Food of Texas. Caroline Stuart

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