbergasted.

I was thinking 'True Grit?'

And then I read it three times.

And the third time I just thought it was hilarious.

I read a lot of secondary sources.

And to think that we're--we're discussing one of the great American books.

Why do you think they chose it?

Well, it goes right into the American psyche of self-reliance and perseverance and independence.

Well, exactly.

And--and that's why I think it is a good example of that style of thinking or how that evolved from Confederate soldiers after the war.

Many of them went out west and became, you know, the--the Texas Rangers.

And it is interesting when you look out West, we think of that as sort of a definitive American trope.

It was all the outcasts.

It was former soldiers, particularly Confederates.

And a good quarter of cowboys were African-American descent.

So former slaves.

Another quarter were Hispanic because Europeans, Mexican and Spanish colonists had lived there for five hundred years.

And, you know, when we were watching these cowboy movies growing up, you never saw a blend of people that actually lived out there.

It was mainly these, you know, these hardy and smart Union soldiers.

And then everybody was shooting and killing the Native Americans.

I mean, it was--we grew up with a really a cockeyed view of what was going on.

325 00:07:47,100 --> 00:07:47,877 Well, and--and that's true with every myth.

You know, every myth from every culture is told from one point of view and did leave some others out.

So you can't look at this as history.

You can look at it as psychology and you can ask yourself, why is it that this resonates so strongly with so many Americans?

And, you know, well, I think you're right that the myth of the lone man and the survivors out West.

I'm adding the corn and the tomatoes and the green beans and this, gosh, this will feed 10, 15 cowboys!

So let's talk about the characters in this plot.

We just have a few minutes before we go to our second segment.

But why-- let's talk about the characters.

We all know Rooster.

He is the meanest, meanest marshal that Mattie could find.

Right.

Who is Mattie?

Mattie is a young girl, 14 year old from Yell County, Arkansas near Dardanelle as she points out repeatedly, I guess somehow assuming that people are going to know where that is or care.

.

Dardanelle, yes.

Fort Smith, Arkansas, is the big city.

So that's where she goes to find Rooster.

And it's interesting that this is considered a Western, but we don't really think of Arkansas today as the West.

No, I never thought of it as that.

But it is--it is considered.

It is and was.

And where they go is now what is Oklahoma.

At that time, it was Indian territory, but it is Oklahoma.

That's the state.

And that's why they had to get a U.S. marshal because no one else had jurisdiction except a federal officer.

And of course, she does kind of go and visit some of these men, sort of interviews them and she hears that Rooster is probably the meanest, toughest-- Not the best tracker.

Doesn't always bring them back alive, but always gets them.

He gets them.

And she said, he's the one for me.

She's 14.

You know, it's almost like she's going to interview all these characters.

And let's talk about the story.

You know, she is--she lives with her family.

She's very smart.

She does the books for the family.

She kind of clearly is sort of the, you know, the brains of the operation right from the very beginning.

She is smart.

And, you know, we're going to talk more about her and the rest of the characters and why she is getting this marshal in just a few minutes.

But in the meantime, let's take a picture.

Let's show a picture of John Wayne, the original Rooster, and then Jeff Bridges, the second Rooster, and see what you think.

And we'll be right back.

Doug Farmwald and I are back discussing True Grit by Charles Portis, and you're going to get ready to-- I'm going to make the Corn Dodgers, which are essentially a baked hushpuppy.

All right.

Again, it's very, very simple.

Two cups of cornmeal, two cups of milk, two tablespoons of butter, and a tablespoon of sugar.

OK, while you're doing that, I'm going to be frying some eggs and you're adding salt.

Just a bit.

All right.

I'm just going to stir this around till it comes to a boil.

So you're going to stir as we talk.

All right.

Let's talk about-- what, we've got to get to the plot, don't we?

What is Mattie up to?

Well-- this 14 year old girl.

Tom Chaney, one of the hired hands on their ranch, went into--to Fort Smith, the local big city with her father and, in sort of a drunken rage, shot him.

Killed him.

Yes.

And then lit out for Indian territory so that the local sheriffs couldn't arrest him.

The Choctaw Nation, the area, I think.

Right, in what's now Oklahoma.

At the time, it was called Indian territory.

And so she needs to find out.

So she needs to find--.

Where he is.

Where he is, and she needs someone who has federal authority, federal jurisdiction to be able to bring him in because state or--state, city, county don't have the authority to arrest anyone in.

Indian territory.

Only a federal officer.

So she needs a U.S. marshal And she knows this, she's very bright.

And so as we talked before, she kind of interviews and looks at some of these men and she chooses this mean, ornery Rooster Cogburn.

The one with the most grit.

Yes.

Oh, grit.

She says, I want someone with grit.

Right.

What is grit in this book?

Its basic toughness, I think.

Yes.

