March 5, 2012
Having authored five previous Texas cookbooks, and with a decade’s worth of restaurant reviews written for the Houston Press, Walsh knows a thing or two about the Lone Star food scene. Along with more than 200 recipes, he serves up plenty of state history, profiles of quintessential eateries, and a surprising look at just how many international cuisines have claimed territorial footholds in the region. The book is divided into six sections, with the first five broken out geographically. There are seafood recipes, like shrimp stew, taken from the coast, and German and Czech offerings, including stuffed cabbage, culled from central Texas and the Hill Country. The section on East Texas includes an important look at the foods surrounding Juneteeth, “the biggest holiday in the state’s African American community,” while the West Texas section surveys several of the area’s best barbecue shacks, burger joints, and chicken-fried steak emporiums. The final section is a state-wide multicultural roundup of immigrant dishes. Walsh could not resist titling the last chapter of this section “Indian Cowboys,” where the emphasis is on chutney and samosas, not buffalo.
January 1, 2012
Food writer Walsh (The Tex-Mex Cookbook; Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook) is a three-time James Beard Award winner and an authority on Texas culinary history. His latest is primarily organized by region, with chapters that focus on either a popular dish (e.g., Chili con Carne and Chicken-Fried Steak) or style of cuisine (e.g., Czech Texan, Vietnamese Texan, Indian Cowboys). Culinary explorers who like variety will find ten ways to serve oysters, seven kinds of hamburger, and plenty of interesting seasonings, sauces, and spice blends. Packed with history and stories, this is a great choice for homesick Texans and armchair travelers.
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