Texas Home Cooking

by Cheryl Jamison

  Note: If you can't locate Mexican chocolate, substitute the same quantity of semisweet chocolate along with a pinch of ground canela or cinnamon.

  * * *

  Early Texas cookbooks usually contained a number of recipes for homemade wines and cordials and frequently called for wine and spirits in recipes. One way of making vinegar, for example, was with three quarts each of whiskey and molasses, seven and a half gallons of hot water, and three-quarters of a pint of yeast.

  * * *

  * * *

  Galveston and Houston had an early edge on fancy alcoholic drinks because their ports gave them access to items such as ice and lemons. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Galveston's Tremont Hotel offered concoctions called deacon, moral suasion, vox populi, stone wall, poor man's punch, and cock tail. They all cost a quarter apiece.

  * * *

  Clarendon Cooler

  A Methodist minister established the West Texas town of Clarendon in 1878 as a "sobriety settlement," where Panhandle cowboys could escape the boozy excesses of the boomtowns nearby. Ranchers and their hands quickly dubbed the burg "Saint's Roost." This lemon cooler, naturally, is as dry as the town.

  1 cup sugar

  1 cup water

  2 cups fresh lemon juice (from about 9 to 10 lemons)

  1 quart water

  Ice cubes

  Lemon slices, for garnish

  Makes about ½ gallon

  Boil the sugar and water together in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the liquid is clear. Pour the syrup into a pitcher, and add the lemon juice and about three-fourths of the water. Taste, and add more water if you like, keeping in mind that the ice will dilute the lemonade.

  To serve, place a handful of ice cubes in each person's glass, pour the lemonade over, and garnish with lemon slices.

  * * *

  Booze was the downfall of Texas's most famous gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin. He spent much of his life in jail for killing a sheriff in a barroom duel, and then got shot in the back of the head himself while having a drink in El Paso's Acme Saloon.

  * * *

  Margarita

  Everyone except the Baptist Church claims credit for the invention of the margarita. The most plausible contender is "Pancho" Morales, a Juárez, Mexico, bartender during World War II who later moved to El Paso. He says a gringo woman wandered into his bar on July 4, 1942, and ordered a "magnolia," a gin cocktail. Pancho didn't know the drink, so he made up a Mexican substitute based on tequila and called it a "margarita," the Spanish word for daisy. Most other accounts of the origin say the drink is named for a beloved woman; if so, she must have been a little on the tart side to inspire the salty-sour punch of the cocktail.

  Salt, optional

  Lime wedge

  1½ ounces high-quality gold tequila

  1 ounce triple sec or Cointreau

  1 ounce fresh lime juice

  Serves 1

  Place a thin layer of salt on a saucer. Rub the rim of an 8-ounce glass with the lime wedge, and immediately dip the rim in the salt. Set the glass aside. (Omit this step if you prefer your margaritas sin sal, "without salt.")

  Pour the tequila, triple sec, and lime juice into a cocktail shaker or lidded jar, add several pieces of cracked ice, and shake to blend. Strain into the prepared glass, and serve.

  * * *

  Indians in Mexico made a fermented drink called pulque from the agave plant long before Cortés and his troops conquered the land. The Spanish distilled this liquor to produce mezcal. Tequila is a refined version of mezcal, much as cognac is a superior type of brandy. Mexicans still make all three agave products, but only tequila is exported.

  * * *

  Grande Gold Margarita

  Regular margaritas bite back, but this blend of premium ingredients is deceptively tame and mellow.

  Salt, optional

  2 lemon wedges

  3 ounces premium gold tequila, such as Herradura Gold or Cuervo 1800

  2 ounces Grand Marnier

  2 ounces fresh lemon juice

  Serves 2

  Place a thin layer of salt on a saucer. Rub the rims of two 8-ounce glasses with the lemon wedges, and immediately dip the rims in the salt. Set the glasses aside. (Omit this step if you prefer your margaritas sin sal, "without salt.")

  Pour the tequila, Grand Marnier, and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker or lidded jar, add several pieces of cracked ice, and shake to blend. Strain into the prepared glasses, and serve.

  * * *

  Early Mexican settlers in Texas made pulque and mezcal just like their neighbors to the south. When they saw a maguey (as they call agave) about to bloom, they collected the aguamiel, or sweet sap, and fermented it in bags made of goat-, pig-, or sheepskin. The more patient distilled this pulque into mezcal.

  The Mexican government imposes strict standards on anything labeled "tequila." It must be made from a blue agave—a special variety of the plant—and one that has been harvested in a small region near the town of Tequila, which is about forty miles from Guadalajara. Distilled cane sugar is permitted in the liquor, but the agave content has to be at least 51 percent, and it ranges as high as 100 percent in the top brands.

  * * *

  Bloody Maria

  Maria is lustier than her cousin Mary, but she's just as much of a morning person.