And determination and persistence And can carry through with it and get it done.

And that's why she chooses Rooster Cogburn.

And so we find that she, of course, she--they don't want her to come along.

And we meet LaBoeuf or "La-Beef " As he pronounces it.

And--and he wants to go to because he's after-- The same guy for a different crime.

Yes.

For shooting a senator And it's a state senator in Texas.

He's a Texas Ranger.

And what's interesting is both of them are really doing it for the reward.

Yes.

At one point, they even negotiate.

If we bring him in, if we hang him in Arkansas, how much do we get?

If we hang him in Texas, how much do we get and how do we split it?

Yes, this is the whole purpose of it, isn't it?

This is the purpose.

But Mattie is there for revenge,.

For personal.

It's personal for her.

She is very strict.

She's very pious.

She's a woman of few words, but they are exactly tough, straight forward.

She wants the toughest, meanest guy with True Grit And everything is going to be done her way.

What I was reading this, it just struck me.

This is like--this is like your--your--what we call "Karens" these days at Starbucks.

And this whole book is one long complaint to the manager.

I want it done this way and I want it done now.

I don't like your drinking and I don't like you coming along and I'm not waiting here.

I'm going with you, whatever you say.

I was like, oh.

Yes.

She's exhausting.

But, she moves them and they finally take her on.

They try to evade her.

They try to dump her.

Outrun her.

Yet, she's still there.

And she--she kind of embodies this woman of the West.

And LaBoeuf says, 'You know what?

She earned her spurs.'.

Yes.

She can come along.

And LaBoeuf--talk about that.

He wears these fancy spurs and he's got this huge old-fashioned gun and he kind of makes a lot of racket when he walks.

And so you picture all this going on.

You got Cogburn, this one-eyed fat man, and he sets the--what is it you said he said about 'I can I can shoot you orI can kill you, right now?'

It's one of--Some of the best lines in the--in the film come straight out of the book.

Yeah.

At the end, when he finally corners--Tom Chaney is--is captured.

He's going to capture Ned Pepper for another robbery.

There's four bandits on one side and Rooster on the other.

And, you know, the bandits basically said 'What are you going to do?

There's, you know, four of us.'

And he goes, 'Well, I mean, to kill you in one minute, Ned Pepper, or we're going to take you to Fort Smith, where Judge Parker can hang you at his convenience.

What 'll you have?'

And of course, Ned Pepper also takes the line after--.

And that's the response.

And then Ned Pepper says, 'I call that bold talk for a one eyed fat man.'.

He's talking to--about Rooster.

And that sets Rooster off and starts the climactic gunfight at the end.

Yes.

And so these characters, they are just overwhelming.

And as I told Doug, I have--the first two times I read the book, I didn't see the humor.

I think I was trying to do too many things at one time.

And this last weekend I read it straight through and I found the humor, took me a while.

But that's the case right there.

We're down to business.

We're going to get our money.

What are you--what do you do?

What are you going to do about it?

And there is a horrible fight there, wasn't there?

It's--it's usually when you go into the character of Rooster, that's one point.

They're just kind of hanging out on the trail in the evening and Mattie's asking him about his past.

Well, his past is pretty criminal.

You robbed an Army Paymaster.

He was a Confederate soldier in the war.

After the war, he robbed a federal payroll.

He robbed a bank in New Mexico.

And what does he say?

He wants to get to know the characters?

These people that he's chasing?

He wants to know how they think.

But, he's done it.

He's done it all.

He's done it.

Yeah.

So, you know, the only reason that he's a marshal is because he's actually one of the few guys meaner than these people he's trying to pick up.

So picture prim, prissy, Mattie, the sort of--how would you call LaBoeuf, sort of like a dandy out there.

And he's--he is--fits the stereotype of what a lot of people would have of Texans.

Yes.

Yes.

A Texas Ranger.

And then you've got all these characters in between.

But it's a trio.

And then you have side people, they come in, you know, supporting actors, but the three are just amazing.

Tom Chaney is really an awful man, the one they're after.

He's--right.

He goes from being a bully to being a whiner.

And Mattie remarks on this.

'He's a crybaby.'.

Well, he-- He keeps saying, 'Oh, everything is against me!

And now I'm shot by a child.'.

Now this and now that.

You know, you started it, buddy.

It's your deal.

So that's the kind of thing that I was catching this--.

Of course, we also have the eye for an eye sort of feeling in this story, too.

The Old Testament coming.

You know, if you killed my father I'm going to kill you.

And--and then I think as we--maybe we progressed, I don't know if we have, but we--somebody said 'Eye for an eye leaves a lot of blind people in the world.'.

So--but in any case, you picture these characters and see that movie again.

Either one of them.

Read the book.

I, I, I just think it's amazing.

And what I've done here, I boiled this down, till it's pretty much just a dough.

