Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

2.7.16   Folklore book focuses on Texas food stories, recipes

Every year the Texas Folklore Society produces an interesting collection of stories, usually around a central theme. This year’s book features Tales of Texas Cooking, full of good yarns and, of course, plenty of recipes — more than 120 of them (University of North Texas Press, $34.95 hardcover).

Frances Brannen Vick, retired director of UNT Press, selected and edited the contributions, grouped by geographical regions — the Piney Woods, the Cross Timbers, the Rolling Plains, the Edwards Plateau, the Trans-Pecos, and others. Most of the pieces feature a story about food, followed by a few favorite recipes from the writer.

Contributors include a number of recognizable names from Texas literature, such as Elmer Kelton, John Erickson, Kenneth W. Davis, Robert and Jean Flynn, Leon Hale, Kay Bailey Hutchison, James Ward Lee, Archie McDonald, Joyce Gibson Roach, and Jane Roberts Wood.

Hale brags about the beef enchiladas he used to devour at the long-gone New York Café in downtown Bryan — and provides the recipe.

Kelton’s piece, first published in 1998, focuses on wife Ann’s Austrian cake called the Linzertorte.

Davis reflects on the Sweet Potato Pie recipe that has been in his family for several generations.

Scott Hill Bumgardner, current president of the folklore society, stirs up tasty memories with his story about the wonderful meals at his grandmother Mayme ’s home in Abilene, especially chicken and dumplings and chocolate pecan pie that was “as we say down South, sinful.”

“And if a pie or two during my visit was not enough,” he continues, “she would whip two or three more together to send off with my parents and me as we headed back to Houston.” Unfortunately, Mayme never shared her recipe for chicken and dumplings, “possibly believing that if you could not figure it out, then your attempt would not be good anyway,” Bumgardner writes.

I imagine most families have similar stories to tell about their own experiences growing up with food served with lots of sugar and butter — and love — by their grandmothers. My grandmother Mammaw always had a pot of pinto beans on the stove when we would  go to visit. Those were the best beans, and I still use her recipe and remember the good times at the farm where there was always plenty of food, kinfolks and laughter.

Tales of Texas Cooking makes for good reading, good memories, and good eating.

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.