Pan de campo is a

flatbread A flatbread is a bread made with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pizza and pita bread. Flatbreads ran ...

with a name that is thought of as country bread, camp bread, or cowboy bread. The bread was a regional staple of

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...

and

vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

s of southern Texas. Celebrated in several southern Texas festivals, it was named an official symbol of Texas in 2005.

Description

Pan de campo is a flatbread made from wheat flour, baking powder, salt, a fat, and water. Traditionally it was cooked in a

dutch oven A Dutch oven (not to be confused with masonry oven) is a thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. Dutch ovens are usually made of seasoned cast iron; however, some Dutch ovens are instead made of cast aluminium, or ceramic. Some metal ...

. The resulting round loaf is 1 to 1–1/2 inches thick. The flavor is biscuit-like.

In culture

The

Tejano Tejanos (, ; singular: ''Tejano/a''; Spanish for "Texan", originally borrowed from the Caddo ''tayshas'') are the residents of the state of Texas who are culturally descended from the Mexican population of Tejas and Coahuila that lived in the ...

origins of the dish have become part of Tex-Mex fusion. In Larry McMurtry's novel, '' Lonesome Dove'', the Mexican cook prepares the bread for wranglers. Sourdough bread was more widespread on cattle drives in Texas than the regional pan de campo. They were consumed along with other breads including tortillas, hoe cakes, and cornbread. In June 2005, Governor

Rick Perry James Richard Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019 and as the 47th governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. Perry also ran unsuccessfully for the Republica ...

signed legislation making pan de campo the official state bread of Texas.

References

{{Reflist Tex-Mex cuisine Flatbreads Symbols of Texas