Homemade kolaches on a wooden board. (Liudmyla Chuhunova/Shutterstock)
The Lone Star State has a hearty helping of foods and drinks it’s helped make popular, and some of these Texas classics sport legendary origin tales.
Whether you’re browsing a menu or planning some home cooking, several foods just scream “Texas.” We’re talking a filling chicken fried steak with a pecan pie for dessert. Sipping and savoring a can of Dr Pepper. A bite of brisket so tender you might melt into your seat.
Many of these foods also have interesting backstories en route to becoming Texas staples. Next time you indulge in one of these foods Texas is famous for, take a moment to appreciate its history.
1. Chicken fried steaks
A staple on Tex-Mex menus, chicken-fried steaks are an adaptation of wiener schnitzel, one of the most popular dishes in Austria and Germany. Most of the foods on this list don’t have holidays named after them, but chicken-fried steaks do. In 2011, Rick Perry named October 26 “Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day.” That means you can theoretically chow down on a chicken fried steak and visit a Texas haunted house on the same day—what a combo!
Chicken Fried Steak at Moonshine Grill in Austin, Texas. (Craig C./CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
2. Chili con carne
Say hello to the official state dish of Texas. Historians are divided on where chili con carne originated, but that hasn’t stopped several stories from popping up. What we do know is San Antonio became home to “chili queens”—Tejana and Mexican women who set up chili joints to serve inexpensive beef stew mixed with chili. The San Antonio Chili Stand made an 1893 appearance at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and soon, the entire country was clamoring for the dish. Chili parlors became a mainstay in Texas and other states; Texas also developed chili powder during the late 19th century.
A skillet full of chili con carne with tortilla chips. (Elena.Katkova/Shutterstock)
3. Corn dogs
It’s hard to imagine a carnival or state fair without a corn dog, but that was the reality before World War II. In 1938, Neil and Carl Fletcher were long-time Vaudeville performers at the State Fair of Texas. As Neil tells it, a baker at the fair invited the brothers to take over a food stall. The baker was using hot dogs baked in cornmeal and shaped it like an ear of corn. It was effective but took a long time to make. The brothers realized they could improve the process by frying the hot dog in cornmeal, allowing for easy transportation of the treat. The Fletchers first sold the corn dogs at the State Fair of Texas in 1942, going through various names, including K-9, Brown Bomber, and Meal on a Stick, before settling on Corny Dogs.
4. Dr Pepper Texas Sheet Cake
I’m combining a pair of Texas legends here mainly to share this terrific recipe, though they both have fun backstories. Charles Alderton developed Dr Pepper while working as a pharmacist at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco. In an example of a boss encouraging his employees, store owner Wade Morrison loved the drink and began selling it to customers. Meanwhile, Texas sheet cake has sometimes incorrectly been traced to Lady Bird Johnson. Chocolate cake and brownie desserts became more common in the early 20th century as chocolate prices declined. Texas sheet cake recipes took longer to emerge, first appearing in the 1980s (sometimes as “Texas Sheath Cake,” which sounds way cooler). Writing for The Post and Courier, Ann Burger proposed the name comes from a combination of three things: the “super-chocolatey taste, as big as Texas,” the taste being so intense that “one cake will serve a Texas-sized crowd,” and “its overall richness.” We may never find out the exact beginnings of Texas sheet cake. In the meantime, let’s help ourselves to another slice.
5. Frito pie
Though the origin of frito pie is unclear, the oldest recorded recipe using Frito chips with chili was published in Texas in 1949. Traditional Frito pie splits the bag of chips down the middle and layers it with toppings like shredded cheese, chopped onion, tomatoes, sour cream, jalapeños, and, naturally, beef chili. As a side note, my friends hosted a wedding anniversary bash with a Frito pie bar to build your own bowl. It was one of the greatest additions to a party I’ve ever seen.
