Texas Cooking Cooking It's a Whole Other Cuisine

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Description: Texas is a magical place. Ninety-one of its mountains climb more than a mile high. And, if you count all six thousand square miles of lakes and rivers that carve up a broad, unpredictable landscape, Texas has more surface water than any other state. 

The serpentine Rio Grande is one of the nation's longest rivers. And Texas possesses the shortest ribbon of water in the United States, the Comal River, cutting its way for only three miles through the rugged Hill Country. 

A sandy coastline curves like a scimitar for 367 miles along the dunes, the tides of the Gulf of Mexico. The forests that shade the rolling terrain of East Texas -- 23.4 million acres of woodlands -- encompasses more area than New England. Big Bend National Park is larger than all of Rhode Island, and Connecticut would easily fit inside Brewster County with room to spare. And Houston, Dallas and San Antonio rank among the nation's top ten cities in size. 

Texas is also a culinary place. It has its own style of preparing a wide variety of Southwest and ethnic foods, forever linked to the traditions and rawhide heritage of those who came and settled the land. Travel Texas, and you still find communities where the old cultures are preserved with amazing purity. 

Panna Maria, for example, is the oldest polish settlement in North America. At Danevang, citizens still speak Danish as easily as Texan. In Ennis and West, the accent is definitely Czechoslovakian. New Braunfels and Fredericksburg are trimmed with the ginger-bread architecture of Germany. Their Schutzenfests are as loud as their Sangerfests, and nothing is better than their wurst. 

The Dutch traveled into Nederland. The Norwegians found homes in Bosque and Kaufman counties. The Wends banded together near Giddings. French settlers trekked to the banks of the Medina River beside Castroville. Another French colony was called La Reunion, and it became Dallas. 

Texas dishes bear the unforgettable flavors that came across the border from Mexico, graced the tables of missions built by Spanish missionaries, were left behind by the Chinese nailing railroad tracks to the landscape as they made their way toward El Paso, were concocted by cowboy cooks as great cattle herds were driven north. 

The diversity of many cultures became the soul of Texas cooking, from chili to gumbo, from herb pies to La Bourguigonne, from kolaces to tamales, from persimmon pudding to hoe cakes, from sourdough biscuits to hush puppies, from grits to greens. 

Travel and food are forever entwined in the minds of vacationers. When you visit a place and return home, you wind up talking as much about the foods you ate as the sites you saw. Every place is different. 

Every state has its own way, its own history of preparing its foods. 

This is Texas cooking, reflecting home- made, hand-me-down recipes from generations past, delectable recipes from many of the state's top restaurants and new Southwest-style recipes from some of the nations's most famous and respected Texas chefs. 

Welcome to Texas, and bon 'appetit. 

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Condition: Good condition.