Culinary History of Texas
From ranch house to wursthaus, the influences on Texas cuisine might surprise you
by Dotty Griffith
In Texas, as in other areas throughout the United States and the world, multiple influences—historic, ethnic, geographic, and climatic—converge to shape the local cuisine. But few places can claim the diversity of Texas. In turn, Texas cooking traditions, along with those of neighboring regions, have been transformed by contemporary chefs into the robust and innovative modern culinary movement known as Southwestern cuisine.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spaniards arrived in the colonies that would become Mexico and Texas. Not only did they bring European culinary traditions, they also brought Central American chiles. It was to be the beginning of a long and delicious relationship which spanned 300 years and left its mark firmly on the cuisine. Flavors, techniques, and ingredients from south of the border remain evident in Texas today. And though Texas broke from Mexico in 1836, Texicans (as early Texans were known) never forsook the culinary staples of tortillas, retried beans, and enchiladas.
The chuck wagon was the country's first take-out restaurant. Drawn by horse or mule, it would follow the roundup twice yearly to the outermost reaches of the ranch and provide food, utensils, bedrolls, and medical supplies to cowboys. The "Cookie" would prepare food for the evening, the cowboys would help in the clean-up, and entertainment by harmonica would precede the night's hard-earned slumber.
In the early nineteenth century, many settlers came from the Deep South, introducing Texans to culinary traditions from states such as Louisiana and Arkansas. Consequently, the food ways of Southerners, including the defining culinary influence of African slaves, left a lasting impression on Texans' tables. Likewise, a strong French heritage—Cajun and Creole dishes arrived from the Texas-Louisiana border and the upper Gulf Coast—is also deliciously significant. From fried chicken to black-eyed peas to Cajun shrimp, many Texans' favorite dishes whistle Dixie.
Gastronomic impact also came from more unlikely sources. Throughout the 1800s, boatloads of German immigrants, fleeing political upheaval, disembarked along the Gulf Coast, particularly in Galveston, and made Texas their home. Many then made their way to the heart of the state, known today as the Hill Country. The influence of the Germans' skill at smoking meat and concocting pungent sausages is apparent in the classic Texas barbecue. And it's no coincidence that a chicken-fried steak—a staple of truck stops and country cookin' chain restaurants—looks a lot like a Wiener schnitzel.
Although seldom recognized for their cuisine, Native Americans—again, mainly through immigration-played important early roles in the state's food history and production. Texas is best known as a territory that was populated by Plains tribes such as buffalo-hunting Comanches, Apaches, and Kiowas. In fact, it has been home to more tribes than any other state. Vast land areas made Texas a logical deportation destination for displaced members of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles. Uprooted from their homes in the southeastern United States, they were driven to Texas, where they continued their relatively sophisticated ways with food.
Many tribes were so advanced, culinarily speaking, they could prepare corn forty ways. And members of the Caddos tribe, native to East Texas, were accomplished farmers who raised corn, beans, and squash. Sixteenth-century Spanish missionaries who settled in the area were impressed by the display of cooking skills they witnessed. They described an early form of the tamale in their writings, a sort of cornmeal dumpling wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf and steamed. Although we think of tamales as having Spanish roots, they are more likely of Native American origin.
The Texas citrus industry was established in the early 1880s when Don Macedonia-Vela planted seedling orange trees at the Laguna Seca Ranch in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Grapefruit orchards were established in Texas in the 1920s-30s, and the success of these led to the state's reputation as a high-quality red grapefruit producer.
The varied geography and climate of Texas, a state somewhat larger than the country of France, also accounts for a vast array of ingredients, flavor, and techniques. Windy grasslands of the Panhandle suffer extremes of hot and cold. Desert mountains and ranges of West Texas and the Hill Country bask in hot days and cool nights. The fertile valley of South Texas, the coastal plains, and the Gulf Coast enjoy year-round mild temperatures. The farmlands of central and northeast Texas cycle through hot summers and wet, cold winters. And the piney woods and bayous of East Texas swelter in the same heat and humidity that dampens neighboring Louisiana. It's little wonder that the state yields such a variety of foods.
After World War II, Texan cuisine was also spiced up with variety. Up to and during the war, Texas had enjoyed an interesting, although unsophisticated, style of cooking that varied from area to area, but which enjoyed only scant influence from outside.
During the war, however, soldiers from all over the United States brought their tastes to Texas, which had become a major military training ground. More importantly, postwar Texas GIs returned from overseas having sampled foods they had never eaten at home. There were hints of change on the culinary horizon for Texans.
The postwar economy transformed Texas from a rural and largely agricultural state into an economic power driven by oil, finance, industry, and technology. Social changes and an increasingly mobile population created more curious and demanding consumers. Even though a few outposts of culinary civilization existed, such as the Old Warsaw in Dallas, the chili parlors, coffee shops, mom-and-pop cafes, and barbecue shacks remained the predominant eating emporiums.
At the Kim Son Restaurant in Austin, Diem Nguyen (co-owner Kim Tran's niece) holds up the specialty of the house: bo nuong xa or grilled beef roll.
The real change in Texas dining occurred via a source seldom credited with cultural advancement: the state legislature. In 1971, on-premise consumption of alcoholic beverages was legalized. Until that time, beer, wine, or any other alcoholic beverage couldn't be sold and consumed in the same spot—the reality was that customers brown-bagged liquor into even the finest restaurants. At about the same time, food awareness and culinary chic began in earnest on the East and West Coasts, fed by the popularity of television cooking shows and the growing interest in fine wining and dining.
In Europe, they had nouvelle cuisine; in the United States, it was New American. Regional cuisines—developed by young chefs interested in adapting fresh, indigenous ingredients and traditional recipes into haute cuisine—flourished in a national atmosphere of experimentation, curiosity, and demand for innovation.
The change in state alcoholic beverage laws came at just the right time for Texas to participate in the national awakening to regional cuisines. Houston and Dallas were the primary centers for the birth of a culinary style that would come to be known as Southwestern cuisine. Robert Del Grande brought his uniquely scientific style to Cafe Annie in Houston, creating wonderfully cohesive dishes from varying ingredients. Stephan Pyles, then of Routh Street Cafe, began creating fancy dishes out of simple food and was praised by Bon Appetit for "almost single-handedly changing the cooking scene in Texas." And Dean Fearing, of The Mansion on Turtle Creek, caused quite a stir with his innovative and stylish lobster taco: lobster meat rolled in a flour tortilla and served with mango salsa. Despite some conservative critique, consumers loved it and it's now one of his signature dishes.
All this sophistication hasn't dimmed Texans' love for the food of childhood. During spring and fall, barbecue and chili cook-offs abound throughout the state. Rival organizations devoted to the preparation of the perfect bowl of