  1 32-ounce bottle tomato juice

  8 ounces gold tequila

  ⅓ cup fresh lime juice

  ⅓ cup chopped cilantro

  1

  to

  2 fresh jalapeños, chopped

  Big splash of Worcestershire sauce

  Ice cubes

  Celery salt or Spice Islands Beau Monde seasoning, optional

  Serranos or small pickled okra pods, optional

  Celery sticks, optional

  Serves 6

  Unless you have a blender bigger than any we've ever come across, pour half of the tomato juice into a pitcher. Pour the other half into a blender, and toss in everything other than the celery salt. Blend briefly, until the ingredients are well combined. Stir the seasoned tomato juice into the juice in the pitcher, and add a couple of handfuls of ice cubes. Pour the drink into glasses, and shake a little celery salt over each Bloody Maria, if you like. If you want to impress your guests as the creative type, attach serrano chiles or small, whole pickled okra pods to celery sticks with a toothpick, and add one to each drink.

  * * *

  José Maria Guadalupe de Cuervo produced one of the first tequilas in 1795, calling it "vino de mezcal." During the next century, the Sauza family emerged as his company's major competitor. These old operations, still known as Cuervo and Sauza, continue to dominate the market from their distilleries in the town of Tequila.

  * * *

  Pear-A-Noid

  This drink is really out to sea. We picked up the idea on a chartered yacht cruise in the Caribbean.

  1½ ounces gold tequila

  1½ ounces pear nectar

  ½ ounce fresh lemon juice

  ¼ ounce crème de cassis

  1 slice unpeeled pear, optional, for garnish

  Serves 1

  Fill an 8-ounce glass halfway with cracked ice. Pour all of the liquid ingredients over the ice, and stir to blend. If you like, garnish the rim with the pear slice.

  * * *

  Next thing you know, Texans will be raising geese for foie gras. Not only does the state produce French-style wines now, Texas also has its own bottled mineral water, the lightly carbonated Artesia. Rick Scoville started the company, as he says, to "kick Perrier in the derriere."

  * * *

  * * *

  Blue agave plants produce the aguamiel used for tequila only when they are ready to bloom, after eight to ten years of growth. The whole plant has to be uprooted and trimmed of its spike-shaped leaves to get at the mature heart, which looks like an overgrown pineapple and usually weighs well over one hundred pounds.

  * * *

  Sangrita y Tequila
/>   In Mexico, tequila is often sipped straight and chased with an accompanying glass of spicy sangrita.

  SANGRITA

  1 cup tomato juice

  ½ cup fresh orange juice

  2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

  1 tablespoon chopped onion

  2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

  1 fresh serrano or ½ to 1 jalapeño, chopped

  Salt to taste

  High-quality tequila

  Makes about 1¾ cups of sangrita

  Place all the sangrita ingredients in a blender, and purée them. Chill the mixture at least 1 hour. Pour the drink into the smallest glasses you own, and serve it alongside shots of high-quality tequila. Leftover sangrita, refrigerated, can be kept for at least a week.

  * * *

  The finest tequilas are meant for sipping alone, perhaps after dinner like a cognac. Our favorite brands are Herradura and El Tesoro, each made from 100 percent agave. Both companies produce tequila in the three major styles: plata (clear and pure, without barrel aging), reposado or oro (tinted gold from aging in wood up to a year), and añejo (aged in oak, usually for several years). As you might expect, añejo is the most complex and expensive of the three.

  * * *

  Mint Julep

  The main body of Anglo pioneers in Texas came from Tennessee and Kentucky, where they had acquired a fondness for distilled "corn likker." The drink evolved into bourbon, an American original, but the frontier version was about as sipping-smooth as aged bath water. One of the easiest ways to swallow the homemade rotgut was with liberal doses of sugar and mint. A concoction of all three became a mint julep.

  MINT SYRUP

  1 cup sugar

  1 cup water

  ½ cup fresh mint leaves

  2 ounces bourbon or sour-mash whiskey

  Mint sprigs, for garnish

  Serves 1

  Boil the syrup ingredients together in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the liquid is clear. Set the syrup aside; it will steep as it cools. Strain it before using it. Refrigerated, the syrup keeps indefinitely.

  Spoon 1 to 2 teaspoons, or more to taste, of the mint syrup into the bottom of an 8-ounce glass. Fill the glass halfway with cracked ice, and pour 2 ounces of bourbon over it. Stir gently to blend, and garnish with mint.

  * * *

  In the first half of the nineteenth century, if you wandered west of the corn likker frontier in East Texas, whiskey got really raw. It might be crude alcohol colored with coffee or even more primitive spirits fortified with hot peppers or tobacco. One whiskey maker, Snakehead Thompson, became famous for fermenting his brand in barrels containing a half-dozen rattlesnake heads.