Frito pie, a Texas delicacy. (Jason Lam/CC BY-SA 2.0)
6. Frozen margaritas
Frozen margaritas are one of the best ways to combat the summer heat, which means they’re a viable order in Texas for about 345 days of the year. While they were likely first served in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, we have Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez to thank for designing a frozen margarita maker to serve to the masses. Martinez used a soft-serve ice cream dispenser, repurposing it with margarita ingredients for a nice light green sherbet. Martinez’s favorite story of how the margarita got its name is fun, too: A young dancer named Margarita Carmen Casino performed in Tijuana nightclubs, changing her name to Rita Hayworth when she got discovered and signed a contract. The margarita was supposedly named in her honor.
7. Pecan pie
Farmers have grown pecans in North America for over 8,000 years, with Native Americans in present-day Texas harvesting the Lone Star State’s nuts. Texas cookbooks in the 1870s and 1880s included pecan recipes, and the earliest-known pecan pie recipe was sent into a church charity cookbook by a Texas woman in 1898. Today, the pecan serves as the official nut of the state of Texas. And if you’ve got a bunch of pecans, well, you may as well turn them into a pie.
8. Kolaches
It’s hard to drive far in Texas without coming past a place that serves kolaches. These pastries—fruit-filled kolaches and meat-filled klobasniky—came from Czechian immigrants. Visit Caldwell to see the “Kolache Capital of Texas” or West to visit the “Home of the Official Kolache of the Texas Legislature.” Or, grab some kolaches from wherever and go to a beer spa in Waco, something else Texas borrowed from Czechia.
9. Ruby Red grapefruit
I’ve always been a fan of learning about hybrid foods—like how the loganberry was created accidentally and the boysenberry is a wild combination of four different berries—and Ruby Red grapefruits are no exception. Grapefruits, which are hybrids of pomelos and sweet oranges, were brought to Florida by Spanish and French settlers, eventually moving across the country. In 1929, a small orchard in South Texas found an interesting mutation when a red grapefruit began growing on a pink variety. Soon, this Ruby Red variety became immensely popular and is still enjoyed to this day. The Texas Legislature designated the Ruby Red grapefruit the official “State Fruit of Texas” in 1993. If you’re a fan of the Rio Red variety, instead, it’s also a registered Texas grapefruit.
10. Smoked brisket
Texas welcomed several immigrants in the late 1800s, including Ashkenazi Jewish settlers, Czechs, and Germans. One of the dishes those immigrants brought was brisket, which was much easier to produce in Texas due to an abundance of cattle. Brisket had been the main course at Passover for a long time, and as settlers became more accustomed to Texas beef production, smoked brisket began appearing on Jewish deli menus in the early 1900s. Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart first added smoked brisket to its offerings in the late 1950s. Now, if you go to a Texas barbecue restaurant and don’t see brisket, you should immediately turn around and find another spot.
A platter full of smoked brisket. (Luis Santoyo/Unsplash)
11. Texas toast
It may seem obvious to include a food that includes Texas in the name, but no one can quite agree on just where in Texas this mouth-watering buttery garlic invention originated. Kirby’s Pig Stand, the first drive-in in the United States and originating in Dallas, claims to have first created both Texas toast and onion rings. One of the prevailing theories is that a bakery in Denton ordered thicker slices of bread, but the ensuing slices couldn’t fit in the toaster. A cook named Wiley W. W. Cross proposed buttering and grilling the slices instead. Cross is also the brain behind Kirby’s Chicken Fried Steak sandwich, proving you can never have too much of a good thing.
Slices of buttery Texas toast. (FranHogan/CC BY-SA 4.0)
12. Tortillas
Corn tortillas can be traced back all the way to the Aztecs in the 1200s and the Mayans, whose civilization began around 2000 B.C. The tortilla name didn’t stick until much later—an adaption of the Spanish word “torta”—yet these early civilizations made versions of corn tortillas and even worshipped corn gods. The history of flour tortillas is less clear. Some versions of flour tortillas were created in Mexico, and Jewish Czech and German settlers also brought them to Texas since corn isn’t kosher. Whether you prefer flour or corn, all Texans agree that a quality tortilla can improve just about every meal.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
