EATS: A FOLK HISTORY OF TEXAS FO

Texas sweet potatoes, like other native products, are "higher, longer, deeper, wider, taller, and bigger," claims a source in this amusing compilation of reminiscences, interviews, songs, family "receets" and Texas culinary customs past and present. "Do walk barefooted between corn rows if you are pregnant. It helps the woman and also the corn," advises an anonymous sage, and "Texas caviar"--"a mess of peas"--is recommended as fare for New Year's Day. We learn Frank Dobie's recipe for venison steak; how meals were cooked from a chuck wagon (for "a bunch of unruly, and often unappreciative, cowpokes"); and the definition of a stretchberry, "used by children to make their chewing gum bubble." Organized in two parts, the book first discusses Texas cooking by region, then the state's various seasonal celebrations (such as Juneteenth, marking the emancipation on June 19, 1865, of over 200,000 Texas slaves). Linck, a retired professor of English at the University of Texas at Arlington, and Roach ( The Cowgirls ) document their sources carefully and intersperse more than 150 recipes with their commentary. Illustrations.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.