  * * *

  Texas Manhattan

  This is our favorite bourbon drink.

  ¼ cup crushed ice

  1¼ ounces dry vermouth

  2 dashes of bitters

  3 ice cubes

  2½ ounces prime bourbon or sour-mash whiskey

  1 fresh cherry

  Place the crushed ice in a 4-ounce cocktail glass. Stir in the vermouth and bitters, and swirl the mixture around the glass with an absorbed look on your face.

  After 5 to 10 seconds, swirl everything in the glass down the sink. Put 3 ice cubes in the glass, and fill it with the bourbon. Pop the cherry in your mouth with the satisfaction of a born bartender, and then sip away.

  * * *

  It's just possible that everything has been sliding downhill since 1789. That was the year the United States adopted the Constitution, elected George Washington the first president, and conceived bourbon. Elijah Craig made the initial batch of corn whiskey in the county of Bourbon, then a part of Virginia and now in Kentucky. He was a Baptist preacher. To compound the irony, the county is now dry.

  * * *

  Holiday 'Nog

  While not as rich as some recipes, this eggnog will still clog your arteries quicker than a bucket of lard.

  1½ cups sugar

  2 tablespoons cornstarch

  Pinch of salt

  4 eggs plus 4 yolks

  7 cups whole milk

  1 cup whipping cream

  2 teaspoons vanilla

  About 1 cup bourbon, to taste

  Ice cubes

  Grated nutmeg, for garnish

  Serves 10 to 12

  In a heavy saucepan, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add the eggs, and beat or whisk to combine well. Pour in the milk and the cream, and place the pan over medium-low heat. Stir the mixture continuously as it thickens. Do not let it boil unless you want scrambled eggs. The custard base is ready when it coats a spoon thinly. (It will thicken a bit more when chilled.) Strain the mixture into a pitcher or bowl, and refrigerate it at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

  Stir in the vanilla and the bourbon. Pour the eggnog into a blender in batches, blending with a few cubes of ice until the mixture is frothy. Pour the eggnog into a punch bowl or individual cups, and top with generous sprinklings of nutmeg. Serve immediately.

  * * *

  The U.S. government regulates what can be labeled "bourbon" just as the Mexican government regulates what can be called "tequila." Even a solid sour-mash whiskey like Jack Daniel's can't use the term because the company's special charcoal-filtering process doesn't fit the traditional standards.

  * * *

  Marpeani

  Texas has been fresh out of native olives for a few eons, so, naturally, folks developed other kinds of martinis.

  Cracked ice

  3½ ounces vodka

  ½ ounce dry vermouth

  2 twists of lemon

  4 cooked black-eyed peas, for garnish

  Serves 2

  Chill a pair of 3-ounce martini glasses until they are frosty. Fill a martini pitcher, or another small pitcher, halfway with cracked ice. Pour the vodka over the ice to "smoke." Add the vermouth, stir, and strain the drink into the glasses. Drop 2 black-eyed peas into each glass, and serve immediately.

  * * *

  Frank X. Tolbert, the Dallas columnist and chilihead, liked farkleberries in his martinis, which he called farkletinis. Usually farkleberry plants are shrubs, but in the piney woods of East Texas they reach the size of trees. Most people, with the notable exception of Tolbert, think the dry berries should be left to the birds.

  * * *

  * * *

  The most famous saloon in Texas history was Judge Roy Bean's Jersey Lilly, in the tiny town of Langtry. In the late nineteenth century. Bean, who was justice of the peace, dispensed "the Law West of the Pecos" from his barroom, where he shamelessly badgered lawyers, defendants, jurors, and spectators to buy drinks during trials.

  * * *

  Ramos Gin Fizz

  This version of a gin fizz originated either on the Mexican border, perhaps in Laredo, or in New Orleans. It's still popular in both places and made in almost identical wags.

  2 ounces gin

  ½ cup crushed ice

  2 tablespoons cream

  2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

  1 egg white

  2 teaspoons powdered sugar

  ½ teaspoon orange-flower water

  Serves 1

  Put the ingredients into a blender, and mix well. Pour into a tall glass, and serve with a straw.

  * * *

  One of Houston's first principal structures was a saloon covered with canvas, built in 1837. The city loved its liquor in those early years, and the grog shops quickly went upscale. Within a decade, according to one thorough historian, Houston's most sumptuous businesses were bars, often splendidly furnished establishments full of patrons all day.

  * * *

  Brownsville Border Buttermilk

  The Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau uses a version of this cooling drink to welcome groups of visitors to the Mexican border.

  6 ounces frozen lemonade concentrate

  4

  to

  6 ounces rum

  Ice cubes

  Serves 6

&nbs
p; Put the lemonade concentrate and the rum into a blender. Add ice cubes to fill the blender, and blend until the mixture is slushy. Pour it into cocktail glasses, and serve.