Congrats to our 2024 Chuck Wagon Cookoff Winners!
Thanks to everyone who came to the 2024 Chuck Wagon Cookoff Weekend! This amazing event was highlighted by our annual cooking competition. To see our overall winner and winners in each category, please check out the link below!
Pigeon Forge invites Western lifestyle enthusiasts, foodies and those in search of a hearty meal to the Chuck Wagon Cookoff weekend.
This 3-day event includes an intimate dinner concert, cowboy church and our annual cookoff competition!
Chuck wagons will gather at Clabough’s Campground for this one-of-a-kind outdoor cooking event. Long before today’s food truck craze treated foodies to impromptu kitchens on wheels, early American chuck wagons fed hungry cowboys on the open prairies during cattle drives. Chuck wagon cooks, or cookies, as they are known, rely on simple ingredients to guide their menus and fire to power their ovens.
Chuck wagon cook-offs aid in the preservation of cattle drive trail days as well as ensuring the authentic reproduction of the mobile kitchens. The competition includes cash prizes for most authentic wagon and awards in various food categories, including meat, potatoes, bread, beans and dessert. All food items must be prepared onsite and using ingredients provided to the cooking teams. Condiments may be used at the cook’s discretion. Prohibited ingredients are announced prior to the competition.
We look forward to hosting the following chuckwagons this year:
Wylie and the Wild West
Performing at the Intimate Concert at Mama’s Farmhouse on Friday Feb. 28 at 6 p.m. and Saturday at the Cook-off at Clabough’s Campground on Saturday March 1 at 10am under the big tent.
Wylie Gustafson is an American original. The native Montanan singer/songwriter has recorded 24 albums backed by over 3 decades of performing around the world. He remains distinct in country music as one of the few authentic voices of the genre. Wylie’s muse is the empty sprawl of his native Montana home where he crafts the words and music that reflect his life on the 4th generation family ranch.
For over the last 33 years, he and his band, The Wild West, have performed their refreshing blend of cowboy, western, and traditional country. They are hugely popular on the festival and theatre circuit. Stateside, they have performed at such prestigious venues as the National Folk Festival, MerleFest, the Bumbershoot Festival, The Stagecoach Festival, A Prairie Home Companion, The Conan O’Brien Show and the Grand Ole Opry (with over 50 guest appearances).
Andy Nelson will be returning as MC and performing cowboy poetry for both days.
As a second-generation farrier, Andy Nelson has the experience and the talents and humor to bring authenticity and entertainment to an audience. Raised in Oakley, Idaho, Andy traveled the Great Basin of southern Idaho, northern Utah and northern Nevada with his father on farrier jobs, from the time he was a child until he went off to college, and while in college at Utah State University, he continued to shoe horses for the USU Horsemanship Program. Now Andy lives in Pinedale, Wyoming, where among other things, he and his wife Jaclyn raise horses and children. Andy his farrier brother Jim, co-host the “Clear Out West (C.O.W.) Radio” weekly syndicated radio show and the brothers are in demand as announcers at regional rodeos.
