Walsh - Texas eats : the new Lone Star heritage cookbook, with more than 200 recipes

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Copyright 2012 by Robb Walsh
Photographs copyright 2012 by Laurie Smith

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this work were originally published in different form in the following: I Love Chicken Fried Steak, Texas Burger Binge, and We Want Beer in the Houston Press (or on houstonpress.com), a Village Voice Media publication. Juneteenth Jamboree in Gourmet magazine (June 2007).

All photographs are by Laurie Smith except those attributed to other sources as listed in the .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walsh, Robb, 1952
Texas eats : the new lone star heritage cookbook, with more
than 200 recipes / Robb Walsh.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Cooking, AmericanSouthwestern style. 2. CookingTexas. I. Title.
TX715.2.S69W363 2012
641.59764dc23
2011035094

eISBN: 978-1-60774-113-8

v3.1

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Hill Country peaches. ()

Kettle frying chicken at the Moulton Town and Country Jamboree. ()

Dedicated to my son,
Robert Joseph Walsh

T hanks to all the Texas food experts who gave me their time and assistance, including: Jim Gossen, Dr. Sammy Ray, Tracy Woody, Ben and Jeri Nelson, Misho Ivic, Johnny and Lisa Halili, Jon Rowley, Doug Sartin Jr., Dale Lee, Nathan Jean Whitaker Mama Sugar Sanders, Irma Leal, Raul Molina, William Little, Aaron Franklin, Gregory Carter, Lillie Brown, Lolo and Rose Garcia, Frank Crappito, Tony Leago, Alan Lazarus, John Broussard, Gary Beams, Carl Han, Frank Mancuso, Kaiser Lashkari, and Shubhra Ramineni. Without them, this book wouldnt have been possible.

Thanks to recipe contributors Rebecca Rather, Jody Stevens, and Jay Francis. Much obliged to University of Houston intern director Stephanie L. Witowski and Conrad Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management interns Jake Lewis, Jessica Choate, Matthew Zentano, and Jervonni Henderson for their hard work testing recipes.

Special thanks to Texas experts Joe Nick Patoski, John Lomax, and Bud Kennedy. And many thanks to chef Bryan Caswell, my partner at El Real Tex-Mex Cafe, and to his mom and dad, Barbara and Mike Caswell, for their family recipes.

Thanks to Marvin Bendele and Elizabeth Englehardt for their help and advice.

Thanks to my agent, David McCormick, at McCormick & Williams, and to editor Emily Timberlake at Ten Speed Press for making this project a reality.

Thanks to photographer Laurie Smith and stylist Erica McNeish for camping out in Texas to get the food photos. I am also indebted to photographer Paul S. Howell for his photos and his ongoing help.

Thanks to my wife, Kelly Klaasmeyer, for her love, support, and insight. Thanks to my mom, Mary Ann Walsh, and to my brothers, Scott, David, Gordon, Rick, and Mike, for always being there. And thanks to my kids, Katie, Julia, Ava, and Joe, for giving me so many reasons to keep cooking.

Portions of this book first appeared in different forms in the Houston Press and on its website (www.houstonpress.com) and food blog. Thanks to Margaret Downing, Catherine Matusow, and my former employers for permission to use photos, text, and articles first published by the Houston Press (or www.houstonpress.com), a Village Voice Media publication.

T exas has produced an amazing number of blues guitarists and singer-songwriters, but not so many opera singers. Likewise, the state is better known for its folk cuisine than its haute cuisine. Texas top chefs do well in those televised cooking contests against chefs from other parts of the country. But our real strengths are folk foods like barbecued brisket, cheese enchiladas in chili gravy, and chicken-fried steak, and in those categories, its hard to find any state that can compete. Did I mention that chili con carne was invented in Texas?

The bicultural border cuisine called Tex-Mex is the most famous culinary hybrid in the state, but its not the only one. There are thirty-some ethnic groups in Texas, each one with its own folk foods and each one contributing to our statewide potluck.

In Hallettsville, a Czech-Tex hot dog has both sauerkraut and chili con carne on top. In Arlington, Korean doughnut shops sell jalapeo kolaches. In Sugar Land, Indian immigrants put chutney on their fajitas. And thats part of the reason Texas food traditions are so fascinating.

The states food history is a patchwork created by the resident ethnic groups and by an extremely varied geography. Texas has a long coastline, fertile farms in the river valleys, dense forests and swamps in the east, vast ranchlands and rugged mountains in the west, and a whole lot of empty space in between.

The food culture was shaped by the spirit of the frontier. Food was hard to find on the edges of civilization, and so were picky eaters. The French and Spanish didnt get along, and neither did the cowboys and Indians, but they all ate each others cooking and borrowed each others ingredients. Few modern-day Texans will turn down a bulgogi burger, a bun kebab, or a banh mi burger if youre offering to buy lunch.

For the last twenty years, I have been collecting stories about food in Texas. In this book, I have laid some of these accounts side by side in an attempt to sketch out a rough history of Lone Star cooking.