Oh yeah.

I've put in a teaspoon of baking powder, it's going to cool a little bit.

So it's comfortable to work with and will form that into the corn dodgers.

Yeah.

You could burn out--you could burn out there in the desert there.

You've got to wait till it cools.

Wait till it cools down a little bit, so, a couple of minutes.

OK, good.

We have a couple of minutes here.

So--and then we talk about the unflinching character.

Everybody's unflinching aren't they.

Everybody drawing a line in the sand.

That is true.

And I think that's--part of that is it was tough on the frontier, whether you're a homesteader, whether you're a cowboy or whatever you're doing out there.

It was it was hard work.

You know, digging a solid house is a lot of work.

So, yeah, you had a lot of people who just didn't have time for nonsense.

And these characters are all that way.

You know, they're funny in their own way.

And--and I just have to say, I--I found myself laughing out loud the third time I read it, just because of the use of words and the imagery in this and the stubbornness of Mattie, this 14-year-old girl, 'I'm going to get it done.

I mean business.'.

She talks--right, right at the very beginning.

She talks Colonel Stonehill down on the--on the horses.

'I'm only going to pay this much.

And in fact, you owe me money.

I'm not paying.

You owe me.'.

And she gets it.

Exactly.

And she buys little Blackie.

She takes little Blackie, her first horse.

He's a pony.

And he goes on the trail with her and she rides him and he does save--he does save a situation.

And then he dies in the--in the--in the meantime, he's just worn out.

He was so good to her and she loved him.

That's the first bit of sort of affection I saw from her.

Right.

Until the very end of the book.

And I think that's where you see some real affection shown for Rooster.

At one point she tries to reconnect with them and finds out that he has died after he's gone on to have another, even more colorful life after.

Joined a Wild West show and she was catching up with the Wild West Show when it came nearby, found out that he had died in the last town that they had visited.

But she actually had the body disinterred and brought to her family plot and buried with her family.

He was probably the closest she'd ever been to someone.

As crazy as he was, he did take care of her.

She took care of him.

And we're taking care of all these things here.

That's right.

And they made a great team.

And we're going to be right back.

We've got to get these corn dodgers ready, check the pie and we invite you to come to our chuckwagon dinner out here in--where are we going?

Choctaw Nation?

Well, we--we'd be in Oklahoma.

We're going to Oklahoma, join us.

We'll see you soon.

And in the meantime, let's take a look at today's main so you can really do your own chuckwagon dinner.

It's super easy.

Yes, it is.

We'll be right back.

Today, Doug Farmwald and I have been a part of One book, One Michiana, and we love this program put on by the St. Joe County Public Library system.

You like it too, don't you?

I do.

I--One, it's introduced me to a lot of new books I wouldn't have read otherwise.

And I think it's really important because one of the main functions of a library, in my opinion, is building community.

And the way to build a community has to have a foundation of a shared culture.

And that's where all these books are.

We--.

Yes.

We may react to them differently.

We might like some more than others, but we all have read the same thing.

We have a place to start.

We have a place to start.

And I'm sending this to my daughter in Denver because she has never read it.

She's seen one of the movies.

And I'd say if--if you can't read the book, see one of the movies.

You--.

You'll get it.

You'll get it.

Let's--let's talk about what we've made.

And I have some fried apples easily done on the trail here.

And then I stewed some beef and added a can of corn, green beans, peas, some celery, onion and even garlic.

And what did you do?

And I have our corn dodgers, which will go really, really well with stew and some red bean pie.

Now, isn't that amazing?

Red bean pie.

I think that is just amazing.

Well, you know, it would it would stay wouldn't spoil.

And you told me that sugar's a preservative.

In large quantities.

So if you really sweetened something.

Yeah, it will stay.

It'll stay.

You're going to have to bring your plate over here.

I will.

Well, I think your corn dodgers, your red bean pie, I can't wait to try it.

And we are so glad you joined us today.

And I just want to say I loved the book.

I didn't think I would.

I really enjoyed it.

Look for the humor.

Look for these different characters and where they're coming from.

What did you enjoy?

The characters really make the book.

More than the plot.

The plot is--is a Western trope.

Your chasing--the good guys and the bad guys write everything.

But what really makes us is, is the characters of Rooster and LaBoeuf and Lucky Ned Pepper and-- And Mattie.

And Mattie.

Mattie, she is something she's--she's quite a girl, I have to say This is the story of her great adventure of her life.

And she wrote--and this is written as if she is twenty-five years old as she looks back on her life.

And as you said, this is probably the high point of her life.

Yes.

And after that, work, work, work.

And thank you for joining us today.

Remember, good food, good friends, good books, good chuckwagon food.

Make for a very good life.

I'll see you next time.

And thank you, Doug.

Thanks for having me.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.