All-American Rodeo Food At Cheyenne Frontier Days Slideshow

Ah, the simple pancake breakfast. Golden-griddled with a pat of real butter on top, swimming in syrup, and paired with a hearty slice of ham and a cup of hot coffee. It's classic and simple morning bliss...

...served up on a massive scale at old-fashioned pancake breakfasts across America. The one pictured above is the Kiwanis Pancake Feed, a favorite freebie tradition of Cheyenne Frontier Days. This year, volunteers served a total of 27,267 free breakfasts over the course of three mornings.

Take a traditional taco salad, place it in fry bread instead of a tostada, and add some special savory ingredients to the meat, and you have the Indian taco. This fast-food hybrid with Old West pedigree is served out of food trucks, usually in the "Indian Village" area of a rodeo park.

Kettle corn straight from the "Old Tyme" kettle, homemade root beer out of the barrel, and cinnamon toasted nuts fresh-baked and piping hot... This is fast food that even health food enthusiasts can't fault.

Another treat for those who like to stay healthy: grilled corn on the cob, cooked over wood while still in the husk, and available with or without butter.

But it wouldn't be a summer fair without some greasy, deep-fried, crazy-unhealthy carnival food. Thus, behold the deep fried Oreos — chewy and creamy on the inside, crisp and melting on the outside, and ten times more delicious than if they were straight out of the package.

Ever since the days of the Old West, the ultimate cowboy meal is a nice piece of prime steak. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about rodeo concessions is that good steaks are served everywhere: out of chuck wagons, food trucks, and makeshift restaurants, served on old-style tin super trays.

Spiral spuds are the love child of the French fry and the gourmet fresh-made potato chip. Hot out of the fryer, crispy-chewy, salty, and crunchy thin-cut potatoes are piled high, sprinkled with salt and served spilling out of a simple paper carton.

What do you get when you rig a vintage John Deere engine to an ice cream churning rig and trick it all out in pretty paint? The Poppin' John ice cream truck, a bizarre contraption identifiable by the banging and sharp whooshes you can hear from a block away.

No matter what people are eating at the rodeo, there's one drink to wash it all down:  Beer. Lots and lots of beer — starting in the morning and going all the way to last call, sometime past 2 a.m. You can get it in a bottle or a can if you're strolling through a rodeo park, but our favorite deal, if you're coming to Las Vegas either for the PRCA or PBR finals, is the $20 "bottomless beer" served from 3-7 p.m. and 12 a.m. to closing at PBR Rock Bar on the Vegas Strip.

Professional riders, rodeo circuit workers, and fans are all welcome — those who can't even brave the mechanical bull for a 1-2-3 count can show their prowess in other areas, like downing pints in eight seconds flat.